Blood Moon (Paul Lahote)

Eighteen: Nothing

"FUCK." I say and slam my head into the steering wheel after trying to start the car over and over again. I get out and try to look at the engine one more time. I pushed my car to the grassy curb after the deer ran off and my car started sputtering.

All my thoughts are of Jason. I can't clear my head enough to figure out what to do next. I open the passenger door and sit down while I dig through my glove box till I find it. Hidden in a glasses case is two joints and a lighter. I take one out and the lighter. I take a shaky breath and another tear falls down my face and I get mad at myself for it.

Just one hit. One hit is all I need.

I lean on the passenger seat with my feet dangling out of the car while I light the joint. I take a long drag that burns my lungs and blow it out. I feel my throat and lungs burn and I cough for a second. I can't stop coughing and I feel like I'm about to throw up. I take a shaky breath and feel my high hit me like a bus. My tolerance is so low that I immediately feel better. I feel myself relax, like all the pain melted away from my body. I lic my finger and put out the joint, gently tapping it until it stops smoking. Then I put it back with the lighter in the glove box and pull out my phone to call Dad.

"Hello?" He answers. I can hear the tiredness in his voice.

"I hit a deer on the way to the cultural building." I say trying to focus on sounding somber. "Can you come pick me up please?"

"Yeah." He says. "You called at just the right time."

"See you in a bit." I say and hang up. I sigh and lean back in my chair. Then it hits me, my moment of realization. It happened. It happened to me. I felt a tear roll down my cheek and I buried my face in my hands to control my breathing. The pain never stopped. I only got used to it, but it never stopped. I'm never going to let another person hurt me like that, ever again. Chills go down my body and I get this sick feeling at the pit of my stomach that I can't shake. Thank god I'm high right now. A twig snaps and I look up to see Paul coming out of the tree line. He rushes over to me. I really didn't want to deal with anyone right now. I want to be alone. I just want to sleep, and snack around.

"Are you okay?" He asks. I look at him and nod my head. "What happened? I heard you crying while I was on patrol."

"I wasn't crying." I lie, not even trying to wipe the tears from my face. "I just hit a deer. I'm fine."

"What's that smell?" He asks and sniffs the air before looking down at me with a scowl on his face.

"I also hit a skunk." I lie and mentally roll my eyes at his reaction. I hope he believes me because weed does smell a lot like skunk spray. I remember smelling a skunk one time and thought of weed. When I was a kid I smelt weed and thought of skunk spray. I should make a meme of that.

"You're lying." He grits and snaps me out of my thoughts. I look up at him and my eyes feel tight. His face is hard, and I just now notice how beautiful he is. He grabs my face and I frown while he examines me. My eyes can't be red, I don't have enough in my system for that. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing." I say, swatting his hands away from my face. "It's none of your business. My dad is coming to pick me up."

"You can't go to the funeral like that." He scolds. I give him a look and shake my head.

"The hell I can't." I snap. "What's wrong with you?"

"I'm just worried about you." He sighs and wipes his face with his hand.

"For what?" I ask. I don't like when people judge me for smoking, he doesn't know what happened and why I smoked. "I told you I'm fine-"

"But you're not!" He snaps. "You hit a deer and you're sitting here high right now. You're not fine." He's interrupted by the sound of a car approaching. I grab my bag from on the floor board and take my key out of the ignition before standing up and shutting the door. I ignore Paul as I lock my car and get into the passenger side of the car.