Burning Sage

Chapter 5: Witchcraft

"He gave me the jim-jams alright. My heads just a'poundin." Hope sighed once we made it out of the brewery. "Ya not mad at me for crashin ya car?" She was fishing for some comfort, but she was too deep in her own shit to realize I'd been fishing this whole time. "Well-"

"Ya don't have to answer that. I know I'ma stubborn as a mule sometimes." "Right." And then I paused in my tracks, looking down the empty road like it was the highway to hell. "You still need a place to stay?"

"Like an ass-whoopin." She smiled, "But what about Maple? Ain't ya remember what she said in the car, sorta why I crashed the damn thang."

"I'm taking a break from her." We stood there under the lone streetlight. The same streetlight I stood underneath with Maple. "Oh for-like, forever?" She asked, her voice popping like a bubble.
"God no - I mean I love her but you know, she's a bitch sometimes. And it's hard to love a bitch." I didn't care what Maple had to say - not after walking out on me at prom. Not after seeing hell and being desensitized from it. Not after totaling the family car. Not after having my hog studied like a museum exhibit.

After what felt like an endless, sweaty trudge through the dark, we finally made it back to my house. The thought of facing my mother in the morning filled me with an eerie pulse, but luck was on our side - she was spending the night at her boyfriend's. Plus, the brewery was only a stone's throw from my house, so anyone who saw us probably assumed we were a couple of young lovers sneaking around in the night. I knocked on the front door and waited for someone to let us in.

That's when my little brother Landon appeared, opening the door. He'd just turned 16 and had that choppy, swaggy brown hair that only teenage boys can pull off. He was a lot shorter and smaller than me, and I made sure he knew it. "What happened to you guys?" he asked, noticing our disheveled state. "It's a long story." Hope sighed as we walked into the warm, familiar living room.

"Well get to talking brownies." Landon turned on the lights, which revealed the couches. "Um." I paused, noticing all the blood, dirt, and my favorite, puke, we had on us, "I don't even know how to start. Somehow my dick-"

"Hog." he corrected. Mom wouldn't let us use cuss words in her house. We had to use our own euphemisms. "Somehow my HOG got out of my pants." Me and Hope sat our dread sweated selves down on the couch.

"Well, that's not that helpful." Landon poked around, throwing himself on the other couch, "My hog can get out of my pants plenty of ways." He cleared his throat and raised his voice, doubling down like a drunk stepdad, "For example, I could be sitting here on the couch, with the t.v on. BOOM. A tit-flick comes on."

"Real men keep their pants up - Must run in ya family." Hope sighed with the rolling of her four eyes, "But I love when I get to watch the t.v so keep goin."

"Not a shitty flic, like 50 First Dates, ugh God, who gets off too Adam Sandler finger banging girls? No No NO. That's disgusting, borderline dead to God." He ridiculed, scrunching his face like he'd downed a bottle of liquor. "Look, say you had one of Dad's old flicks in the player. Hell, say Porkey's is coming on. It's past midnight, and nobody's around me. At some point, my hog will wiggle out of my pants."

"Really?" Hope gushed, her eyes bulging at the statement. I knew best to knock twice on his door when I needed him. "No." he sighed, "I'd obviously have to pull it out of my pants. SO, that means Sage would have had to have pulled it out at prom."

"I guess I forgot to zip up." I was sober and haunted by sobriety. "Ya guess. I'd be a shakin if I went out there bare-ass in all." Hope hid her ripped dress infront of me and Landon. It was like we'd made her a bit uncomfortable.