Are you there God? It's me, an average confused teen

Hippie Central

My black combats tap across the wooden living room floor to the window. It's slightly dark and overcast, but I don't mind. It hasn't been really sunny in quite a while, even though it's the end of June and it should be, so I've pretty much gotten used to the grey clouds all day.

My mom, dad, brother and sister are all at work. Being the youngest used to bother me because I was left out of a lot of things. Now I don't mind the freedom to leave the house and do whatever without them knowing.

Walking out of the house to the beach three blocks down is peaceful, even with screaming toddlers playing in their yard and lawn mowers making their way around town.

I love my town. Not the people, but the town itself. It's a hippie town for sure. Everyone's families have lived here for generations. The parents smoke on Sundays when they send their kids to grandma's. The teens get high on Friday nights to celebrate that they made it through another week.

There's public art everywhere: paintings along the cement wall separating the road from the library, sculptures make of litter from the beach decorating the town hall, carvings in the slate stones that surround the park.

During the summer there are weekly concerts at the beach, free admission. It's always a bunch of old people (late 40's, early 50's) but thats just how it's always been.

I finally make my way to the beach and
sit on the edge of the dock. I look out on the water.

Soon there will be sailboats lined up here, people waterskiing and tubing and jet skiing.

Soon young children will crowd the sand begging their parents for money for the ice cream truck.

Soon, I won't be allowed to light up here like I do in the fall and the spring or like I'm about to right now. It's because too many people will be around. And even though everyone smokes it in this town, weed is still a crime and I can't smoke it in public.

Speaking of the devil, I light up. No one is around and I feel calm.

I can hear the waves and feel the beach breeze. I inhale, letting the drug take over my mind for a just a few seconds...and exhale.

I'm fourteen, soon to be fifteen at the end of the summer, so I know you're probably thinking there's something wrong with me because I've started so early. But I'm not a fuck up, my grades are fine, I have friends, my family isn't too bad either.

So you're probably thinking, why would I smoke?

I smoke for love, for hate, for internal feelings that I can't explain because they'll think I'm mental. I know now you're probably thinking, she's only fourteen, what does she know about love, hate and feelings?

I ask that same question to myself. I'm fourteen, so I shouldn't have all these emotions or concepts of love or anything. Maybe I don't even have them, maybe I just fucking love weed.

I breathe in and breathe out. The last time I came here to smoke was May 1st, and now it's June 24th. I'm not a fuck-up.

Something catches the corner of my vision. I squint, not sure what the speck in the distance is. It gets closer and closer, and finally close enough that I can tell it's a person, a guy. Shit.

Instantly I put out the flame and get up, stumbling a bit. How long was I smoking for? Being fucking high takes the time out of your hands, I guess. I start speed walking not directly toward him but toward the road next to him. Is he running? Shit, why is he running this way? Shit, I'm high and I can't walk any faster and I have to leave.

I run and the road beside me moves a little bit, blurring and un-blurring,
but I make my way into a shortcut through the woods and escape the weird scene of the beach. What just happened?