After a loud row with my mom and my stepfather go to my room in the AirBnB that I'm sharing with my stepbrother Freddy. He's sitting on his bed and using his phone. I want to take mine out of my back pocket, when I remember that my stepfather confiscated it. Shit. Freddy is now looking me. ,,How old are you?", he asks me. ,,17, why?" He gives me his phone with his google search. It says: ,How to cope with an annoying dumb and fuckboy 17 year old stepbrother'. ,,Thanks mate." What an asshole. He runs to my mom and shows her. She frowns but doesn't give him a punishment. I know, he's twelve, but it's still annoying. I want to go to bed, but my mom makes me help her cook. With my hangover it's not very easy, but I manage. My stepfather and Freddy went shopping, so I'm alone with my mom. She's different without him. Since she married Ryder, she changed. She's become a bit of a bourgeois. ,,Colson. I have a serious question. You've been sleeping at many girls' houses. Did you use condoms?" I laugh and my mom glares at me. ,,Mom, I'm still a virgin, chill." She takes a deep breath. ,,Ryder and I have been thinking a lot. You've been causing us a lot of trouble and stress. And we received your phone bill. 100 pounds? Really? We told you not to switch on your data, but you still did. You obviously drank as well, you never met your curfew time and you're making it very difficult for us to enjoy our holidays. I don't even want to know, where you got that terrible scar from." She avoids looking at me. ,,Colson, we think it's better if you go home." At first I think, I misheard. ,,What?" I see that it's costing her a lot of self-control not to cry. "You're going home. Your train ticket is booked. You're leaving tonight. Go and pack your things. We'll drop you at the station in an hour." I first think I'm dreaming and it's my hangover. But I see my mom's biting her bottom lip, like she always does when she has to talk about something serious. She's not kidding. I'm going home. I can't believe it. Avoiding my mom's eyes, I walk to my room and start stuffing all my belongings into my suitcase with no care. When I pack my Comme des Garçons t-shirt, I stop for a moment. It was a gift from Dylana. She had brought it back from Paris. She bought it from her saved money. I'm sure she'll bring her new boyfriend something from Chicago. I wonder what. Well actually I don't care. Or do I? I don't. He's an imbecile. I'll never understand how she could like him after me. Him and I are completely different. Out of my pocket I take my phone that I had took from Ryders jacket pocket. Why did he even bring a jacket? I go on Instagram and check out her profile. No new picture. But her description has changed. She used to have Kai's initials in her bio. KD. Kai Diggory. But she must've taken them away. I wonder why. I text our only mutual friend, Mara. She immediately answers.
,Yeah, they broke up before the holidays started.'
Oh, wow. I shouldn't care. I should ban her from my thoughts. I dig in my suitcase and find a joint that I packed before I left. I go and sit on the balcony. With matches that I brought from a restaurant, I light it. After only a few puffs I feel the THC working. With every puff my body gets more and more relaxed. Everything feels super intense. The sun on my skin, the sweaty hair on my forehead, my eyelids closing. I feel super high, a feeling I know so well. I could fall asleep now. But if I do, my mom will catch me smoking the joint and put me into a boarding school. Before that can happen, I finish the joint and stick the stub in the wooden planks of the balcony. With my sunglasses on my nose to hide the red veins in my eyes, I go downstairs. In the meantime Ryder and Freddy had come back. They're discussing something, most probably me, with my mom, but I don't give a shit. I use the time to text Dylana.
'Hey, I heard about your breakup with Kai. What happened?'.
When I'm high I'm braver. Well not braver, but I think less about my actions. I know that I'll regret texting her, but I don't care at the moment.
YOU ARE READING
It's been a Year
RomanceDylana and Colson broke up over a year ago, but they still cross each other's minds daily, no matter where they are. Currently Dylana is in Cape Town with her family and Colson is in Italy roaming between four (or five? Maybe six?) different girls.
