Attention What If

Chapter 34

POV: Darleen

It's almost like I don't recognize her. She becomes a whole other person when she's high. More brazen, more outspoken, more... mean. I don't have the heart to tell her that I've been faking it this whole time. That I haven't actually been inhaling the smoke, just holding it in my mouth for a bit before releasing it.

Sure I'm high, but not as high as she and Vida are.

I should have told her.

About why I don't like this stuff, about how I watched it destroy my previous relationship. How it started out like this for Lexi, just weed, some CBD pills, then slowly progressed into hard drugs.

Skylar says it's just to help her relax, but now I see with my own eyes, that's not what this is about. Like Lexi, she's using this as an escape from reality, and that can be a dangerous edge to walk on. Sometimes people get lost in the fantasy and end up falling off the deep end.

I used to smoke weed too, back in high school. My senior year, when Lexi came to visit that summer we used to get high and drunk all the time. I hardly remember my life back then, it all went by in a blur. It's the reason Aphrodite and I drifted apart back then, I started getting into some bad things, was acting out, and was immature.

Watching Skylar now, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

It makes me wonder, why does she have to get high to show this much of her personality? Is she just faking it all the time? Is she actually happy around me? Or is there something else going on under the surface? Some scary thing inside Skylar I don't know about. Some darkness I can't navigate yet.

The whole scene just rubs me the wrong way. The way she basically throws herself at me or Vida every chance she gets. How she suddenly likes to kick things and throw things and cuss a lot. It's like I can see this anger inside of her, clawing its way out.

There is trying to relax and take the edge off, and then there is this.

Whatever this is.

"Okay, okay, okay but could you imagine, a girl's trip with you and Jean there this time? Dear god, kill me now." Skylar laughs loudly.

"Hey, I say we tag team the bitch, go on a cruise, and "accidentally" push her overboard. Let the bitch drown." Vida says.

"Fuck yeah!" Skylar once again kicks the table.

"Then we celebrate with a party on deck."

Skylar starts to dance around before she tumbles into Vida's arms. The two laugh loudly.

I glance at the time, we've already been here a couple of hours.

Skylar has thrown herself at Vida so much that her shirt has blue dye on it, from Vida's wet hair. They are so high they haven't even noticed I stopped smoking yet, or that I haven't said a word in the past half hour.

I only agreed to this to see for myself why Skylar is suddenly doing this. And I think I have all the answers I need. This ends today.

"I'm starving! Let's get food," Vida proclaims.

"Beasty, order us food!" Skylar barks at me.

"Yeah! Put that money to good use!" Vida eggs her on.

Skylar must read my face because she narrows her eyes at me and gets out of Vida's lap and crawls into mine, wrapping her arms around my neck.

"Why are you mad?" she asks.

"I'm not," I lie.

"You are." She says.