Abused Foster

Seventeen

We walk out into the clearing, crickets chirping around us.
The moon is reflecting beautifully off the water and illuminates the clearing perfectly.

"It's beautiful," I breathe, and inhale the fresh night air.

"That's why I love coming out here at night," he says, smiling as he leads me further out into the clearing, and towards the edge of the water where he stops.
"Sorry I didn't bring anything to sit on," he laughs softly, and rubs the back of his neck.

"It's alright," I interrupt before he can continue, a smile forming on my face.
"The grass is nice and soft," I continue as I sit down and trail my fingers through the grass blades.

He sits beside me, both joints still in his hand.
"Well I'm glad you don't mind it," he chuckles lightly and rests one of the joints on his ear before putting the other one up to his mouth then bringing a lighter up to it.

   He puffs a couple clouds of smoke as he's lighting it, then takes another one as he pushes his lighter in his pocket.

   I catch myself  gazing at how the moonlight slightly illuminates his face, and blink a couple times to bring myself back to reality.
   Just as I do, he passes me the joint.

  "Try not to take too big of hits-" he says right as I blow out a thick cloud of smoke and immediately start coughing, small puffs of smoke coming out at every cough.

As I'm having my coughing fit, I pass the joint back to Jace and cover my mouth and nose with both my hands. I can feel my cheeks heating up - partially because of how much I'm coughing, and partially because I'm embarrassed at the amount I'm coughing while he's only coughing once or twice.

He chuckles lightly and places a hand on my back and rubs it up and down gently.
"Don't die now, what will I tell Shaun?" He jokes, causing me to roll my eyes but he gets a small chuckle out of me.

"No promises," I joke back as I finally catch my breath, and Jace retracts his arm, almost as if he didn't realize what he was doing.
Wait come back, that felt nice.

He laughs and takes a couple more puffs off the joint then passes it back to me.
"Smaller puffs this time," he teases as I take the joint from between his fingers and take a couple smaller puffs off it.

Suddenly, Jace turns around and puts a protective arm in front of me and I freeze in place as he stands up and holds his hand towards me, with one finger up as to tell me 'hold on.'

I peer around his legs and see a silhouette come into view.

"Oh hey, didn't expect to see anyone here, usually this place is empty when I come around for a quick bowl." A feminine voice breaks the silence as she steps out from another trail - almost parallel to the one we came through.
It must lead to her backyard - whoever she is.

"Hold on, Syd?" Jace asks as he comes to a full standing position.

"Jace? Holy crap it's been forever!" She says excitedly, yet as quiet as she could before throwing her arms around him.

As soon as I see her basically throw herself onto Jace, I feel a tight feeling in my chest. What is that?

"You're not gonna introduce me to your friend here?" She asks as they separate from their hug.

"Oh! Yeah, Sydney, this is Addison, Addison, that's Sydney. She was my best friend in grade school until she moved about an hour away," he says, clearly ecstatic that his old friend is back.

   Through the slight illumination of the night sky, I can see her slightly scrunched nose and raised lip as she looks me over.

   "Yeah, we were actually more than friends for a while, weren't we Jacey?" She says, adding the cheesy pet name at the end which makes me gag internally.
   Jacey? Really?

   Jace chuckles awkwardly and scratches the back of his neck as he returns to my side and takes the joint - which is now burnt out, and lights it.
   "Since you're here and it's been a while, what do you say you smoke with us?" He invites her, smiling as he offers her a hit off the joint.

   "Y'know, sure! Why not?" She giggles before taking the joint and taking a couple puffs off of it before blowing out a single large cloud of smoke. Directly towards me.

   I cough and wave the smoke away - not that it's gross to me, but it was a large cloud basically straight in my face.

   Jace either brushes it off or didn't seem to notice, as he takes a couple puffs, then as he's passing it to me, she flashes me a glare as if to say stay away from him.

   After finishing that joint, and then finishing the next one, all while Jace and Sydney were mainly talking amongst each other.

   "So what did you think about her?" He asks, looking over at me with a smile on his face and nudging me lightly.

   I look up at him and smile back lightly.
"She seems nice! You said she was your friend from grade school?" I ask, half lying as we walk up the trail back towards the house.

   "Yeah, seventh grade. She was the new girl, and all the boys wanted a piece of her," he says, rolling his eyes.
   "As they usually did when a new girl came in, but you could say I was.. different. I didn't treat her any differently just because she was a girl, the new girl nonetheless, and we just sort of clicked." He explains, which in a sense makes me feel bad but still.
Good lord did she seem like a bitch.

   I nod, obviously unable to relate.
Oh if only I could tell you without fear of it somehow ending up as my fault.