Chain Smoker

1

" What happened this time,'' Maude sighed , rolling over to prop her head on her elbow.

I sit on the edge of her bed, my head throbbing with anger and adrenaline.

" He slapped her, so I hit him back. And I had to get out of there before I did anything else. I think I broke his nose."

She became alert then and gathered the sheets to her bare chest as she crawled next to me and sat on her feet.

"Zack, haven't you learned to stay out of it?I told you all you did was cause more problems. Thi-"

"No,'' I interrupted,"he handled her like a man. She's just a girl, Maude. He slapped her like he was fighting someone that actually had half the strength he does. I can't just sit back and accept that."

We sat silently for a minute, the croaking of frogs and the air vent blending to create a peaceful but somewhat tedious noise. Maude looked me right in the eyes, knowing this was another one of ' those nights', then groaned and ruffed a hand through her long hair tiredly.

"Jesus Christ." She got up then, covers wrapped around her still, and grabbing blankets from her closet. " If they find you in my room at this hour, God, more like any hour they kill me. And hang you on a noose from the Oak in our yard."

I could tell she was annoyed, as always, and it made me laugh to myself ,despite my sour mood. Her fustratedly fluttering around mumbling curses. Directed at me I suppose.

" Well what the hell are you sitting around for," she whispered harshly," it's 4am and we have school in 3 hours. Hit the floor."

I flash her a thank you smile and it earns me the bird. Then I lay back on the pallet of quilts she arranged and listen to her move around for a bit until the lamp flickers off again.

By now you're probably thinking Maude is my prudish girlfriend. But in fact she isn't. She's my best friend, has been since freshman year, and to think of her as my girlfriend would be an insult to both of us. Not that Maude is repulsive, she is actually quite beautiful ; with bone-straight strawberry blonde hair ( nearly pink) and green eyes. A pastel green , she says, like the color of vomit, but I say the green you get in a bag of those horrendously awful fruit flavored marshmellows. Or better said, green of a piece of spearmint gum.

But an insult to Maude because she is the most independent girl I've ever met. And I look for your common airhead girl who's a complete bitch and looks for me to do everything for her, and I like to take care of them. Maude will barely let any boy pick up her pencil without her thinking they were discriminating the power of the female species and/or making a sexual advance toward her. 

OK, I might've exaggerated a little right there....but it was somewhat true.

She always talks like they are...and to be honest I wouldn't be suprised if they did do it in that mindset. Freshman to senior year had definetly changed her. She wasn't popular or anything, but in 9th grade when I met her she had a boyish shape, flatchested and awkward. But now, God, I'm fending off male suitors left and right for her. 

Right, exaggeration. Whoops.

Anyway, she has changed a lot. And she thinks I haven't noticed. Her hips widened and her chest filled out completely, and where her clothes used to hide they now fit in places that sparked imaginations of anyone with an X chromosome. Not exactly me, of course. No, not me.

But just this week Josh Finland was in the locker room talking about how he was turned around talking to her in Lit. and as she bent to pick up her book and he got a view of her valley and the single cigarette she keeps tucked between there. It made me angry, too. I was the only person who knew about that and now he was telling the whole 3rd hour PE how sexy it was  . And I thought of that book Maude read from to me once about how men objectify women, like Josh was making Maude out to be Breasts. If that's considered objectifying...

Unable to sleep,I roll over and focus on the strip of light spilling under a crack in the door. I become aware of the fact that her parents could come in at any time to check on her and find me seemed enthralling and scary at the same time. See, I've come to the conclusion that they don't know about me at all, because Maude won't let me meet them when I ask. Always sneaking me through the window on her balcony and hushing me when I speak too loud. I think her parents have scared her in that stupid logic that most parents scare their girls in. Y'know the one that everything to do with boys leads to sex and sex leads to pregnancy. I couldn't even get Maude to stay in the car with me for more than 10 minnutes when I first got my licsence sophomore year. And even after four years, though she dismisses it a hundred times over, she still flinches or twitches when I give her even the friendliest or touches. As if my hand on her shoulder is going to somehow seep through her skin and fertilize her eggs.

Though she does have a sort of rebellious side, which I brought around of course. She'll smoke, occasionally drink if she's in a mood, and she cusses like a sailor given the right circumstance. ( The last of which she developed on her own.)  

I was broken from thought as I heard her cough twice, before returning to her familiar light snoring pattern that eventually lulled me off into unconciousness.