ᵍᵒᵈˡʸ • ˢᵒᵘᵗʰ ᵖᵃʳᵏ

[9]

⇾ BOUNDARIES

By the time you got outside the fierce burning in your throat had started to subside. Your eyes didn't feel so flooded and your stomach no longer felt queasy. You could still taste the vomit on the back of your teeth and on your tongue when you sucked it.

A breath of fresh air hit you like a sack of bricks, but the wind felt nice pulling your hair back and out of your face. You'd remained in the bathroom until the bell rang, signaling everyone to go home, and got stuck there for a few minutes longer praying the halls would be empty. They of course were not, but you kept your head fixed on the shiny freshly waxed floors and tried not to make it too obvious you were crying.

When you went back in the classroom to gather your things the sheet of paper was still sitting promptly on your desk where you'd left it. You didn't know why, but you hadn't been expecting it to still be there. You slung your bag over your shoulder and turned to leave but something stopped you in your tracks. Your feet felt numb against the soles of your shoes. Possessed by maybe desire, you spun around and grabbed the paper quickly.

Bursting open the front entrance doors, the parking lot was nearing empty at this point. A few kids still filed into their cars or were trailing down the sidewalk en route to their individual homes.

You clinked the lock off your bike and rolled it out of the rack, starting to throw your leg over before the call of your name grasped your attention. You flinched, noticing the speaker had ventured closer to you than you'd noticed.

"[Y/n], sup." Craig said coolly. He crossed his arms and leaned back against the brick wall. "Hey." you said, preoccupied fighting to roll up the stiff bike lock that had used to be your dad's and was likely from the 90's. "It's finally over.." he said with a heavy sigh, shooting a spit rocket onto the ground.

You assumed he was meaning the first day of school, meeting his eyes with a quirky smile, "Well, I thought the whole point was this is only the beginning."

He didn't lift his eyes from the ground when he reached to cram his big knobby hands in his pockets, pulling out something long and skinny. With it came a familiar smell that you'd grown to love. Marijuana.

As he sparked it you glanced around, the school grounds had become mostly empty but a few stragglers still remained. You spotted a couple nearby in the front seat of their car with each other's tongue's down their throats. They were passionate and hungry like wild dogs. You wanted that.

"Huh?" He asked, looking down at you with knit brows. You matched his look of confusion before taking the chance to explain, "The first day of school. We still have the rest of the year. Duh."

He shook his head with a tiny smile, drawing in another long drag of smoke. It didn't make him cough. "I'm talking about me and Tweek, stupid." Stupid you sure felt. You can't say you hadn't seen their breakup coming though. "Oh! Shit sorry, long day," It dawned on you that you had to be sympathetic, "What happened?"

He shook his head, silently telling you he didn't want to go into the details, "You know what happened."

Your fingers collided when he passed you the blunt, you let your bike fall on it's side gently. You didn't know how he could be so unafraid about smoking in public and being underage. Especially outside a school, as if that didn't make it that much more obvious. It wasn't like anybody much cared anyway, but you hadn't smoked in a while and knew you had the tendency to get paranoid. "Can we go over here?"

He answered with a nod and let you drag him around to the side of the school. You took a seat on some old forgotten concrete steps. You were out of sight from most everyone and with that you were satisfied.