DAZED AND CONFUSED | VANCE HOPPER

.Chapter 06.

VANCE DIRECTED ME TOWARDS a graveyard parking lot. The sun beat down on the tombstones, and fed tge soft grass. I stared blankly at all the lively greenery in such a deadly place.

"A graveyard. Really?" I asked, unbuckling my seatbelt.

He nodded, doing the same as I. "Yeah, no one ever comes up here. Especially where we're going."

I grabbed my baggie of weed out of the console, a tin, and an old newspaper from home. "Oh great, for all I know you're taking me somewhere to murder me for breaking your highscore."

He laughed, short and fake. "Oh, you never know."

I followed him across the graveyard, and up a hill, with a single grave atop it, accompanied by a weeping willow tree. The gravestone was flat against the ground, and overgrown with vines. I brushed them away to read the words.

Vance grabbed my wrist, and grit his teeth. "Don't fucking touch that shit."

I furrowed my brow and yanked my hand away. "Okay, okay, Jesus."

He sat down, cross-legged across from me, and I sat too, lying everything out. I rolled a joint with newspaper scraps.

"Got a light?" Vance asked, watching me take the roll between my teeth and dig through my vest pockets.

I shrugged. "Fuck. Guess not. You got one?"

He pulled a lighter out of his pocket and held it out, flicking the spark to life. I leaned forward and allowed him to light the end, curling my lips in a smile.

We sat there for a bit, passing the joint back and forth, blowing smoke to the trees.

"So," he said, finally. "Where are you from?"

I took a hit and passed it over. "New Jersey,"

He raised an eyebrow. "That far? Damn. What's that drive like-?"

"All around, it was twenty eight hours, but we split it up into two fourteens. Wasn't that bad, honestly." I said.

"Do you miss it?" Vance asked.

I took a second, and looked at the sky, twisting blades of grass between my fingers as the corners of my eyes began to sting, and my veins began to buzz. "I do, yeah. I guess. A lot of shit tied to Jersy I don't want to think about, either."

Vance nodded, and squashed the joint on the mysterious gravestone lazily with his boot. "Understandable. Uh, well, I've never had anyone to smoke with, so this is nice."

I smiled, a real smile. "I've had people who've watched me smoke, but I've never had a smoking buddy."

"Ah," he smiled. "I'm kinda glad I'm your first, because you're my first."

The early sun had risen high in the sky, and I most definetly missed out on my breakfast completely. I didn't care. I fell back into the lush grass, and looked at the clouds through the cracks in the willow tree.

"What are you doing?" Vance asked, watching me.

I shrugged and stretched. "Watching the sky."

Smoking weed made me sleepy, and that's about it. I don't get that jolt of idiocy that most people do, but maybe that's because I've had my hands on it from such a young age. I try to stay away from other drugs, because I haven't got a deathwish. I just want to be calm, I want my anger to disappear, I want the voices in my head to silence, I want peace. Marijuana gives me that peace. I wish it gave my father that peace.

"How old are you?" Vance asked, questions spilling as the weed began to work its magic.

"Sixteen," I responded, continuing to look at the sky.

He nodded, rubbing his palms on his thighs. "Me too."

I raised an eyebrow, but ignored his odd behavior, putting my hands under my head like a pillow.

He just didn't stop. "Do you have anyone? Waiting for you back home, I mean."

I shrugged. "Not really, just my friend Lillianne."

"How'd you get those bruises?" Vance thought aloud, pointing at my legs.

"Stop talking." I hissed, flipping him off.

The boy threw his hands up in self defense. "Okay, okay, no talking about the bruises. Got it."

All the clouds moved clear of the sky, and all I could see through the leaves was a light blue, vast and unmoving. I imagined the sun, all the way up in the sky, looking down at me. Laughing at me. Crying for me. Disgusted by me. The sun doesn't like me.

Maybe that's why my life is so shitty during the day. I am a child of the moon, the daughter of the stars. A maiden of the night, if you will. At night, when I sleep, I can escape into my dreams, I can hide in the corners of my mind, in oblivious bliss.

There was a loud thump in the grass beside me, and I turned over to see Vance on his back, watching the sky as I was. "What's so fucking interesting about doing this? I'm bored already."

"Nothing about it is, I'm just calm." I sighed, studying his face.

Vance had bushy eyebrows, and a sharp jawline. He had a rather large nose, that, by the looks of it, has been broken once or twice. Hazy blue-gray eyes, surrounded by red, at the moment. His hair fell in a shag, untamed and uncared for, tangled and twisted to itself. I wanted to reach out and touch it, but I refrained.

He smiled carefully and held out his hand. "Friends?"

I shook it. "Enemies."

We shared a brief laugh, or, what should have been a brief laugh, but neither of us could stop laughing, feverish giggles rising in our throats, refusing to cease until the other stopped.

Then a scream. A high-pitched, shrill scream, and the slamming of breaks, the slamming of a car door. Then silence.

That scream. I know that scream, lengthy and unnatural, as if the person didn't know how to scream. I shot up. "Emma."