romeo + juliet ↠ l.h

31

Luke's POV
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The only thing I knew
is that I was a second,
and she was eternity.
I spun in clocks
and she swirled in stars
and I,
I did not deserve her.
-Christopher Poindexter

The test of distance.

Does everyone go through this? Wanting so badly to be near one person but unable to leave, stuck in a cycle of hurt and despair and never knowing what will happen next.

Spoiler alert: nothing ever happens next.

I've been away two months. Each day I wake up and think, this is the day things will change. They never do, no matter how often I get that feeling in my stomach that something big is about to happen.

I've learned to never trust my gut.

My dad had a buddy owe him a favor. That's how I ended up here while my parents lived with my grandparents in Napa. Goddamn boarding school.

People here were scared of me.

It might be because no matter how many times I was spoken to, I never replied. I had one friend, or more like acquaintance, and he just sold me weed. Sometimes, we would smoke together and he would try to get anything out of me. Where I'm from. Why I'm there. What I like to do. Where I'm going to school.

I kept it short. I'm from the east coast. I'm there because I have to be. I don't like to do anything except smoke weed. I'm not going to college.

My parents wrote me letters once a week. Sometimes I replied. Usually I didn't. My dad took my phone, afraid that I would tell someone from my old life what happened. He would rather deprive me of social interaction than have his pride wounded. My mom wrote how sorry she was, how it's only temporary, and that she'd come visit soon. Now, one week from graduation, I hadn't seen her, or anyone for that matter. Maybe the plane ticket was too expensive.

"Man, you need to stop with the mysterious act. You're leaving no chicks for the rest of us." JJ, my dealer, spoke. He had told me that I'm one of two of his customers. Turns out, when you go to a school with forty-two people per graduating class, there's not a high demand for weed.

"I have a girlfriend." I muttered, taking an extra long drag off the joint he'd rolled for us.

As much as I kept him at a distance, without JJ, I would go insane.

"Did the mysterious anomaly Luke Robert Hemmings just reveal something about himself? Who would have thought?" JJ's voice had a smoker's rasp as he spoke.

"Did that cart come in yet?" I tried to change the subject. I didn't need friends. I had friends back home.

"Don't think you're getting off that easy. Is that why you mope around and look chronically ill all of the time? Because you can't see your girlfriend?" JJ had a twing of amusement in his voice, but I knew it was all in good fun. "She break up with you when you got sent here?"

I shook my head, turning my focus to facing the joint. I would finish this tonight, then I would ask JJ to roll another one. I'd get high out of mind, like every single night since I'd been here, then I'd tread back to my dorm, not caring if the floor advisor smelt the marijuana on me. What are they going to do? Kick me out? Be my guest.