THE BIG DEAL: PART 17

Jul 29, 2009 18:45

 

Cherry continued to walk down the sidewalk, feeling… almost a bit of pride. Who had made her stop in the first place? Sweet! Who did she want to punch in the face right now? Sweet! She sighed, knowing that if he really were here, she wouldn’t want to punch him in the face at all. Every time she saw him she was smitten again. She frowned. No, I can’t love him. He’s a jerk and he’s secretive and he likes that stupid Lucy, she thought. She stomped on the crack in the sidewalk and kept on going.

She reached the gas station and pushed the dirty door open. She’d been here once or twice with Haze to buy midnight snacks riddled with animal products. They ate them behind the store afterward, laughing and poking fun at Olivia’s veganism. She missed times like that. Now everyone was being all dramatic and private, and she hated it. They were like the older siblings whose parents forced them to let their little sister come along everywhere- never fully a part of the group, always a little unknowing.

She turned the little stand with the lighters on it, frowning. They all seemed to be $2.99. She forgot how expensive this stupid place was, but people would pay for convenience. Today, she couldn’t. She bought a popsicle bearing her name instead and stomped out the door.

She walked around the back of the store, unwrapping the treat quickly and jamming it into her mouth, scowling. Why couldn’t her plans just work for once?

“Hey,” said a gruff voice. “What are you doing here?” Cherry looked over. It was Jermaine, Clockwork’s guitarist. He tapped a few ashes onto the ground from his cigarette and Cherry’s eyes lit up.

“Do you have a light?” she squawked to him. He raised his eyebrows.

“That’s not what I asked. What are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same thing. My friends live just down the road. I’m staying with them.”

“They have my favourite cigarettes here. And it’s quiet.” He frowned. “Why do you want a light?” Cherry sheepishly pulled the joint from her jeans pocket. Jermaine laughed.

“My, my, my. I didn’t know you smoked,” He threw his lighter to her; it had a treble clef on it.

“Thanks,” she sighed, lighting the end that wasn’t pressed between her chapped lips and tossing the lighter back to him. It had been so long- she didn’t really know why she didn’t do this again sooner. Pot had never been her drug of choice, but her friends were a lot more understanding about it. At least, she hoped so. She closed her eyes and inhaled contentedly.

“I thought you lived with those hippie kids. You can’t smoke there?”

“I kinda have a history,” coughed Cherry.

Jermaine kicked a rock. “Doesn’t everyone? But don’t worry. I won’t tell little Devon about this.”

“Doesn’t want to see my face again anyway,” she inhaled again.

“So I hear. Well, you were pretty cool. Usually I don’t like the girls he hangs around with… But I should go.” Jermaine dropped the stub of his cigarette onto the concrete and rubbed it out with his boot.

“Bye bye,” she smiled, already feeling light-headed.

“See ya.” Jermaine trudged off to his motorcycle, leaving Cherry alone. She giggled a little to herself, picking up her half-melted popsicle up in her free hand and biting into it. She stayed behind the tiny gas station until both her popsicle and her joint were gone. She pulled herself up and began to walk back home, singing off-key.

“I’m gonna do it to you gonna do you Sweet banana, you’ve never been done! We’re gonna get hi, hi, hi, in the midday sun…” She twirled and sang all the way home.

Cherry stumbled up the crumbling steps of Haze and Olivia’s house, opening the door and still giggling, having remembered something that had happened at a party, oh, 6 years ago? It hadn’t seemed so funny in quite a while.

Olivia heard the door open and, smelling cannabis, knew it must be Haze. She’d gotten so that the smell was so familiar, it was just Haze to her. She didn’t look up from Live Green magazine, just turned the page. “Hi, hon. I take it Sweet’s date with Lucy didn’t go so well?” Her body stiffened when she heard Cherry’s high pitched giggle rise from the doorway.

“What are you talking about, Olivia?” laughed Cherry.

“Oh no,” Olivia murmured, tossing her magazine down and hurrying to the door. “Cherry, what the hell are you doing?”

“Coming home,” Cherry grinned, walking into the kitchen. “Are there pancakes left?”

“Haze ate them all.” Olivia frowned, watching as Cherry began raiding the fridge. “Cherry, you’re not fooling me one bit. I know a high person when I see one!”

“So what’s the big deal?” asked Cherry, taking off her sunglasses so she could see the fridge’s contents. “I wish Haze was here. I wanna go for burgers. We haven’t gone since you made your cardboard casserole last.” Olivia’s mouth hung open.

“Cherry, go to your room. I don’t want to talk to you.” Cherry just laughed.

“You’re like, never this mad!”

“Go to your room or you’ll wish you had!”

“Yes, mother,” Cherry stuck out her tongue and hopped down the stairs. Olivia sank into the couch and ruffled her curls, sighing.

Cherry made her way down to her room and flopped onto the bed. How come Haze could get high all the time but if she did even once, it was a disaster? Now she was confined to her room and wanted food. She leaned over the side of her bed and peered under it, grabbing a big bag of lollipops she’d bought after Halloween. She reached in and greedily unwrapped a bright yellow one and shoved it in her mouth.

She pulled out her cell phone and began flipping through her contacts.

“Love her! Hate him. Hate her. Love him! Love him! Hey… Dev!” she selected his number and began to write a text.

Dev felt his phone vibrate in his coat pocket. “Maybe it’s Markey,” he shrugged to Jermaine. “Seeing as the idiot still hasn’t shown up to rehearsal.” He flipped open his phone.

Tell Jermayn thnx for today :) :) he he he

“Not quite,” Dev muttered, handing the phone to the guitarist. “What the hell?”

“I lent her two bucks today when I saw her at the gas station.” Jermaine shrugged.

“A little enthusiastic, eh?”

“Don’t ask me.”

Cherry was on her second lollipop before her phone buzzed against her stomach, she laughed at the feeling before picking it up.

Grow up. I really don’t want to talk to you so stay the hell away from me, my band, and especially Lucy.

Suddenly, nothing seemed to be quite so funny. Sure, weed was fun when you thought happy thoughts. But things like this made her feel worse than she would’ve felt sober.

She heard the door open upstairs and after listening a bit she could tell it was Haze. Maybe Olivia would be happy now that he was home. She got up and opened her door, going up a few stairs and stopping.

“You’re such a bad influence on her, Haze! She was doing so well!” Olivia yelled.

“I’m not her dad! If she makes a mistake, it’s not my fault, Liv!”

“She’s our friend and we shouldn’t let her get back into old habits!”

“Look, I’m sorry, Liv… I wouldn’t have taken off if Sweet hadn’t asked me to get him. Things went even worse with Lucy than he thought.” Cherry’s mind snapped back to when she’d got into the house. Sweet and Lucy went out. Oh god, oh god, oh god, oh god. She sat down on the stair and shivered.

“Or maybe you just didn’t want leftover cardboard casserole?” Olivia snapped.

“Liv-“ Cherry heard a door slam. “Rev?”

After that it went quiet. Cherry slowly crept up the stairs and peered over the corner.

“Haze?” she whimpered into the living room.

“Hey, Cher.” Haze sighed, letting Cherry sit next to him on the couch. “Bad day, huh?”

“I’m hopeless. Absolutely hopeless,” she moaned, hugging her knees.

“Yeah, me too. I’m not a very good cheerer-upper.”

There was a long pause. “Was Sweet really upset?” Cherry murmured.

“I don’t think he’d want me to talk about it.”

“I don’t really know anything about him, do I?” Cherry laughed. “I’m so fucking in love with someone and I don’t really know him! Then when I try and make him jealous, that all goes for shit because now both of them don’t want anything to do with me because they’re both so devoted to the most perfect fucking girl in the whole universe that they can’t even think of anyone else! How do I compare with someone like that?” Cherry buried her head in Haze’s shoulder and sobbed.

“Maybe you should sleep it off, Cherry. You won’t feel so bad about it if you’re sober… And I know how weird that sounds coming from me.”

“I guess you’d know better than me,” sniffed Cherry. “It’s stupid, but I just want someone to care for me like they all care about her. You’re lucky.”

“Not so lucky tonight. Looks like it’s the couch for me.” He laughed. “You wanna go get burgers? Always makes me feel better.” Cherry nodded a little.

“I’d like that.”

Cherry loved the little fifties diner she went to with Haze. It was quaint and small and they gave you burgers the size of a plate for hardly anything. It took about half an hour to walk there, and about an hour to eat. By the time they got there Cherry had come down quite a lot and wasn’t crying into her milkshake or anything of the sort.

“Sorry for crying on you earlier. I forgot how stupid I get.”

“No big deal,” Haze nodded, biting into a tomato slice. “We should’ve brought Sweet here.”

“So I could look like even more of a blubbering crybaby in his eyes?”

“He doesn’t…” Haze was quiet. “Never mind. How’s your shake?”

“Unsuspicious,” Cherry muttered.

“Stop acting like everyone’s out to get you, okay? The world isn’t against you, Cherry. Sometimes you’ve just gotta wait it out until something good happens.”

“Let’s… Just go home.”

The walk back was a little better. Haze sung As We Go Along and Cherry skipped a little. Haze had a nice voice but it was a lot different than Sweet’s. It was lower and had a bit of coarseness to it. It was a lot different than Olivia’s which was high and soft. Maybe that’s why they work so well together, she thought. She didn’t know who worked with an awkward trombonist.

Haze was thinking of other things. He couldn’t get his mind off of everything Sweet had said when he’d picked him up.

“Then, she told me Cherry must have a little crush on me. That I should be happy about it.”

“What the hell do you say to that?”

“I didn’t say anything.”

Haze didn’t say anything to him either. He could’ve- Sweet was his best friend, and didn’t he deserve to know about the girl who was just dying to get in his grasp? Of course! Then he thought back to Cherry, crying on his shoulder because she didn’t feel good enough. Didn’t she deserve to feel good enough? It made his head hurt. Maybe it was just time for a good smoke.

Well, maybe not tonight.

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