waiting for superman | book three

twenty

Still, she smiles, the way she smiles, yeah

Lying on her bed, Chloe continues to wait for the LSD to kick in, but it never does. Her vision never blurs, the hallucinations never begin, and her mind never stops producing thoughts.

She sits up and slugs over to her window seat, plopping her body down on the soft cushion and looking out across the lawn to the Hyland's house next door.

For the first time in what seems like ages but is in reality only a week, Josh's bedroom window is open, leaving the messy interior exposed. Chloe allows her eyes to wander inside the all too familiar room and sees her love entering. 

A smile creeps across Chloe's lips as his eyes connect with her and she lifts her hand up in a small wave. A devious grin distorts Josh's attractive face, turning him into something evil instead of sweet.

Josh exits the room for a few seconds, and when he returns, he is not alone. Grasping onto his hand as he leads her inside the bedroom, Maddie shoots Chloe the same devilish smile that Josh had only moments ago. She pushes Josh onto his bed and lays down on top of him, their lips connecting in long, passionate movements.

Chloe shoves the palms of her hands into her eyes, trying to erase the image from her vision, but when she looks back, they are still on the bed. Now, however, Maddie has removed Josh's shirt and he has almost removed hers, exposing the back of a black, lace push-up bra.

Chloe jerks backwards, causing herself to fall off the window seat and land on the hard, wooden floors. She scrambles to her feet and stumbles over to her dresser, where she picks up the forgotten bag of pink pills from the top and shoves three more of them into her mouth.

The increased number of pills in her system cause a high to occur almost immediately. Her vision zooms in and out of focus, her heartbeat slows, and a crooked smile spreads across her lips as she makes her way out of her room and down the stairs. She leaves her house behind her in the distance, with all identifying objects with it, as she stumbled her way to downtown Pittsburgh.

If only poor Chloe had known that the drugs had already started causing hallucinations after just that one pill. If only she knew that the make out session she had witnessed in Josh's bedroom was actually a hallucination caused by the LSD. If only she knew that Josh was actually on his way over to her house to end the movie with a kiss.

Maybe if she had only known this, she wouldn't have taken those extra pills.

And maybe things would have gone differently tonight.