Twisted

by N. L. Greene

  I strolled into the living room with much more confidence than before. “You guys leaving so soon?”

  “Yep. What are you and Mel up to tonight? Playing dolls?” Allen asked with a laugh and a wink, letting me know that he was only teasing me. Allen and Austin were twins, and they had to be two of the nicest guys ever. They weren’t that cute, but their personalities more than made up for it. I liked them both a lot.

  I rolled my eyes playfully back at him. “Whatever. Ya’ll better be careful,” I told them as sternly as I could. I knew they wouldn’t be. They were already high and well on their way to being drunk, but it made me feel better to at least say it.

  Austin, probably the most responsible one of the group, reassured me as they finished cleaning up and all started to walk past me; each giving me a quick one-armed hug. “We’ll be cool, Nat. See ya later.”

  “K.” I smiled at him and watched them go. James was the last one, and his hug was with two arms and a quick nuzzle to my neck that I tried to ignore with a forced smile on my face.

  “Later, babe,” he whispered in my ear, before trying to kiss me. I turned my face quickly, so his lips only got my cheek. Thankfully he wasn’t offended. He just chuckled as he walked out the door and pulled it shut behind him. I quickly locked the bolt before running back to find Mel in her parents’ room digging through ashtrays.

  Her head jerked up guiltily when she heard me run into the room. “What are you doing?” she hissed, and glared like an angry cat.

  I couldn’t help but laugh. “Relax! They left.” She opened her mouth, but I answered her follow up question before she could ask it. “And I locked the bolt. They’ll have to knock to get back in.”

  She relaxed and lost the glare. “Okay, cool. Now help me look for good butts.” She held one up to show me what I should be looking for, and together we scoured the ashtrays for all the cigarette butts that had even the littlest amount of tobacco left in them. We found about seven or eight; all together they would probably equal a half of one whole cigarette. Not much, but I was cool with that. It meant I didn’t have to smoke that much.

  Mel lit the first butt and took the first and only drag off that one. She did it like a pro, and I guess she sort of was one, since she had been doing it for like, three years already. She put it out and showed and explained what to do, and then it was my turn. I took the butt in my fingers and put it to my lips. It was so disgusting! There was pink lipstick from her mom on the white paper, the end was a dirty brown color from already having been smoked, and it smelt like old, stale ashtrays. I tried not to gag when my lips touched the pink-stained paper, and I almost didn’t succeed. I quickly brought the lighter up and flicked it. The flame was way closer to my face than one had ever been before, and I flinched; dropping the lighter and the unlit cigarette. Mel laughed.

  “You have to flick the lighter away from your face first, you big dummy! Then bring it closer. You do it like that again and you’re going to singe off your eyebrows. Then you’re going to look like such a dork!” she got out between fits of hysterical laughter. Wanting to impress her and not wanting to look like an idiot again, I took my time and tried to light it again. I flicked the lighter and slowly brought the flame toward the end of the butt. When it touched, I inhaled and immediately started hacking and gagging. The smoke burned my lungs and tasted absolutely awful. I knew it would, but still, it was nothing like I’d imagined.

  Mel just laughed even harder.

  I huffed at her as I tossed the cigarette butt into the ashtray and threw the lighter at her. “That’s so gross! I don’t want to do it,” I told her defiantly, with my arms crossed over my chest.

  “God, you’re such a baby. It takes a few tries. You aren’t going to get it the first time, or even the second. Once you get used to it, it’ll taste better. Trust me,” she said as she tossed the lighter at me again before digging through the ashtray for the longest butt. I eyed it skeptically when she started to hand it to me. She rolled her eyes and became more insistent. “Just do it.”

  I rolled my eyes back at her but did what she said. I repeated all of the same steps with similar results. The first puff ended with more coughing, but once my lungs cleared I brought the lit cigarette up to my lips to try again.

  “Try to actually inhale it all the way this time,” Mel helpfully advised.

  I thought I was inhaling, hence all the coughing! But instead of pointing it out, I took another puff and held it in, only coughing a little that time. Satisfied, she took the butt from me and put it out in the ashtray before taking one for herself. She got about two drags from that one before she put it out, and then handed me another. “Okay, last one. Make it count.”

  Determined to make her proud and keep her from laughing at me, I did.

  I inhaled that time without coughing it all back up. I smiled with triumph, but it quickly faded when I began to feel light headed. I put my hand to my forehead and Mel burst out laughing.

  “Oh my God! You got a buzz from a few puffs of a cigarette. You are so lucky!”

  Lucky was not what I felt. I felt like I was going to puke, but I held it in as we made our way out of her room and into the kitchen to throw away the evidence of our smoking session. We heated up leftover Chinese food and ate while we watched movies, and then we both fell asleep in her bed. Thankfully I never puked.

  Chapter 3

  The last few weeks of school passed as I continued to work on mastering the art of smoking. Nice goal right? We spent a lot of time at Mel’s, as usual. Most of my time there was spent fending off her brother, while also pretending his advances were okay so I could get stuff from him for Mel. I kinda started to feel like she was acting like my pimp, but I didn’t tell her that. Who knows what she would have done with that idea? So the year ended and summer began, and with it came great things!

  Mainly one thing…I got another boyfriend. I was a little more excited and nervous about this one. Noah was a boy that we’d been friends with all throughout our seventh grade school year. He started coming over that summer to swim with the rest of us, or meet us at the mall when we all went out as groups, and he was definitely one of the cutest boys in our whole seventh grade class. I’d had a crush on Noah since the beginning of sixth grade, and he and I had been in the same math and history classes during our seventh grade year. He sat behind me in both, because we had to sit in alphabetical order by our last names and his came right after mine. So I got to spend the whole year secretly crushing on him.

  Noah was different from the rest of the boys in all my classes. He was tall and thin, but not too thin. He had dark hair, dark eyes and naturally tanned skin, which made most of the girls in our grade and some in the eighth grade have some sort of crush on him. A lot of the kids thought he was Hispanic or Filipino, but his heritage was a mix of something else. I didn’t exactly know what it was myself, and he didn’t divulge the details to anyone. He just let them think what they wanted. He was sorta cool like that. He was on the basketball team and dressed like all the other popular boys. He would tease me or play with my hair in class, and although I wasn’t completely sure, I thought that was his way of flirting with me. So I did my best to do the same, although I had no idea what I was doing. Apparently it worked!

  His best friend Anthony lived around the corner from me, and since Noah stayed at his house all the time, they would ride their bikes over and hang out with me and Mel and whoever else was at my house. Eventually he asked me to be his girlfriend, and I was so excited. Mel told me how lucky I was because he was so hot, and I had to agree. I felt pretty lucky.

  For the first few weeks of summer, between our seventh and eighth grade years, Noah and Anthony would come over on their bikes to hang out. Sometimes my parents weren’t home, so I could only talk to them for a few minutes on the front porch. But when they were home, Noah and Anthony would hang out for a while, and we would laugh and joke with each other. It was nice, because Noah and I had been friends first. I wasn’t as nervous around him
as I had been with Casey… at least at first.

  On one of the days that my parents weren’t home, I was on the porch talking to both guys, but then Anthony left before Noah so we could talk by ourselves for a few minutes. As the days had passed, I’d started to get nervous any time we were left alone. I was excited about having another boyfriend and I really liked Noah, but I hadn’t forgotten the whole kiss debacle with Casey, and I knew that was what Noah was looking for. A kiss. We had been ‘going out’ for like two weeks, and by everyone else’s standards we should have been there by now. So I shouldn’t have been surprised.

  We were standing on the front porch of my house, but over to the side so we could avoid the watchful eyes of my sister. We were talking about nothing in particular, just a whole bunch of silliness, when Noah took a tentative step closer to me.

  “So Nat? When are you going to kiss me?” Noah asked quietly; looking into my eyes.

  I felt my cheeks heat instantly and my heart started to race. I didn’t even know what to say! Did he want me to answer that, or was I just supposed to lean in and kiss him? I had no idea what to do, so I didn’t do anything. I just shrugged and looked everywhere but at Noah.

  I guess Noah took my silence as an invitation, because he took my hands in his and leaned in to kiss me. His eyes were closed and his face was soft. He was so cute! I simply stared at him as he got closer, and just before his lips touched mine, I turned my face so that his lips met my cheek instead of my mouth.

  I don’t know why I did it. I panicked! I was so afraid that it was just going to turn out like the Casey-thing, and I wasn’t ready for Noah and me to end our relationship. I liked him! He didn’t seem to mind my rebuff though, because he kissed my cheek and squeezed my hands before pulling back with a chuckle. “Why are you teasing me?” he asked playfully, but I could see the disappointment in his eyes. Maybe he did think I was a tease. It hurt a little that he could think that about me, but I guess that so many girls were, and I couldn’t really blame him.

  “My sister might see. If she does she’ll tell my parents, and then you won’t be able to come over anymore,” I answered quickly, with what I hoped was a great excuse.

  “Okay,” he said, but I was pretty positive that he could tell it was just a flimsy excuse. Thankfully he changed the subject. “So when do you leave to go out of town again?”

  “Umm, we leave tomorrow morning, and we’ll be back in like, six days. It’s totally going to suck. We have to drive for like, eighteen hours or something to get there, then turn around and do it all over again. On top of that, we’ll be in the middle of nowhere with all these people I’ve never even met before,” I rambled; thankful for the change of subject.

  Noah smiled at my rambling and complaining. He’d heard this before. I’d been complaining nonstop since finding out we were going to visit my mom’s family up in Pennsylvania. Her whole family of something like a hundred people.

  “It’ll go by quick, and then you’ll be back here hanging out with all of us again,” he tried to reassure me; using the same words everyone else had been.

  I rolled my eyes at myself for complaining so much. “I know. It just sucks that I have to go at all and miss out on time with my friends and you.”

  “Don’t worry. We’ll be here when you get back, and the rest of the summer will be great! I’ll make sure of it,” he told me with a glint in his eye that made my heart race again.

  “Okay,” I answered a little breathlessly.

  “I gotta go. Anthony’s probably getting sick of riding in circles up the street.” He laughed as he leaned in and brushed another kiss on my cheek.

  “’K, bye,” I said, as I watched him jog down the steps and get onto his bike. I watched him until I couldn’t see him anymore, with a silly grin on my face and my hand on my cheek where he’d kissed me - twice.

  The next morning I got up with my family at the butt crack of dawn (roughly translated into four in the morning) and drug myself to the car. I fell back asleep instantly, but it was so crammed in the back seat with my sister and our pillows and blankets that I kept waking up to push my sister away from me. We had this sort of love/hate relationship. Right then it was leaning more on the hate side.

  Anyway, it took FOREVER to get there, but even I had to admit that Pennsylvania was actually pretty spectacular.

  In reality I had been born up there, but we moved to Florida when I was around three years old, so I didn’t remember any of it. My mom’s family all lived up in the mountains, in the country, and it was so different from where we lived now. We definitely didn’t see mountains in Florida! They were so big and beautiful and a little bit scary, and nothing like what you saw in campy travelogue pictures. I could look out my window and see down to what seemed like a thousand feet to the ground. It made my stomach roll, but I couldn’t stop myself from looking. It was so cool! The exquisite scenery helped set the mood for the rest of our trip. Although some of my family was a bit weird (like running around in cow pastures with no shoes on…gross!), they were all pretty nice. The only problem was that there were so many family members; I couldn’t possibly begin to remember all of their names. My mom had eight brothers and sisters, then another six step-brothers and sisters. They all had kids, and some of them even had kids. It seemed like I had a million cousins!

  Anyway, the trip turned out to be fun! I even felt a little bit bad for having dreaded it so much, but I was definitely happy to be going home. I hadn’t talked to Mel all week, and I missed Noah. I was excited to see both of them, as well as the rest of my friends. Nothing had really been planned, but I knew when I got home we would all do something to celebrate the rest of our summer break. I couldn’t wait!

  So finally after the crazy long drive back to Florida, we were home. I had to wait until the next day to call Mel, since we’d gotten home at like, midnight, but I was so tired from the drive that I fell right asleep. Before I knew it, it was morning. I didn’t waste any time, and I decided to call Mel as soon as I woke up. “Hey!” I shouted unapologetically into the phone as soon as she picked up.

  “Ugh! Why are you calling so early and yelling? I was asleep,” she grumbled. I was so excited to hear her voice that I ignored her grumpiness, but I did risk a glance at the clock and winced at the time. It was early – eight a.m. - but I still wasn’t sorry. I felt like I had been going through BFF withdrawals, having not been able to talk to her for a week.

  “Come on! Get up! I’ve been gone forever and my mom said I can go over to your house today! Is it okay with your mom?” I asked this more to be polite than anything else. I knew Mel’s parents were already at work, but even if they hadn’t been, they couldn’t have cared less when I came over.

  “Yeah, yeah. Come over. I’ll unlock the door. Just come back to my room when you get here,” she said before she hung up with a surly goodbye. I didn’t even bat an eye at her rudeness though, because I knew that once she saw me she would be just as happy as I was to be hanging out together again.

  Hanging the phone up, I ran to tell my mom I was leaving before I jogged out the door. I was all ready to go before I had even called, knowing there wouldn’t be a problem and since there wasn’t anything I needed to take, I was gone before my mom could even tell me bye. I skipped down the street and around the corner to Mel’s house, excited to talk about what I missed while I was gone. I knew that she’d probably hung out with everyone, including Noah. I couldn’t wait to drill her about how he was, and if he missed me or talked about me while I was gone.

  I ran up the driveway and hurried through the unlocked door of Mel’s house. The house was quiet, because Mel and James were still sleeping and their parents had already left for work. Quickly locking the door behind me, I walked fast but stealthily down the hall to Mel’s room. I slipped in and softly closed the door behind me before running over to her bed and jumping on her blanket covered form.

  “Wake up sleepy head!” I yelled with a sing-song voice.

  “God! You’re such a
bitch!” she huffed out, but sat up and pushed her messy hair out of her face. When I could finally see her, I saw that she had a smile on her lips.

  “Missed me?” I asked sweetly while batting my eyelashes at her.

  “Maybe,” she said, but then her smile died and she looked away.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked with a sinking heart. I didn’t know what was wrong, but I knew Mel. She wouldn’t have that look on her face if it wasn’t serious.

  “Umm, okay. Well, I have something really important to tell you and I know you’re going to absolutely hate me when I do tell you, but you’re my best friend. I love you so much and I can’t lie to you, even if you don’t want to be my friend anymore after I tell you.” Her eyes had gotten a little misty, and I could see that she was scared to tell me whatever it was.

  My heart continued to sink, but I took her hand in mine and tried to offer a reassuring smile. “Mel, I love you too. No matter what you tell me, it could never be bad enough for me to hate you, ever!” I told her fiercely; meaning every word.

  She looked at me for a minute and then took a deep breath before blurting, “I kissed Noah.”

  My heart stopped beating and I froze. Her hands were still in mine, but I didn’t feel them. This was a joke, right? My own eyes got misty, and then I felt my heart shatter in my chest. “What?” I breathed out.

  “Oh God, Nat! I am so, so, so sorry! I didn’t mean for it to happen, I swear! We were hanging out and Anthony went to the store real quick. Noah and I were talking and it just happened. I totally understand if you hate me!” she wailed, as tears began to fall from her eyes.

  I had never seen Mel cry before. All I could do for a moment was just sit there and stare at the drops of water as they streamed down her face. My best friend had kissed my boyfriend. Why would they do that? I knew Mel would never hurt me intentionally, so it must have been Noah’s fault. But I thought he liked me!