Teenage Dirtbags

1

"I'M JUST A TEENAGE DIRTBAG BABYYY" Me and my friends scream at the top of our lungs. My friend, Jayda takes another puff from her cigarette and my friends, Gwen and Aidan are screaming "shots" and chugging a bottle of Jack Daniels. My brother, Jaydon stood off to the side with a fifth of Fireball in one hand and a Mr. Vapor Flex, raspberry mango flavored in the other. He took a hit followed by a big gulp of Fireball. I flick a lighter on to make sure it worked before handing it to Jaydon's girlfriend Lana. She lights a joint takes a hit and passes it to my brother, Noah.
A few minutes later we hear police sirens getting closer to us.
"Everyone pack up your shit the 5-o are coming." Gwen yells to everyone.
"Ah shit not the goddamned piggies of all people" Aidan laughs and shoved the Jack Daniels into Gwen's backpack.
Everyone packs everything up and meets at the broken window they climbed through. One by one everyone quickly climbed through. After we all get through we start to run towards the woods. We keep running hearing the police cars screeching to a halt in front of the old abandoned church.
Funny enough we had never been caught and the police always assumed it was one of the gang members in our town. Since there are many abandoned buildings there are plenty to split between the gangs and the rambunctious teenagers. The cops never suspected a thing. That's what we got from our deal with the gang. But the gang they got us to go around and sell drugs to the students at school. We earn security, they earn cold, hard cash. Simple.
We get to a spot about fifty feet into the woods and stop at a huge tree. Jaydon who was ahead of everyone as usual pulled a string and a bunched up rope ladder unraveled. We climbed up the ladder in a hollowed out hole in the tree. We have plenty of room since the tree is roughly six feet wide, a decent sized sequoia. Like I said a huge tree. Everyone else climbs in before me and when I reach the top I place my bag on my lap and pull the ladder up into the hole. We all turn our phones to silent and power off anything that can make noise or light.
We sit and wait for a few hours as we usually do when Sandra the town snitch calls the police. After we are sure the coast is clear I throw the rope ladder back down. Noah wraps the rope around a branch so he can pull the ladder up when we are all on the ground. We all climb down groggily and wasted from drinking the rest of the Jack Daniels and Fireball and we all had a Buzzball, mine was green apple flavored. Beside that we had a 16-pack of white claws and a 12-pack of Mike's hard lemonades.
The boys climbed down first then as us girls climbed down they helped us get down carefully. The boys are always so sweet to us when they are drunk it's so cute. But kinda cringey. But I love it.
Noah helps Gwen and Jayda down since he's the biggest and they are pretty small. Jaydon helps Lana down because duh they're dating. And Aidan helps me down. Every single time. Me and Aidan have this thing. We aren't sure what it is exactly but we know that we are always clingy and when we aren't together we get sad and miss each other. I don't know about him but I think it might be love.
But I can't feel love im supposed to be a rowdy teenager who doesn't care about finding love or being in love. It's against the code even Jaydon and Lana know that. I can't be in love because this isn't a love story. It's a friendship story. Right?

—

It's been an hour since we left the tree and it's just me and Aidan. Noah went home quickly because he had to take a piss and Jaydon is staying at Lana's. Gwen and Jayda live in the complete opposite way as us so they split off fifteen minutes ago. Aidan lives around the corner from me so we walk home together these nights. The nights when we sneak out and get crossfaded and meet up with the gang to give them their money and get more drugs when it's needed. Which is usually every Saturday night at 3am so technically Sunday morning. When we do meet with the gang we meet at an abandoned warehouse about five miles out of town.
Aidan pulls out his phone and powers it on. If I'm completely honest I forgot I had a phone for a moment. I usually do when I'm with Aidan. Or even when it's just powered off for reasons presented tonight. Aidan pulls a pair of earbuds from his pocket and plugs them into his phone. He puts one side into his ear and the other side into mine. I adjust its placement as he finds a playlist to listen to. After a few seconds he pushes play on a song. He turns his phone off and puts his phone in his pocket. He wraps his arm around my shoulders and I lean my head on him. We continue walking slower now towards my house.
We reach my house and stand outside my window. We take out the earbuds and he shoves them into his pocket. I open my window a little first to prevent to much noise then slide it the rest of the way open. I climb through and turn around to look at Aidan.
"Goodnight Zoey. Sweet dreams!" He tells me smiling then turning around to leave.
"Wait." I yell quietly.
He turns around and looks at me.
"wait," I whisper this time "stay for a little bit. Please." I pout.
He sighs sarcastically and walks back to my window. He pushes himself through and lands on the floor with a quiet thump. I laugh silently at him as he looks up at me. He stands up and goes over to my bed. He lays down on the side furthest from the wall. I have my bed against the wall because I feel safer when sleeping facing a wall then being in the open. I go to my closet and open the squeaky folding door. I open a drawer in my dresser at the bottom of my closet and grab a pair of track shorts. I leave the drawer open and begin looking for a shirt to wear.
"Ugh." I say irritated.
"What's wrong?" Aidan asks looking over at me.
"I can't find a single shirt that looks comfortable right now."
He pulls his baggy worn out Led Zeppelin shirt off and tosses it to me.
"What about my shirt?" He asks.
I grab his shirt off the ground and hold it up. I look at it for a second before responding.
"I don't know," I say messing with him. "It looks pretty questionable to me." I quote his favorite Disney movie.
He smiles at me.
"Just try it on and see how comfortable it is."
I shrug and walk out of my room. I go to the bathroom and get changed. I take my makeup remover and a cotton pad and start rubbing my face with it. If it were any other guy I wouldn't take my makeup off until after he left. But Aidan is different. He has seen me through my highs and lows. And has never lost any respect for me. And for that I have never lost any for him.
Before I go back to my room I peek my head into Noah and Jaydon's room. Noah is already fast asleep. He usually is. And Jaydon's bed lays unoccupied and lonely looking. I sigh and slump my shoulders.
I go into my room and climb into my bed next to Aidan. I feel around for my Roku remote. I grab ahold of two things in the same spot. Of course they are both right there. I laugh in my head as I bring one of the objects to my mouth and take a hit. It's my orange mango watermelon Breeze. A classic. I use my free hand to use the remote and turn on my tv. I click the dark blue button at the top of the remote and it redirects me to Disney+. I scroll until I find a movie that I think is boring enough that I'll fall asleep.
I push play on 'The Princess Bride', a movie I've found exhaustingly boring since before I can remember. I get up one last time to lock my bedroom door and turn my LED lights to the dimmest setting and change it to red to help prevent blue light head aches. I do it every night and everyone thinks I'm horny but I'm not. Aidan knows I'm not. He does the same thing. Something about the color red helps us sleep easier.
I lay down in bed next to him again and curl up next to him my head resting on his chest. He puts his arm over me and rests his hand on my back. He rubs his thumb along my back and places his chin on the top of my head and we drift off to sleep.