Lainey's Story

Fifteen

I woke up to Krist sitting at the table, hyperfocused on whatever he was drawing, he didn't even notice me climb out of bed.

"Did you even sleep?" I asked him. He grunted in reply, I took that as a no.

"Aye, baby, can you go get me a forty?"

I looked at the stove clock, it was 9:32 in the morning. I didn't bother telling him it was way too damn early for beer being he hadn't slept in however long and maybe the beer would help him start to come down. I knew he had to have been on day three or four.

Krist handed me a twenty, "Actually get me two, the Corona in the brown bottle. Fernando gonna be over soon to trade me for some shit."

"When is he supposed to be here?" I asked, the house was dirty and I was still in my big ass Hello Kitty pajamas, hair matted up, and face looking straight up ghoulish.

His eyes flashed dark, his jaw tightened somehow more than it already was. Looks like we were in for a fun day. I kind of hoped that Fernando got lost on a side quest and forgot to come by, I wanted dope too but with Krist in his mood, I didn't want to deal with that.

I grabbed my purse and keys, leaving without saying a word to Krist. I know I've already mentioned this before but Krist had two personalities, the spun Krist and the non-spun Krist. Let me fix that, there is a third Krist, his final form, the comedown Krist.

Krist when he isn't tweaking was still moody as fuck but he could be cute and sweet and fun to be with. Spun Krist starts out fun, fucks for hours, and then starts getting bitchier, paranoid, and quiet. That is what evolves to comedown Krist, which is when he would be mean, violent, and overall emotional. He might sock you in the head, he might cry and talk about suicide, heck he might do both. Or we could luck out and he'd take a couple of bong rips, eat, and pass out.

Comedown Krist was a wild card.

"Where your man be at, lil Mama?" I heard someone call.

I spun around, that dude Versace was sitting on the hood of a car that was definitely not his since his bum ass did not own a car. I had no clue why he was asking where Krist was since Krist made it clear that he didn't like him and was constantly clowning on him to his face.

"Upstairs?" I replied as though I was questioning my own answer.

"Where you off to looking all fine an' shit?" He asked, looking me up and down.

"Just the store," I told him, hoping Krist didn't happen to peek out the window and trip out on me for talking to the dude.

"That's what's up," he replied.

I nodded, "Yup," turning to get in my Jetta.

He wasn't an ugly guy by any means, especially by tweaker standards. Versace (whose real name was Mitchell, Krist occasionally called him Michelle) was lanky, maybe a hair shorter than Krist or even the same height. I guess he was Puerto Rican and white though other times claimed he was black/Puerto Rican, Native-you name it, he claimed it at some point. The only consistency was the fact this kid lied and changed stories on the regular.

Anyway, he had an ambiguous light caramel-colored skin tone so any of his claims never made one question him. I always had sorta assumed his white mom didn't know who his father was and simply said "I dunno, might have been this (insert descriptor) guy."

He had pretty, almost feminine features. High cheekbones, green eyes with long lashes, a square jawline, and full lips. His head was shaved nearly to the scalp though you could still make out that he was balding at an early age.

His arms, neck, and hands were covered in shitty home-done or jail tattoos, lots of blurred stick-n-poke, and downright poorly done shit on him, including a huge W that covered his entire left cheek. The W stood for Whittier even though he claimed to be from Compton.