Page 79 of Riot Act
“All right, then. Well I guess you’ve got this all figured out, haven’t you.”
She rolls her eyes up at me. “More than you do, I’d venture.”
This is the perfect moment for me to let rip. She insulted my writing. She’s been so fucking annoying for so fucking long now that I have plenty of ammunition in my belt, and a couple of real harsh comments in the chamber, locked, cocked and ready to rock. But then she looks up at me, and the soft mid-afternoon sun caresses the side of her face, and all I can do is clench my teeth as I sink down into the grass next to her.
“You’d have had better luck just texting something sharp and hateful back, y’know? Instead of coming to have it out with me face-to-face.” Holding a lighter to the bowl, she sucks, dragging a plume of smoke into her lungs. Her eyes water as she holds it in her lungs like a fucking champ. She doesn’t even cough when she releases, which I quietly admire.Veryquietly. My admiration presents itself in a swift pinch of her calf through her jeans.
She kicks me in return.
She’ll probably leave a bruise. She doesn’t hurt me, though. She could neverhurtme. “What are you talking about? Why the fuck would I ever bother texting you something sharp and hateful?”
“Because you’re butt hurt about the divisive comment, and I said you could do better. You came after me to tell me off. I can see it on your face. You should have just texted me back and saved yourself the trouble.” Like bottomless drowning pools, her pupils have eaten her irises again. The burned sage and caramel of her eyes gone, replaced with a dark void.
“I don’t give a shit what you think about my writing. I know it’s good.” I take the pipe from her, hating the fact that she’s the one encouragingmeto sin and not the other way around.
“If you say so.” She does that thing, where a girl will casually hitch a shoulder and angle their head to look off at something that isn’t there on the horizon—a low key, bullshit maneuver, the sole purpose of which is to tell you that she doesn’t believe whatever just came out of your mouth but has no plans to argue with you about it.
Fuck killing her; I’m ready to kill myself at this point. Anything to end this weird cycle I’ve found myself caught up in. I keep waiting for myself to snap back to reality and lash out at this person. If I were in my right mind, my usual, regular, take-no-shit self, I would have canned this nonsense a long time ago and done or said something terrifying enough to make sure Presley Maria Witton Chase stayed the hell away from me for forever and a day.
And then an extra day on top of that.
But she’s done something to me. She’s warped my mind and twisted my insides up, and now my soul has been pretzelled into some jacked up, nonsense knot of alien emotion, and I don’t have a clue what the fuck I’m doing anymore. When did this even happen? I used to make sense to myself. Now, I don’t have a clue how to make heads nor tails of my own existence. I’m a stranger in my own skin and it sucks balls.
To the right of us, beyond the tiny ornamental cemetery, three geese begin to squabble on the lake, honking and kicking up a fuss. Chase watches them, and I watch her, fighting the urge to grab hold of her. If I knew myself better right now, and I could trust myself, I’d give myself free rein. Normally I’d do something deplorable. Pin her down and show her just how powerless she is in this whole situation. But honestly, the idea of doing that seems laughable. Holding her down and degrading her will backfire in the worst way. I know in my heart that she’d enjoy it, and anyway, there’s every chance that I’ll kiss her instead. Bury my face into her hair so I can inhale the essence of her, crushing her to my chest, trying to absorb her into me somehow.
Is this how other people feel? Is this fuckingnormal? I don’t see how it can be.
“I made you something,” she says.
I hit the bowl hard, pulling with all my might, holding the flame of the lighter she passed me over the weed as long as I can bear it before the burn becomes too much and my throat starts to scream.
I don’t want any more gifts from you.
I don’t want my mind to be fixed on you when the sun comes up and when it goes down.
I don’t want to be sitting here, getting randomly high with you in the middle of the afternoon, when I could literally be anywhere else.
These are the churlish retorts I fire off in my head, while I hold the smoke in my lungs. They’ve all vanished when I exhale. “Great. Enlighten me. What did you make me, Chase?”
The left-hand corner of her mouth pulls up—she’s pleased. Skipping over an explanation, she dips her hand into the pocket of her jeans and pulls something out: yet another length of woven thread. It’s all black this time. There’s a very small orange stone woven into the very center of it. “It’s Citrine,” she says. “Good for lots of things.”
I give her a hard look, eyes full of steel. “I won’t wear it.”
“Why not? You’re still wearing the other one.”
“I haven’t found my scissors yet.”
“You are absolutely ridiculous. Take it.” She thrusts the bracelet at me, taking the pipe away as soon as I’ve inadvertently accepted her trite gift. She dumps out the charred remains of the weed we just smoked and begins packing the bowl afresh from her tin.
I’m going to hurl her bullshit gift into the lake.
When I get up and we move away from the maze, I’m going to do it.
Just watch and see if I don’t.
I set the bracelet down on top of my knee, feeling the cells of my body vibrate as the weed begins to take effect.
“I don’t think your writing’s divisive,” Chase says. “You’re just so blunt. There’s no subtly to the way you set words down. It’s like you’re laying bricks, trying to build a house, but you’re not using any grout to hold those bricks together.”
