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GWEN POV
I picked at the nubby lint balls that had formed on the fabric of the dark maroon seats, anxiously waiting for words to flow between us. I peeked around my bangs at him; he was looking ahead at the road, bobbing slightly to the beat of the soft music. I decided I liked his limp mohawk and the way it hung against his sharp profile. He tongued his lip ring, pushing his bottom lip out rhythmically with the music. His eyes darted to the rearview mirror and he caught me staring; I instantly dropped my eyes to my boots, embarrassed. I kicked around some of the trash that had gathered on the floor.
"Almost there, Pasty," he smirked. Suddenly, his eyes lit up with excitement and his hand flew to the dashboard radio to spin the volume dial. "This is the best part!" he said with anticipation. And yeah, the bridge was catchy, but watching Duncan jam out to it was even better. It looked like he was dodging a swarm of bees. I tried to stifle my giggles.
He raised an eyebrow at me and asked, "What's so funny?"
"Your dancing, obviously," I said, grinning.
"I wasn't dancing, I was rockin' out," he clarified.
"Whatever, spaz," I replied.
He responded by poking me in the side; I shrieked with laughter and pushed his arm away.
"Ticklish, are we?" he asked, grinning, attempting to poke me again while trying to stay in the same lane. It's not like it really mattered; I hadn't been blinded by a single pair of headlights all evening. It was like we were the only ones awake tonight.
"Stop!" I cried, kicking my feet up at him.
"I'm sorry Sunshine, but your weird pig squeal laugh is hilarious!"
"PIG SQUEAL?"
"Yeah, you sound like a barnyard when you're hysterical like this," he giggled. He stabbed at my ribs again, but I swatted him away. "Oh, goth chick," he chuckled, "your dark, but sexy, 'I-don't-care-about-anything' composure can't stand up to my magic fingers." He waggled his eyebrows suggestively.
Did he just say I was sexy? I raised an eyebrow and asked, "Magic fingers? Really Duncan? You couldn't even try to come up with a better innuendo?"
"It wasn't an innuendo! You're just pervy."
"Well… you're just creepy!"
He scoffed. "You haven't seen anything yet, babe."
It was my turn to scoff. "Please. Nothing you could throw at me would creep me out."
His face flickered dimly every time we sped past a street lamp. As we came out of the darkness into the light of another lamp, he smiled grossly at me, baring his teeth and bugging out his eyes. I laughed.
He squinted at me and growled playfully, "I'll scare you yet tonight, Gwen."
"Good luck with that, Duncan," I said, smiling smugly.
He slowed down the car and took a left. "Here we are!" he exclaimed as we rolled to a stop. He yanked out the keys and the car shuddered to a halt.
"Where is here?" I asked, peering out the window.
x.x.x.x.x
DUNCAN POV
Gwen seemed like a cool chick. She seemed smart and open-minded, and she wasn't too bad to look at either. I would be lying if I said I wasn't a little bit intrigued by her. So, hopefully, this little excursion wouldn't put her off.
"What exactly have you smoked, Gwen?" I asked, turning to face her in the car. I had never been known for beating around the bush.
She shrugged and replied, "Just cigarettes. You were there when I had my first couple ones, you know."
I smirked at the memory. Running away from school janitors, watching the goth choke back cheap cigarettes, pressing her up against a tree… I gave her a mischievous smile and asked slyly, "How could I forget that, Sunshine?"
She tried to act natural, but I could tell she was remembering our intimate tree moment as well. "Y-yeah," she chuckled, "Um, why did you ask?"
I took a deep breath. Here it goes. "Ah, well, I was wondering if you had any feelings on um, weed," I said nervously.
Her eyes widened brightly. "I, um, I have an open mind," she said shyly, clearly trying to hide her obvious excitement. She so wanted to be bad like me—it was painful. I smiled and rolled my eyes.
"I kind of had a feeling," I replied, happy.
We stepped out of my car, an old red Mercury, and walked up to a tiny white house covered with lawn ornaments, wind chimes, and bird houses. I led her around to the back, where we descended down the cellar stairs. I knocked sharply once on the white door at the bottom. The moon was our only source of light; I had half expected Gwen to be whimpering and complaining about spiders and tripping in the darkness, but she stayed silent. I turned back to look at her, and she was just about as comfortable in the dank, pitch blackness of the cellar entrance as most people seemed in their air conditioned living rooms. There was just something impressive about that to me.
x.x.x.x.x
GWEN POV
We were led in to the room by a tall guy who looked about our age. Duncan went further into the room with the boy, while I hovered in the entrance. I had never been very good at meeting people; Duncan seemed to be the only exception. I was standing in a by-no-means finished basement with colorful spray painted concrete walls and floors. Torn up couches and various colors of string lights were everywhere, but at least it smelled nice, like vanilla and mint incense. I noticed a large hookah on a nearby table and instantly looked away, a pang of sadness ringing through my empty chest. The last time I did hookah was with TBWBMH.
The next thing I knew was I was saying a pathetic goodbye to our host as Duncan dragged me back through the cellar doors.
"That was quick," I noted. He shrugged and held up a clear plastic baggie with a few large hunks of bud in it.
"Rule number one: don't invade your drug dealer's space. If they've already got company, particularly a hot blonde, don't even think about staying to smoke a bowl with them," he clarified, nudging me up the stairs. "Maybe you can meet him next time."
My heart sped up nervously. He wants there to be a next time.
"So let's go smoke some of this, huh?" he suggested, his mouth splitting into a huge grin. He swooped into the driver's seat and leaned over to unlock the passenger door for me. I climbed in quickly.
"Where?" I asked, looking behind us into the darkness of the unlit street. It gave me a wary feeling, but I couldn't help but be paranoid with marijuana in the car.
"I know a place," he said, smiling devilishly.
A short car ride later, Duncan and I were parked next to an unkempt play ground, shrouded in a cluster of giant oak trees. We were at the top of a large hill, so the view was probably nice—I couldn't tell, seeing as it was somewhere around 3 in the morning and everything was pitch black.
"Open the glove box. There's a pipe in there," he commanded me, digging into his new baggie of goods. The stench of weed quickly filled the small car; I had never truly smelled it before. I had to really pull on the latch, and when it popped open, an array of papers, cans, and small boxes fell out onto my feet. I gave him a sheepish smile.
"Whoops," I said. He shook his head. As if I weren't already embarrassed, what I had to ask next was about to kill me. "Um, Duncan?" I asked. He looked up. "What does, um, a pipe look like?" I cringed. How mortifying.
Duncan laughed, to which I scowled. "I'm glad to see you're amused," I said.
His grin just grew and he replied, "It's about this big," he held up his hand to demonstrate, "and it's green glass. It's not that big of a glove box, Sunshine."
"Someone should have told you that," I muttered, digging through the countless papers, wrappers, and miscellaneous other items he had shoved in there. Eventually I came across what I thought might be a drawstring cloth holder for the thing, but upon opening the bag I instead found a gold box. I was about to open it, when Duncan tore it from my hands. I looked up to see terror in his eyes.
"That's not it," he said shakily, tucking the box back into its bag.
"I-I'm sorry," I apologized, eyes wide, heart beating, dread in the back of my throat.
He cracked a smile and said, "No worries." He glanced down, a look of embarrassment spreading across his face. From the cluttered cup holder he plucked up a small dark green pipe. "Found it," he said weakly. I watched him tuck the bag under his seat before he got to work 'packing the bowl'.
A few minutes later, we were standing in the shadows of a cluster of trees, lighters in hand.
"Okay, watch me," he said, trying not to giggle. Clearly he thought that having to teach someone how to smoke a bowl was pathetic. He raised the pipe to his lips, his thumb covering the hole at the end of it. He brought the lighter to the bowl, flicking it on. He gently sucked on the opening, and I watched as the orange flame tilted into the bowl, igniting the weed to ash. He took his thumb off the opening, sucking up the smoke that had gathered inside, and lowered his pipe. He held his breath for a few seconds before exhaling a long stream of white, billowy smoke. With a sleepy smile, he passed the lighter and the pipe to me.
"Try not to get your lipstick all over it," he said with a wink. "I bet you hear that a lot."
Did I hear that right? I sputtered, "Wh-what exactly is that supposed to mean?!"
He shrugged and guided the pipe to my mouth, since I seemed to be incapable of doing it myself. "It means that I think you give a lot of bj's," he said, grinning, lighting the bowl with his lighter for me. I inhaled, but my mind was spinning before the smoke even entered my lungs. When it did, I coughed and sputtered immediately.
"You'd—cough—better be—cough—kidding!" I said between hacks. Whoa, this stuff hits hard.
"Well maybe you don't give a lot of bj's, but I bet a lot of guys want you to," he clarified, taking the pipe back for himself. My thoughts flew back to TBWBMH and what his intentions with me had been. I had never really been sure.
Suddenly I found myself wondering what Duncan's intentions were, feeling that horribly familiar fluttering of excitement in the pit of my stomach.
"Why do you say that?" I asked, knowing that my cheeks were turning pink.
He tipped my chin up with his hand, making me look into his eyes. The lack of space between us began to make my stomach churn nervously. "Gwen," he said, seemingly ignoring my question, "this isn't, um, easy, but I have to ask you something." His expression was sleepy from the weed, but there was still a fire in his eyes.
My heart was hammering itself into jello. I was panicking. My mind was swimming.
"Wh-what is it?" I asked, trying, and failing, to be confident. His green-blue eyes zeroed in on my lips hungrily.
"Um," he chewed on his own lip nervously, "Well, my question is, um…"
I was certain that now I must've looked ghostly, being that no blood was being pumped to my brain, or anywhere else for that matter. It seemed that my veins and arteries had frozen in the moment as well as everything else inside me. I was completely and utterly petrified. Stuck. My thoughts whipped in every direction around me, always flickering back to TBWBMH. How if Duncan were about to suggest what I was thinking he were about to suggest, I would have to chose between the future, and the past. Between letting TBWBMH go and continuing to hold on.
I was getting way ahead of myself, though.
"My question is," Duncan started, achingly slowly, I might add. Then he suddenly grinned and continued, "did I scare you yet?"
Relief, disappointment, and embarrassment hit me at once. He was just kidding me. I didn't have to think about moving on from TBWBMH yet. Duncan didn't want me.
But… my blood refused to continue moving. My lungs refused to continue working. I couldn't hardly close my eyes. I was still stuck.
Fuck.
I forced myself out of my stupor and laughed weakly, backing away from him. "Yeah, you did. Suggestive, loose-ended questions are my worst fear!" I said.
Duncan scratched the back of his head. "Sorry," he said, smiling lamely, "was that kind of mean?"
I shook my head. "We've both got our heartbreaks, right? Don't worry. You aren't one of mine," I said quietly.
"Yet," he said with a wink.
"Shut up," I laughed, shoving him playfully.
"You know," he started, strolling around the clearing, "Nine out of ten times, smokers have a good reason to pick up that first cigarette. And eight of those nine times, the reason is 'cus some crazy chick ran away with their heart."
"But you've just got to 'man up' and 'push through until it doesn't hurt so bad though', right?" I replied, quoting Duncan himself.
"That's right, Pasty," he said with a grim smile.
"How do you, Duncan, do that?" I asked.
He held up his pipe for me to see. "This," he said seriously, "and, um, spray painting stuff. It's actually my dream to graffiti the water tower someday."
"Why?" I asked, grinning.
Duncan's gaze shifted uncomfortably; he had a similar expression to as when I'd found the gold box.
"It's…just a dream," he said quietly.
"Ah," I replied knowingly, "a crazy chick, hmm?"
Duncan sighed and said, "Unfortunately."
I tried to swallow the small lump that had formed in my throat.
"Don't look so sad, Pasty," he chuckled, "There's plenty of the D-man to go around."
"Oh, shut up and pass the pipe," I groused. He just chuckled again and obligingly gave me the piece.
We stayed at the park, talking, laughing, and getting ripped, until we saw the first hints of the sun peak over the horizon. I had been right before; in the light, the view up here was stunning.
"Uh oh," he giggled, "I'd better get the vampire back to her cave."
Being high was a whole new feeling. I hated it; and yet, I wanted more. There was something about it that made me want to come back despite how much I disliked it. Though, I was that way with a lot of things in my life.
I smiled sadly at Duncan, and when he smiled lopsidedly back, I had a hunch he felt the exact same way.
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Thanks to my reviewers NerdyKitty, colorful565, PunkChick25, Anon 1, Beeotch, Anon 2, Lostblueheart 16, and everyone else who favorited, followed, and read. Expect more updates in the future! Next time, I'll focus more on the D-man's perspective. Adios.