Purple Haze

Exactly a week after the second time they hung out, Eddie found himself laying on his bedroom floor with Chrissy beside him. Sweet smelling smoke curled above them from the joint they were passing back and forth.

"See the value of free weed yet or do I need to roll another?" He asked her, head lolling heavily to the side to look at her. She had worn her hair down again. An errant strand tickled his cheek.

Chrissy's blue eyes were tinged with red, crinkling with her smile. It was one of her nose-scrunch smiles, the ones where she was really happy. That was how she smiled at him in the hallway at school. "I think I might be converting."

He didn't know what it was that weighed so heavy on Chrissy Cunningham, but he knew he would do a lot of things to keep that nose-scrunch smile on her face. Maybe anything.

Eddie smiled at her and sat up abruptly. Reaching down, he took hold of her wrist and pulled her up. "Know what else is some good shit when you're high? Pizza."

He rolled onto his knees and stood wavering for a moment as he gathered his bearings. They had laid in the floor before even starting the joint. Standing was a little disorienting. Once steady, he reached down for her. "Especially cold pizza. It's goddamn heavenly and it has no right to be. You, my friend, are in luck, because I have half a pizza in the fridge as we speak."

"Oh, no, I…" Chrissy began, pulling at her jacket sleeves just like she had the Special K night. "I already had dinner."

Was that panic he saw in her eyes? There was certainly a degree of hurt reflecting back at him. "Okay," he said, sluggish mind working to find an alternative. "Okay, wait right here a second, because I haven't had dinner and that pizza sounds really fucking good now that I've mentioned it. Stars are fun, too, when you're high. I'll take you up to the roof instead.

Eddie didn't know what to make of the rush of relief that flooded Chrissy's face. He rushed to the kitchen, grabbing his slice and already devouring it by the time he made it to the living room to grab the old quilt from the back of the couch. Then he retrieved Chrissy, showing her how his bedroom window opened up right beside the ladder to the roof. He shimmied out of the window, grabbed hold of a ladder rung, and edged his way over to begin climbing.

Chrissy followed him up, and he took her by the hands and helped her onto the roof when she was close enough. The night sky was filled with intermittent, wispy cotton candy clouds. They sailed quickly above them, masking and revealing the moon and stars in turn. "Is this making you dizzy like the VHS being fast forwarded?"

"No." He looked at her in profile, Chrissy's attention fixed on the sky above. "I feel… floaty."

"Yeah," Eddie laughed. "It's a different kind of high. I like the weed better. Ketamine makes me thirsty."

"Makes you thirsty?" She echoed back, still not looking away from the sky.

"Yeah, remember? I told you the high is different for everyone."

"Mmm," she hummed. Eddie watched Chrissy watch the stars, her chest rising and falling in the slow, steady rhythm of relaxed breaths. Her hands were clasped over her stomach and her eyes flitted back and forth, charting the course of the clouds. He shouldn't have been surprised when she turned her head, watching her as he was, yet he was still startled when he was suddenly looking directly into her eyes.

The blue was open, liquidous, vibrant despite the night. "You know what I like about you, Eddie?"

He felt as if his breath had been snatched from his chest. Chrissy's face seemed to shimmer in the moonlight, and he had no idea if that was from the weed or from the fact that Chrissy was really pretty. Lovely. He never much liked that word, but it fit Chrissy like a glove. She was lovely. "What?"

"You let people just… be." She gave him a shy smile. A hand drifted out to touch his own lightly. "Thank you."

Eddie flipped his hand beneath hers, so that her fingers rested on his palm. He ran a finger lightly along her palm, smiling. "You know what I like about you, Chrissy? The ego boost I get from you thanking me all the time."

She laughed and closed her fingers over his palm before rolling onto her side. "Want a bigger ego? Tell me about Hellfire tonight. My Fridays are empty now that the basketball season is over."

"You think I'm just gonna tell you all the secrets of Hellfire?" He asked, mimicking her movements so that they both lay on their sides facing each other. Their hands were clasped between them, palm to palm like little kids. "You're gonna have to come to a few more Corroded Coffin shows before I tell you about the ritual sacrifice we have on the third Friday of every month."

"Well with that information, I can just sneak into the auditorium next week and watch for myself. Maybe I'll take notes, too, and Nancy Wheeler can write about it for the school paper."

"Has anyone ever told you that you're a little shit, Chrissy?" He asked through his laughter. Another nose-scrunch smile and his breath deflated from his chest again.

"No, that's usually what I call my baby brother."

"You have a brother? I didn't know that."

"Yeah, he's in middle school. Probably won't ever see a band as cool as Corroded Coffin at the talent show, though. But really, tell me about Hellfire. Last week you were going on and on about how Lady Applejack killed that some guy called Vector—"

"Vecna," he interrupted, correcting.

"Vecna. So, if Vecna's dead, what's next?"

"We're on a heist to steal the royal crown." He couldn't stop himself from laughing at his own joke. "It's an analogy for graduation."

"The royal crown is your graduation cap, huh?"

"Yes!" Eddie threw his free hand up in victory. "See, you get it. Sinclair's little sister—she's a little shit, too, but also Lady Applejack and we need her—she said it was a lame campaign to follow up the Curse of Vecna with."

"You're creating analogies for the Hellfire Club, but this is your third senior year?" This time Eddie flicked her nose when she scrunched it.

"See, there you go again, being a little shit. I'll have you know that it's not English that gets me every year, it's damn science. None of it ever sticks in my head."

They teased each other and talked until the high faded for both of them. Back on the ground, Eddie made Chrissy do field sobriety exercises to prove she was good to drive.

"How am I supposed to walk in a straight line when I can hardly see out here?" Chrissy asked, though she was doing her best. "You guys are lacking in streetlights out this way."

"We're lacking in streets, too, if you hadn't noticed." Eddie kicked at a pebble on the unpaved road she was walking. "Come back over here and say your ABCs backwards."

Giggling, she fumbled through this next test. When at last she reached 'A', Eddie clapped for her as if she had just given the performance of a lifetime. "Alright, c'mere," he waved her forward. "This is the really important part of going home to mommy and daddy after smoking weed."

He took her chin in his hand to hold her face steady as he tipped it back. From his pocket he retrieved a small bottle of eyedrops. Eddie used his teeth to uncap it, then gently squeezed a few drops into each of Chrissy's eyes. He produced a tissue from his pocket next and carefully wiped clean where her makeup smudged.

"There," he murmured. "Good as new. Don't you dare tell me 'thank you' again."

"I won't," she promised. They were near her dad's car. She leaned against it, looking up at him in that sweet way of hers. "Can I say 'I'm sorry', though?"

"What for?" He pocketed both the eye drops and tissue once more, sending his hands deep into his pockets and rocking back on his heels. "For relentlessly holding me over the flames as you roasted the unintentional extension of my high school career?"

She giggled, shaking her head. "See, when you talk like that, I know you're too smart to be a third-year senior. I'm starting to think the school system is rigged."

"You're just now figuring that out? I guess the view really is different at the top. What's this mysterious apology for, Chris?" The new nickname slipped from his lips unbidden, surprising them both. Was that a blush he saw, in the faint glow of the porch light?

"For being weird about the pizza earlier," she confessed. He had noticed, when something was really hard for her to say, she kept her eyes down. She was doing that just then.

"Hey, you don't gotta explain yourself to me. Not unless you want to." Now she raised a watery blue gaze to him. He hoped the moisture was from the eyedrops, but a sinking in his stomach told him it was held-back tears. "Don't. Chrissy, I swear to God, I'm gonna start charging you a dollar every time you make that face like you're about to say thank you again."

"Now who's robbing who blind?" But she didn't say it. Not out loud, at least. Her face still echoed the sentiment, but he could deal with that.

"Be safe going home," he said instead of answering her question. She had left the car unlocked; he reached behind her to open the door for her.

"I'll call you when I'm back," she promised. Queen Chrissy had her own phone line, of course. She had given him the number at school, written in a note he found in his locker. Chrissy was fond of notes, apparently. He had given her the trailer's phone number earlier that night, before they smoked. Now she patted her pocket, reassuring him she still had it.

"I'll be waiting."

And he did. Eddie played a game spinning one of his rings on the kitchen table while he waited for the phone to ring. He answered on the second. "Hey," came her voice through the line.

"Hey yourself. Make it home okay?" He wrapped the phone cord around his finger, remembering how he had done the same with her hair last week.

"Yeah, my parents were already in bed."

"The queen lives to smoke another day." He leaned back in his chair, wondering idly what it was Chrissy was doing in her bedroom. "I'm glad."

"I couldn't have done it without my eye drops wielding knight in shining armor." Eddie smiled at that, rubbing a hand down his face.

"Yeah, yeah. Sweet dreams, Chris. I'll see you Monday."

"See you Monday, Eddie." A soft click disconnected them. Eddie listened to the droning tone of a disconnected line for longer than he would like to admit.