Just A Drag No One Wants To Inhale

Red Devil Magic

***

The week I spent with both Jamia and Jorden has to be one of my favorite weeks in my entire high school career. We laughed, we ditched, we cried once, but that was only because we were laughing so damn hard after Jamia's reaction when she inhaled for the first time. It was a very polite, "I didn't like that too much." It doesn't seem too funny now, but goddamn did we laugh in that equipment shed.

It's now lunchtime on the last day of school before Christmas break and my haze of happiness and nonchalance was wrecked by a statement from Jamia. "My dress is red, so your all's ties better match it or I'll sue."

I was frozen in my seat across from her with my sandwich halfway to my lips. Jorden took it out of my grasp, but my hands stayed in the same position. With his mouth full of the peanut butter and jelly sandwich that my mother made for us that day; he turned to Jamia and asked in the most blasé tone, "What kind of red we talkin', Jams?"

"You know..." She took a single glance at me, and that was enough to unfreeze me from my own thoughts. She quickly turned away from me to Jorden and elaborated, "Like... Christmas-red."

Christmas-Red? Huh.

The red that Jamia seems to be talking about is the kind of red that I associate with pure sex, lust and anger. It's weird how different people associate the same color with a multitude of things. I remember one time I asked Jorden the first thing that came to his head when I said 'red' and he replied with 'Hell'.

"So... Like the Devil-red?"

"Yes!" Exclaimed Jamia. "But with a little more... Holiday spirit."

"There's no such thing." Jorden dismissed with a wave of his hand. Jamia wanted to argue with him, she really did, but she thought better of it.

She turned to me and exhaled her frustration and wore a more calm look. "So, should we meet up at your place or at the entrance before we go in all together?"

I blinked at her a couple of times and no word managed to come out of my mouth. Thankfully, Jorden answered for me. "I think we should all meet at Frankie's. I know that his mom'll want to get a couple of pictures of us before we leave."

And that was the exact thing that I was going to say if I wasn't caught up on the fact that I completely forgot to rent a tux and the dance is tonight.

"Oh, and we can watch a movie or something when we get bored!"

"Exactly!" I gave Jorden a look of gratitude after I found my voice and he gave me a discreet thumbs-up and caressed my leg with his under the table. "And I've got Singin' In The Rain on VCR, so we could watch that if you don't wanna watch a horror movie."

"You do?" She squealed. Jamia stretched both of her hands out to mine and held them tight. "Thank you..." she said sincerely while looking at me dead in the eye. There was nothing I could do but smile back at her and try to ignore Jorden's awkwardness of being a third-wheel from beside me as he tried to look anywhere but our table with a sad, yet proud, grin plastered across his face that he tried to hide behind his hand.

The bell rang and it ruined the magic and green fireworks. We were thrown right back into reality and she awkwardly took her hands away from mine and stood up, almost losing her balance when she bent down to get her bag. "So, um, I'll uh..."

"My place. 7:30," I said for her. She seemed a little grateful that I spoke for her. That fucking grin on my face that she put there didn't seem like it was going away any time soon. "My mom'll have enough time interrogating the both of you and for us to take enough pictures to make all of our parents happy."