1.7 | Porch

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THAT SPRING, I started work at my uncle's landscaping business part-time

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THAT SPRING, I started work at my uncle's landscaping business part-time.

It was grueling work, especially living in hot and humid Louisiana. I came home nearly every day with my work clothes drenched in sweat and grass-stains.

It could also be stressful work, too. I'd found that out one particularly hot day when my lawnmower stopped working halfway through the yard I was mowing. The whole thing set me back a few hours, and I ended up coming home later than normal in a grumpier mood than normal.

But my bad day didn't end there, because when I went to take my shower, there wasn't any hot water left.

Because Hitch had used it all during her shower.

I was boiling in anger when I stepped out of my bathroom, freezing cold as I stomped into my room.

I wanted to explode on Hitch, and not just because of the cold shower I had taken. I had been bottling up everything that made me mad about her for weeks, making good on my promise to make her feel 'welcome.'

Instead of tracking her down and letting my anger out like I wanted to, I decided to calm myself down the best way I knew.

By getting high.

It was easy to find a blunt in our house back then, as easy as grabbing one from the rooster-shaped cookie jar on top of our fridge where Phil and Hitch kept them.

I was lighting up before I even got to the back porch, exhaling when I was outside. It was raining, making the humidity even worse. My shirt started to cling to my chest the longer I stayed out there.

I sat back in one of the Adirondack chairs Phil and I had found on some curb back when we first moved in together.

They were put on the curb for a reason—weathered with chipped, red paint—but you could sit in them, so we didn't care. Free was free.

I enjoyed myself and my blunt on my crappy chair for about sixty seconds before the screen door to the house loudly slid open and Hitch walked out.

"Oh, hey," she greeted, gracefully plopping down in the chair next to me. She nodded toward the blunt on my frozen lips. "Rough day?"

I exhaled my stale puff of smoke in frustration, feeling my nerves light up with the flick of her lighter as she lit a blunt of her own.

"You have no idea," I grumbled, looking away from her and taking another long, much-needed drag. I hoped that I could finish the rest of my blunt in silence, but she started talking before I could even breathe out.

"I had a crazy day, too," she started, folding her tanned legs underneath her in her chair. "Some older chick tried to return a bunch of records without a receipt and was giving me a hard time about it. And the records were very obviously used—like I could see scratches all over them and the jackets were beat-up." She rolled her eyes. "It took forever for her to leave. I had to get my boss to deal with her and everything."

Hitch PepperWhere stories live. Discover now