The Dream

CHAPTER 11

"Jennifer..."

I couldn't speak. I mean, was she serious? She wanted to do drugs? She was beginning to turn out to be someone completely different from what I had expected. I was torn between walking out the door, and staying. The only thing holding me in place was my indecision and shock.

She released my arm and spun around the desk. She twisted off the rubber band and flicked it with her finger at me. It hit my chest and fell to the ground. She started to pour the cocaine out on top of the desk into a large pile.

I took a step towards her.

"Jennifer. What are you doing? Since when did you do drugs?" I asked.

She spun her finger through her curls.

"Since now."

"Jennifer, I don't think this is a good idea. Drugs are dangerous and if someone walks in--"

Her finger to my lips cut me short.

"What are you afraid of?" she asked. "No one is coming. No one has to know. Let's just have some fun."

"I don't know, Jennifer. Drugs aren't something you should play around with. People can get hurt or die."

"You act like I'm going to do the whole bag. I'm just going to try it. I thought..."

"You thought what? That you could lure me in here, take your clothes off, have sex with me, and then WHAM! plop some coke on the table and expect me to snort it with you?"

The impression on her face told me everything.

"Jennifer! I can't believe this." I said. "You really thought you could get me to do drugs with you?"

"I thought you liked me."

"I DO like you, A LOT! But this...this isn't good."

"Then just try it with me. I want to see what the whole hype is about. Come on, please." She begged.

"No, not going to happen."

"Just one line?"

"Jennifer, do you hear yourself right now? One line? That's all it takes to get you hooked, or worse, dead. Do you want to become one of those junkies who lives on the streets or whores herself around just to get enough cash to buy a fix?"

"You sound like my mother," she spat. "Just leave if you don't want to be with me. I'll do it by myself."

"I'm not leaving you alone. Not if you plan on doing this."

"I don't want you hear. Get out of my house."

"Jennifer, please..."

"GET OUT!!" She yelled.

The voices in the hall stopped chattering.

"Fine," I said. "If that's what you want, then I'll leave."

I turned to leave.

When I got to the door, my head dropped to my chest. I couldn't leave her, not if she was about do try cocaine for the first time. What kind of a person would I be if I didn't try to stop her?

I swiveled my head around.

"Why haven't you left yet? Get out, I said!" Her voice wasn't as demanding as before. I could see the fear in her eyes. Her hands were shaking as she suddenly raised them to her face. I heard her sobbing.

"Jennifer..."

"Just leave me alone," she said. "I know I'm boring. That's why my father works all the time, and my mother is off with her boyfriend."

"You're not boring, Jennifer. You're a very beautiful woman." 

I walked back over to her and placed my hand on her shoulder.

"No one cares," she said through tears. "Why don't they like me? Why are they getting a divorce? It's all my fault."

I placed her face against my chest and stroked her hair with my fingers.

"Your parents are getting a divorce?" I asked. "Since when?"

"I saw the paperwork in the desk. My mother has already signed it..."

"I'm so sorry." 

I tried to encourage her, but I had no idea what she was going through. My parents were still together. They weren't doing great, but they weren't getting a divorce. At least, I didn't think so. My own mind began to wander. My father wasn't around much lately. He was always traveling for work. Or, so he said. Now I wasn't too sure. Was he seeing someone else too like Jennifer's mom? Were my parents going to get a divorce as a result?

My own emotions started to swell up inside. But instead of sadness, the rage filled the hole.

I held Jennifer's face so I could see her eyes. She had tears all down the sides of her face. Even with the red in those eyes, she was the most beautiful girl I had ever laid eyes on.

"Let's do it," I said after a few more moments of thought.

She stopped crying and stared at me with a blank expression on her face.

"Let's do a line--together."

She backed away from me slightly.

"Are you sure?" She asked. "I don't want you to if you don't want--"

I cut her off.

"I want to. Let's do this. It'll be fun, right?"

I was too angry to care. If my parents were getting a divorce and she just hadn't told us yet, then that meant it was only a matter of time before my mother walked into my room one morning, balling her eyes out, to tell me the inevitable: 'Alex, darling....your father and I...' I wouldn't let her finish. I would already know.

I grabbed a ruler out of the pen stack and brushed some of the brown cocaine into a thin row. I pulled out my wallet and took out a five dollar bill. It was the only thing I had. I rolled it up into a straw-like cylinder and held it in my fingers.

Jennifer was staring at me. Her tears had stopped. The fear was wiped clean. She looked at me with a reign of admiration and something else. Desire?

"Want to go first?" I asked, holding out the five dollar bill.

She took it with her frail hands and placed it under her left nostril. With her free hand she pressed against the other to close it off for air circulation and pressure. She leaned down to the desk and placed the bit of the bill by the coke. She paused and looked back up at me.

"I'm right here."

Her eyes locked into determination and she bent back down and took a long whiff of her father's cocaine powder. She handed me the bill and fell back in the chair. Her hand rolled loosely on her shoulders and her eyes went wide.

I measured out another line of the coke with the ruler, then placed the bill against my own nostril and sniffed—hard. 

Author's Note:

What just happened? Alex went from adamantly opposed to trying drugs, to determined not to walk away until he did. Why the sudden change? Our poor souls are lost in a world of doubt and sadness. They feel as though they were abandoned or will be, and that they are worth nothing and to blame. But are they? Is there anything else they could have done? 

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