I went to my friend Max’s house while my sister was out with her boyfriend of the moment. Max was sort of my friend by default, he was Cameron’s friend mostly but since I hung out with Cam I hung out with Max and thus friendship. Now what I saw in Max was nothing more than friendship, he was fun but mildly annoying.
At first there were three other people at Max’s house but around nine they left. I had an hour left to fill up so we ended up starting a movie. We both smoked but Max was 19 so his rents were ok with it and we smoked out the window. It was the night before my birthday. I was carefree that night, I didn’t care anymore. He gave me a clove cigarillo and said he didn’t want to waste another one so we would have to share, I didn’t mind, I’d shared cigarettes with other people. I’d never smoked clove before, there is definitely a reason they made clove cigarettes illegal, clove cigarillos aren’t though. Smoking cloves is like eating candy, but smokier. The smoke is sweet and once you’ve smoked one you will want another, but here’s the catch, you smoke more than a couple a day, your lungs will bleed. One a day is okay though, and completely worth it. At first Max and I shared regularly by passing it back and forth, then we just switched smoke with each other. Meaning we blew the smoke into the others mouth. I should have stopped it there but I didn’t. It was a pretty small window and we were cramped in there together. Up close and personal doesn’t even define how close we were together, we were as close as lovers. Then one time my lips touched his and he started to kiss me, I let him and I kissed him back until he was on top of me on his bed and I was thinking once again. What the heck am I doing, I have a boyfriend remember, and I’m only fifteen you’re nineteen this is sort of almost illegal, I think. I just felt so empowered I was getting to the long term point in my relationship but Gabe never initiated anything so I felt sort of lost in it. It was my birthday I was entitled to something wasn’t I?
I don’t know my reasoning behind the whole affair, was it the clove cigarillos? Perhaps, but it is irrelevant at this point. The next day at school I was twitchy all morning until I walked up to Gabriel and told him flat up that I thought we should break up. Behind my dry eyes and seemingly happy façade, I was breaking, I was sobbing until my eyes were dry and my heart was screaming at my brain that it was making the wrong choice. My brain was blocking it all out though, it told me to plow through the speech about how I cheated on him and it told me to watch as his face slowly fell to an unemotional expression that I know realize as sadness that I had never seen before. I turned around walked up the stairs and before I made it all of the way up my heart slowly seeped into my consciousness and I started crying. I rushed through a hallway full of my peers and barely made it to my locker before the tears spilled out. I stopped myself from crying trying to convince myself that this was what I wanted knowing that it wasn’t.
I made it through the rest of Monday and that night I went back over to Max’s. I was in the same sorry state that I had spent most of the day; I was sad but excited for what the new relationship would hold. So it started out as usual, he had me pick out a movie. I picked a Harry Potter movie, not that it mattered since we barely watched it. We lay on the bed just kissing for hours but I wasn’t really into it. Then we took smoke breaks. I felt somewhat that he was using me but I didn’t care. I knew I didn’t love him I maybe liked him a little. I was just feeling neglected I suppose and I needed to do something about it, later I would find other things that made Gabe angry but this was one that was obvious. The next day I ended it with Max, I told him that Gabe and I were back together even though we weren’t but as things were going we probably would be soon.
That Wednesday Gabe, our friend Sarah, and I were hanging out while Sarah was working-she delivers pizzas. Gabe and I were on moderately friendly terms. We were actually sort of considering getting back together at that point. We were being sort of couple-y and Sarah was finally frustrated with us.
“Won’t you two just go out finally? It’s not like you’re gonna be apart from each other long like this.” I giggled and looked at Gabe who just shrugged I sighed and looked up and kissed him from then on we were together, for a while anyways.
