I had not been to school for a week. It felt like I was in a rut. I just knew as soon as I went back to school life would go back to normal. I would return to being the invisible girl who know one noticed and I would watch Lizzie living the life I had wanted and Gordo, well, he still hadn't called, I was beginning to think he just wouldn't.
"Hun are you sure you feel up to going to school today?" My mother asked cautiously. I nodded I could muster up the strength to say yes because personal I wanted to say no and run back to my room and stay there for the next few weeks. But I knew if I didn't do this now, I wouldn't do it at all.
"Ok." She sighed "I'll drive you." with that she left me to busy her self with my sister no doubt.
The school was roaming with people. It felt overwhelming.
"Are you sure your ready for this Miranda, we can go home if you like?" My mothers concern was getting on my nerves. It was tempting to go home I admit, but I knew I had to do this.
"No." I said firmly. "I will be fine mom, I'll see you when I get home." I got out of the car not wanting her persuading me out of this.
I had only not been in for a week, but it felt like a lifetime.
"Boo." I jumped and spun round.
"Hey Gordo, sorry I mean Dave." I said smiling.
"I heard about what happened, I was going to call, but well.. Something happened." He said nervously. I didn't blame him for not calling me.
"No worries." I said. "So hey, me and some friends are meeting up after school, it would be really cool if you came." He said beaming at me like a 100 watt bulb. "I want you to meet them." He added.
"Um well if you don't mind me tagging along." I was secretly ecstatic, the fact Gordo actually wanted to include me in his social life was really quite a big step for me.
"No, no, I really think it would be cool if you came. I want you all to meet. Anyway I best be off, I said I'd meet some people down the field. Meet me after school by the entrance. Ok?" He smiled. I loved his smile.
"Yeah, sounds good." I was trying my hand at being pretty blasé so he didn't know how excited I was.
"Ok in a bit Miranda." He smile and walked off into the distance, bobbing his head to his music.
School was boring as ever. The principle had a chat with me about the accident. And some people I vaguely knew would come up and ask me what happened. Lizzie didn't though. I was just wishing the time away so it could be the end of school and I could meet Gordo.
Final the end of school bell rang. In my high school whenever the bell went you could almost hear the sigh of relief from everyone. There was the usual mad rush of students trying to get the hell out of the school. I was slightly nervous that he may not show, but as soon as I stepped out I was greeted by Gordo's enthusiastic wave.
"Hey Miranda over here!" He waved me over to the group he was sitting with under the large oak tree. I was nervous now. I thought it would just be me and him for a while, and the people he was with seemed slightly dodgy, or they had always appeared slightly dodgy. I recognised some of them. There was Theo Barton, who was the boy Gordo first made friends with. He was in my math class, but he barely came. There was a girl called Jen Harding, who used to come to my English class occasional. And I recognised another guy called Jimmy Harris, who most people knew as the local dealer.
"Guys this is Miranda." Gordo said as I came and awkwardly stood by him. I got some vague hellos and sups but that was ok with me, it meant I didn't have to start awkward conversation.
"So hey, we were gunna head back to Theo's. Dave, you and Maria wanna join us?" Said one of the girls sat by Jimmy. "Uh its Miranda actually." I corrected her, not sure if this was a good move.
"Oh right sorry." The girl said vaguely before turning back to Gordo.
"Yeah, sure. Miranda do you want to come?" He said turning to me.
"Yeah sure." I smiled. I liked being included, but I couldn't shake the awkwardness of it all. However Gordo seemed perfectly unaware of this awkward tension I was sensing. Maybe I was just being paranoid.
I was grateful as Gordo hung back with me a little bit while we walked to Theo's.
"So I heard some guy saved your life?" Gordo said smoking a cigarette casually. Of course I would have never thought Gordo would smoke cigarettes, he was so against them before.
"Yeah. I was lucky he did, I couldn't seem to move when I saw the car and he pushed me out of the way. " I sighed, remembering it just drained me mentally.
"God, that must have been weird. I mean knowing you were so close to death." He shuddered. "That's some heavy stuff man." he squinted his eyes at me through the sun light.
"Yeah, I know, my mom was pretty freaked out." I replied.
"Yeah I can imagine. So who was this guy?" He questioned. Of some reason the thought of bring up Rueben with Gordo made me feel uncomftable.
"Oh just a guy." I said vaguely, racking my brains for something to change the subject with.
"So, what happened?" I asked thinking back to when he said that something had come up.
"What?" He questioned.
"Earlier you mentioned something came up that why you couldn't call." I explained, yet I felt like it may come across as me interrogated him as to why he didn't call.
"Oh right, it's nothing, really, just well family issues." He sighed and looked at his feet. I knew something was up, but I decided it may be a bad idea to pursue it. We walked in silence for a while. But this time it wasn't awkward, it just felt like things had never changed between us. That was the thing we me and Gordo, I always felt we had a deeper connection that him and Lizzie and even me and Lizzie. It was unexplainable really. We just didn't need to talk to feel comftable. Lizzie would always just ramble on and on if there were any gaps in conversation like this. But with me and Gordo, we seem to be happy just to sit with each others company.
We talked about random things for the rest of the way. It was funny. It really felt like things hadn't changed, I almost forgot about the fact that thing had changed for a while.
Theo's house was pretty big really, you would have associated this home with one of the popular jocks maybe, not really with a stoner who wore ripped jeans and never seemed to have a clean T-shirt on. It was a nice house, I would have just never thought it would have been home to such a dirty person.
The group had got considerably smaller on the way here, there was about 20 when we left school now there was 7 of us. We all piled into Theo's basement, it seemed to be his room.
Once the light was on, I glanced around absorbing my surroundings. It was a large basement, there were loads of posters on the walls of bands like: The clash, Ramones, Scandal and various other bands that I had never heard of. There were old instruments laying around; a broken drum kit was strewn around the room and amps and guitars with broken stings were casual scattered. The were two 4 seater brown, mouldish looking sofas which ever one was piling on. I perched on the arm of the cleanest looking one.
"Anyone want a beer?" The girl I recognized as Jen Harding said as she opened the refrigerator behind us. There were various yes's and no's. She chucked one at me. "Here." She said and opened it for me.
"Oh um, no thanks I.." I said attempting to hand the beer back. She laughed.
"Don't worry about it." She winked at me. "Hey I know you, your in my English class right?" She said concentrating on opening her beer. "Yeah, I think I am." I said. I liked the fact someone was talking to me, as Gordo seemed to be engrossed in a conversation with the girl who had got my name wrong.
"Suck right?" She took a sip of her beer.
"Yeah." I fiddled with the label on the beer bottle. I thought because of my completely unstimulating answer she would wonder off and talk to someone else, but instead she said "So how do you know Dave, I bet you're an ex right?" She grinned. I laughed at this.
"No, we used to be really good friends, but well, we drifted and stuff." I was starting to feel more comftable. I took a sip of my beer. I had always liked the taste of beer.
"Really, and here I was thinking Dave was a complete loner before he met us." She grinned and said it loud enough so Gordo could look round. He threw a pillow at her.
"Fuck off." He laughed and went back to his conversation.
I talked to Jen for a while, she was actually a really interesting person. After a while some more people became involved in our conversation and I got introduced to a few more people. Gordo eventually drifted over.
"Hey." whispered in my ear "You fancy going for a walk." I nodded although I was enjoying the conversation I decided that Gordo need me more.
We stepped out on to Theo's roof.
"Dave, it's gunna break!" I said anxiously.
"No its not Miranda." He laughed. "We have had 17 people on this roof before and its been fine!" He reassured me and grabbed my hand as I climbed through the window. We sat down once I felt stable and Gordo got out his weed and a pipe.
"It was getting a bit stuffy in there for me, and Theo had told me my ex was going to arrive in a bit…" He trailed off, but it had sounded like he had wanted to say more.
"Your ex?" I glanced at him, he was holding the pipe and weed but looking out in to the distance like a lost child.
"Yeah." He said after a while. "Em. We went out briefly, but she broke it off for some other guy."
"Did you know him?" I asked.
"Yeah a bit, not very well. But anyway, that was five months ago or so." He said snapping out of his daze.
"So why do you still avoid her?" I felt a bit bad saying it straight out.
"Well. I don't really need her drama to tell the truth, or her pity." He said filling the pipe.
" Really, or is it too painful." I could have kicked myself, I really shouldn't have said that.
"Look leave it will you." He said, not unkindly, but just like he was worn out. I nodded.
"Sorry." I said after a few minutes.
"That's ok, I would go into it more, but well. I'm just so tired of it all now." He said lighting the pipe.
"Ok well, if you want to…" I trailed off.
The armour from the pipe was sweet and smelt vaguely of tobacco. I knew that I shouldn't want to, but I did, I wanted to try it. There was so much hype around weed and I just wanted to try it for myself.
"Can I try it?" I asked. He looked at me in a concerned manner.
"Are you sure. I mean, it's not addictive, it's just I know you didn't feel comftable. I want you to feel comftable." He said look at me straight on. It was sweet of him to care.
"Yes." I said "I do feel comftable."
"Ok." He smiled and handed me the pipe. I suddenly realised I had no idea what to do. I was happy I was only with Gordo, so I didn't look like a complete fool. He laughed "It's simple, just suck on that end, then treat it like air." He smiled bring his legs up to his chest.
So I did. I coughed of course, I felt a bit embarrassed.
"Don't worry, first times always like that, you always choke!" He grinned at me. "Look." He took the pipe and toked on it and showed me how to keep it in and let it out gradually. So I followed his instructions. About five minutes later I was in hysterics. It was so funny, everything was so funny.
"You know, I like laughing." I giggled. He laughed too
"I can tell. Fuck me you're so fucking mashed Miranda!" He said re-lighting the pipe. "Shhhh!" I giggled.
We sat there for about half an hour. By the end of it Gordo was as mashed as me and we were having what he said was stoned conversation. We talked about toasters, sheep and lamp post.
"I'm hungry Dave." I wined and grabbed his arm.
"Ahh! The munchies!" He said laughing, "Come on then miss let go get some munch." I laughed.
My attempt at standing up was terrible I fell right back down and began laughing hysterically.
"Ok Miranda. Now, were both completely kained so we need to be sensible." He said hoisting me up and leading me back to the window. I tripped climbing back it and twisted my ankle. "Fuck!" I exclaimed.
"Shit are you ok?" He said kneeing beside me.
"Yeah, help me up ok" I said. He grabbed my arm and put it over his shoulder. With his support I limbed down the stairs and back into the basement.
"Hey Dave, where you been?" Said Theo passing us on the stairs. "To the roof top garden." He laughed. "Look at you two you stoners!" He laughed and carried on walking.
"Hey, where is the ice cream?" Gordo asked after rummaging around in the freezer.
"Fraser ate it." Someone said.
"Fuck you Fraser!" Laughed Gordo.
"You and Dave piss off and get mashed?" Laughed Jen sitting beside me on the sofa.
I giggled nervously. "Yes. Sorry."
"That ok." She laughed.
"Hey guys, guess who showed up." I heard Theo's voice coming down the stairs.
"Who?" Jen said.
"Rueben himself." I froze. Rueben? My Rueben?
Note: Oooh! Is it? No one knows! He he. It's been a long chapter :P Hope it isn't getting stale! Tell me what you think :D Thanks Meeeee!