"Are you sure about this?" Britta asked again.
"Britta, for like the 300th time: yes. I'm an adult. If I'm allowed to drink why shouldn't I be able to do this?"
"Alright, I'm sorry," She answered, raising the joint to her lips, "but if you'd been on the receiving end of one of Shirley's rants about not spreading my 'sinful addictions to impressionable young children' you'd understand why I'm being a little hesitant here."
Troy's curiosity about marijuana had been peaked a couple of days earlier. He'd been coming back to the apartment with a 12-pack of beer for that day's pot luck when he'd spotted Britta, leaning against the post of a street lamp that illuminated the wispy cloud of smoke she'd just exhaled. At first, he'd thought that she'd gone back to cigarettes, maybe pushed by the stress of their recent expulsion, but the smell that wafted into his nose told a different story: Weed.
She'd been embarrassed, had babbled something about needing it for her appetite or something, but Troy wasn't judgmental. He'd asked if he could try a little, but she'd ground out what was left of the joint she'd been enjoying when she spotted him coming. They'd talked about it for a while. Troy had lots of questions, and by the time they'd made their way up to Troy, Abed, and Annie's apartment for the Group's gathering he'd extracted a vague promise to try it with him some time in the future. He thought he might have blown it when he said something about wanting to "try it with someone he trusted, you know, for the first time", but she'd just smiled mysteriously and looked away.
So here they were now. Annie had talked Abed into going to a matinee showing of "The Hunger Games." They'd be gone for a least a couple of hours, so Troy had called Britta over to collect on his promise.
"Shirley's not my mom," Troy said. After searching through her leather jacket's many pockets for a moment, Britta produced a disposable lighter.
"I'm pretty sure she thinks Reefer Madness is a documentary," she mumbled through the joint as she tried unsuccessfully to spark the flame on her lighter. "Fuck! I think it's empty."
"Hold on. Annie's got matches in her room for all those scented candles she keeps buying." Troy neglected to mention that the reason she had to keep buying new ones was that someone kept lighting them when she wasn't around. It wasn't his fault though. They smelt so nice…
Britta's eyes followed Troy's ass as he hurried away from the T.V. area and towards Annie's room, one eyebrow rising. No Britta, she thought to herself, shaking her head rapidly in an attempt to dislodge images of Troy in a certain tight-fitting black leotard out of her mind, he is OFF LIMITS.
She snapped her head back around, hiding her lechery just in time as Troy bounded back out of Annie's room, matches held out triumphantly in front of him.
"Found 'em!" Troy cried, beaming broadly. He sat back down in the second recliner, pulling it over to be closer to the one Britta occupied. He pulled back the flap that read "Senior Kevin's!" , exposing the strike pad, and lit one of the matches. He studied Britta's face as she pulled in close to the flame, lowering the joint into it and taking a couple of experimental puffs. Once she knew it was lit, she pulled away and looked at Troy, considering him.
"Alright, you've never smoked a regular cigarette either, right? It's pretty simple. Just breathe it into your lungs and hold it there for a few seconds. Don't just hold it in your mouth, okay?" Britta assumed his natural impulse would be similar to hers when she had first partaken, way back in her sophomore year of high school.
Troy reached out and took the joint from Britta, his fingers brushing against hers in a way that made her heart flutter despite herself. He eyed it evenly, trying not to let the trepidation he was feeling enter into his eyes. It was longer and thinner than a cigarette, and a lot looser feeling than he'd expected.
"Don't wait too long," Britta warned, "Or we'll have to waste another of Annie's matches relighting it."
"Right," Troy said, bracing himself. Then he brought the joint to his lips and breathed in as hard as he could.
He could tell instantly that he had made a mistake, even before he saw Britta's painful wince. The smoke was far hotter than he'd imagined it being, and he felt his throat burn in protest. Water. He leapt up and made a run for the kitchen sink. He hadn't even made it halfway before he erupted, doubling over in a coughing fit. Britta was right behind him, rubbing his back.
"Okay, sorry, that was sort of my fault," she said. "I should have warned you that the joint was going to burn pretty quickly. I packed it pretty lightly, you know, since it's your first time. Here, let me take that." She took the joint out of his hand. Thankfully he hadn't dropped it. She didn't want to be responsible for starting a fire in Troy's apartment. "Why don't you go lie down? I'll bring you some water."
Troy was still coughing, unable to speak, but he nodded. Straightening up, he slunk off towards the pillow fort.
When Britta followed him in a few moments later, glass of water in hand, Troy was laying on the bottom bunk staring at his hand with a sense of wonder painted on his face, slowly rotating his wrist back and forth.
"Well, I'd say you're probably done," she grinned, handing him the glass, which he took without looking up. "You want to head back into the living room, maybe show me one of those Inspector Spacetime DVDs Abed bought? I bet they're great stoned."
"No…" he responded slowly, taking a moment to sip his water before returning to the important work of studying his hand, "I'm pretty comfortable. Don't really want to move."
"You mind if I polish this off in here then?" she asked, holding up the half-finished joint.
"You ever think about how… like intricate we are Britta? Humans I mean? I just think about it… and my hand moves, all on its own. All the muscles and ligaments… I'm not even thinking about how they all have to work together to produce it. They just… do…"
"Oh yeah, you're definitely done," Britta said, plopping down on the opposite side of the bed. She'd brought the book of matches in with her, and quickly relit the joint. She closed her eyes as she inhaled, feeling the hot, thick smoke work its way down her throat to fill her lungs. She held it there, reveling in the fruity, almost citrusy taste of the marijuana until she finally expeled it through her nose and back into the cool air of Troy's room.
"I gotta be honest Troy; I was pretty surprised when you told me you'd never smoked pot before. I'd have thought a star quarterback would've had more experience with drugs. That's how it was at my high school. Not that I hung out with the football players. They were all douche bags." She took another drag off the joint.
"I think my highs cool was a lot more… conservative than yours," he responded, frowning. Riverside High… he'd been one of those douche bags. Strutting around campus, oblivious to the existence of anyone but himself.
Oh he'd known other people existed, in the sense that they'd take up space, sure. But not in the sense that they had concerns and feelings of their own. He'd looked at other people as either tools to get what he wanted or as obstacles that stood in his way. He'd had "friends", being the most successful part of your school's football program tended to make you popular. But these relationships had been entirely one way; all the love and adoration flowing into him, never out. That applied doubly so to the romantic relationships that he'd had.
And towards the people he wasn't close to, he had been ever worse. If he hadn't flat out ignored them, like he had poor Annie, then he was stepping on them just to prove what a big man on campus he was. He'd been pretty good at that too, at sizing up a kid and knowing just what to say to get an emotional reaction out of them.
There'd been one boy, Doug Parsons, who'd made the unforgivable mistake of bumping into Troy while he was making his way down the central hallway, hangers on from the football and cheerleading teams in tow. It'd been an accident obviously, and Doug's apology, while mumbled and made without eye contact, sounded sincere. But Troy hadn't cared. He took in Doug's greasy hair, his baggy, poorly matching clothes, and said: "Why don't you got take a shower, faggot?"
That had gotten a pretty big laugh from his posse. Troy didn't know whether Doug was really gay, in fact judging by the furtive glances he'd seen him give one of the cheerleaders in his group, he strongly suspected he wasn't. But it didn't really matter.
Doug had looked at Troy like he'd slapped him across the face, tears forming in his eyes. He took off the opposite way down the hall, running into the men's bathroom. Chad, the team's wide receiver slapped Troy on his back, guffawing, but Troy's smile was half-hearted at best. Why had he done that?
And where was he now? Expelled from a second-rate community college, which he'd only attended in the first place because he'd been too scared to face a couple of college scouts? And even when he'd been going to Greendale, he'd never applied himself. He didn't even know his GPA, but it couldn't have been great, given the number of classes he'd blown off. He was worse than any of the people he'd ever bullied: not just a loser, but a loser who knew, deep in his heart, that if he was given just a little bit of social power he would take it and use it to hurt others for his own gratification. Hadn't he proven that in his stupid pillow fight with Abed? One crack about being dumb, not even dumb but just "insecure about his level of intelligence", and he'd unleashed the most hurtful things he could think of. He was the worst.
Britta was saying something. With a start he realized that she'd been talking for a while now. God, he couldn't even get over himself for five minutes to listen to what she had to say? What kind of a friend was he? No wonder she thought he was a loser. He tried to concentrate.
"-whole thing is just one giant spectacle to fool the masses into thinking we actually have any say in how we're governed. I mean, Mitt Romney? Really? He's really the best they can do? And don't get me started on Obama. He passes a healthcare bill written by the very industries he's supposed to be reforming and sends a bunch of armed thugs to assassinate an old man and dump his body in the ocean and we're just supposed to- Oh my god, Troy? Are you crying?"
Britta sat up, her expression switching from self-satisfaction to worry.
"Oh God you're freaking out aren't you? And you've been freaking out this whole time while I've been rambling on, haven't you? God, I am the worst drug buddy in the world!" She crawled over to his side of the bed and leaned over to brush the tears off his cheeks.
"Shhh…" she said, pulling herself up behind him and cradling his head in her arms, "It's okay. You're just having a little bit of a panic attack. Everything's gonna be fine. It happens to lots of people when they smoke weed. It's happened to me, plenty of times. Just try to breathe."
Troy noticed then that his breathing had become quick and ragged. He was gulping in air in long, uneven gasps, barely drawing any into his lungs because he's sobbing it back out just as quickly. He breathed in deeply through his nose, and tries to let it out at the same pace. After a few repetitions he'd established an even rhythm. His crying had stopped, and he was beginning to feel a bit better.
"That's good," she said, stroking his hair. She was looking down at him with a look that's halfway between concern and guilt. "I'm sorry Troy, I should have been paying closer attention and not ranting about… whatever it is I was talking about. I tend to do that when I get high. It's why I tend to do it alone, nowadays. Why don't you tell me what was bothering you? It might help."
Yes, Troy thought, tell her. Tell her so she'll know what a bad person you are. Tell her so she'll hate you like she should, instead of just pitying you.
"I was just thinking about… what an asshole I'd been in high school. There was this kid, Doug. I called him a faggot. For no real reason other than it'd make a bunch of other assholes I thought I was friends with laugh." He paused, waiting for her to attack him, for her to call him a homophobe and storm out of the apartment, leaving him alone. But she seemed to be waiting for him to continue, "And that's where I peaked. I peaked in high school Britta, and I didn't even have that much fun there. I was just some dumb asshole who could throw a football a long way. And I'm never going to be anything better."
She didn't say anything for a while, but she keeps running her fingers through his hair. Troy closes his eyes, enjoying the feeling. Her touch leaves a kind of tingling feeling on his scalp in its wake.
"Troy," she said finally, starting slowly. She knew that this was important, and so she tries to focus through the haziness finishing the joint had brought. Troy needed her right now. "I know you. I know you're not a jerk, at least not anymore. You're one of the kindest, most empathic people I know. And yes," she said quickly, seeing that he was about to interrupt, "I know I didn't know you in high school. Maybe we wouldn't have gotten a long if I had. But guess what? Every teenager is a shithead. I know I was, and I wasn't even popular. We're born into this stupid world, and we have all these feelings and wants and needs. And as we grow, they start to run up against other people before we even fully understand them. Before we understand ourselves. We don't come out of the womb with some kind of manual that teaches us how to navigate around them, we have to learn that. And along the way we make a lot of mistakes. We hurt other people, sometimes accidently, and yes, sometimes deliberately. And that's hard to live with, I know, believe me. But barring shutting ourselves off from the world and becoming hermits up in some mountain, there's no alternative except to grow and learn and to try and do better. And like I said, from my perspective, you've done that. Really, really well."
Troy looked up at her. Her hair was falling freely as she looked down at him, curtaining his face in gold. Her eyes are full of compassion, and he feels a familiar feeling stirring in his chest, near his heart. The impulse to ignore it, to delay again, like he always does, rears up in him as well, but this other feeling finally overwhelms it.
"Britta," he asks slowly, "Why don't you like me?"
She frowns. "Troy, haven't you been listening to me? I do like you. I wouldn't be here, hanging out with you if I didn't."
"No, sorry, I mean… why don't you like me… the way I like you?" Troy was hesitant at first, but spoke with more assurance as he continued. Better to get this all out in the open, and let the chips fall where they may. Even if it meant not feeling her body pressed up against his like this anymore. "I think about you all the time Britta. I'll see something on the street, or… or hear a song on the radio and it'll remind me of you and… I'll smile. And no one who's with me will understand why I'm so happy. But I will."
Britta felt a deep stab in her heart. Is this what her behavior was doing? Spending time with Troy, getting close to him, leading him on while suppressing her own deeper feelings for him? She was hurting him. This had to stop.
"Troy," she said sadly, "I think about you too. That same way. I have for a while I think." She sees him start to smile, and rushes on to explain, "But it's not that simple! I'm so much older than you. And Shirley's right, I'm a bad influence. Look how much pain I've caused you, not just tonight with the drugs, but obviously you've been keeping this bottled up for a while. It can't happen. As much as I'd like it to, I don't deserve-"
But he hadn't stopped smiling. He reached up and caressed her cheek, cutting her off.
"Britta," he said simply, his smile growing wider "we both know that's bullshit."
And then he's kissing her, and she's returning his kiss with a passion that startles her. She pulls him out of his reclined position against her and turns him, pulling him into an embrace. Her right hand comes to rest at the small of his back while her left snakes around his neck to pull him tighter against her. She feels him reach under her shirt to cup one of her naked breasts (it was laundry day for maybe the third day in a row) and she arches her back, pressing into his palm, opening her legs to provide him access-
And then she pulled back, breaking the kiss. She panted heavily while she rests her forehead against his.
"Troy, hold on. Wait."
She could see the confusion, and maybe a little bit of pain, in his eyes, so she reached out to return his gesture from before, cupping one of his cheeks in her hand.
"It's not that I don't want to. I do. A lot. I've thought about it, the two of us together, sharing our bodies" she blushed, adding to the flush that their kissing had already brought to her face. "But I've done a lot of things that I've regretted, when intoxicants and my libido get mixed together. So, even though I'd like to… explore… these feelings with you, I think we should wait. Until we're both clear headed."
"I understand," said Troy, who still looked a little disappointed but was smiling again now. "I'm glad you stopped us, actually. It shows we're both working on… self-actualizing."
She returned his smile, and pulled him in for a warm hug.
"Can we… at least stay like this? For a little while?" he whispered into her ear, not breaking the hug.
"Sure," Britta answered, "I'd like that. Scooch over."
Troy made room for her, and put his arm over her as she lay down. They stayed like that for a while, silent except for the sounds of their breath.
#
"I don't understand. Why did they need dependent populations to mine coal and grow food if they have to power to make giant mind controlled dogs just pop out of the ground?" Abed asked as he and Annie re-entered the apartment an hour or so later.
"Abed, you're over thinking it! And anyway, it makes more sense in the books. Why couldn't you have just enjoyed the movie?" Annie sounded a little exasperated as she made her way over to her room.
"I told you, I did like it. And I like over thinking things."
Annie paused in front of the blanket fort. She decided to take a peek inside, to see if Troy was there or whether he'd left the apartment while they were gone.
"Awwww!" she whispers suddenly. "Abed! Come here!"
Abed made his way over, curious to see what has Annie excited. Inside he saw Troy and Britta, huddled together on the bottom bunk, sound asleep. Troy was spooning Britta, their hands locked together over Britta's abdomen. Their chests rose and fall in the same rhythm, and both looked happy, at peace.
Annie looked up at her friend, remembering his reticence during their first Dreamatorium session.
"Are you going to be okay?" she asked.
"I'm fine." He smiled down at her and took her hand in his. "Come on. Let's not wake them up."
Annie returned his smile, but it faltered as she sniffed the air.
"Does it smell weird in here to you?"