A Collection of Short Stories

High

Carrie, a tall, slim, disheveled honey skinned girl, runs through the hallway to her locker after the warning bell has rung. The halls are empty except for a few stragglers sauntering nonchalantly to class. Carrie's friend Taylor, a curvy umber girl, walks up casually. 

"Why aren't you in class?" Carrie says as she fumbles with her locker combination. 

"'Cause I just don't give a fuck anymore," Taylor says leaning against Carrie's locker. The bead of sweat running down Carrie's face seems more in a rush than the both of them. 

Carrie finally gets her locker open and her stuffed binder full of documents falls right out, scattering papers along the hallway floor. Carrie stares, mouth agape, fighting tears. 

"You gon' be okay girl, c'mon," Taylor says as she bends down to pick up the papers, motioning for Carrie to do the same. 

"I am so tired," Carrie says as she scoops up papers. She is shaking her head slowly and Taylor nods; she knows exactly what she means. 

"What you need is a lil pick me up," Taylor stands and hands Carrie some papers. Carrie looks at it and snatches it, eyes wide, "Samson's essay was due today! Shit," she exclaims. 

"Look, it don't even matter, its the end of our senior year, shit. You made it this far, you deserve to celebrate a little early," Taylor says. 

"Celebrate what? I can't graduate if I'm not passing my classes," Carrie hisses. She clutches all the papers and binder in her arms without even tidying anything. She looks quite pitiful and sad, on the verge of total defeat. 

"You won't survive if you not happy. What does all this even matter if you can't enjoy yourself? If you hate living? You need to de-stress and I know just the thing," Taylor says putting her arm around Carrie and leading her to her first period.

At lunch Taylor leads Carrie to the back of the school. It's desolate, no teachers, the bungalows are bare and some of the kids on skateboards look like they should've graduated five years ago. They go over to Andrei, an attractive, dark haired Russian-American boy dressed in black Supreme gear and always smiling. 

"Hey Andrei, how you doin'?" Taylor says. 

"I'm good now that you're here. What's up?" he says smirking suavely at Taylor. 

She gushes slightly, "what you got today? My friend here is trynna cop." 

"Okay, Friend," he turns to Carrie, "how much you want? It's 10 a G." 

"...Uhhhh..." Carrie stares at him awkwardly then looks to Taylor. 

"You got pre-rolls?" Taylor says. 

Carrie spaces out as they're speaking their plug-client lingo. She sees a boy behind Andrei trying to jump the rail of the bungalow with his skateboard. He fumbles his landing but ends up on his feet unscathed. He goes and chases down his runaway board. She shifts her gaze to catch a plume of smoke roll out of the lips of one of the older guys as he rests his head against the bungalow and closes his eyes in bliss. She doesn't see the source of his ecstasy, just the smoke. She snaps back to Taylor and Andrei. 

"Carrie, do you have money? I thought I had enough to get us something," Taylor says. 

"No, I left my money at home..."

"No dough, no dro. I'm sorry ladies," Andrei says. 

"That's alright, I'll catch up with you later," Taylor says to him while guiding Carrie away.