Chapter Text
I’ve never quite liked the idea of romance or intimacy. There’s something so boring about it. You’ll spend roughly three months in the ‘honeymoon’ stage, enjoying one another and getting comfortable. But after that, there’s a sort of vapidity to the relationship. The spark slowly fades out, you get used to each other, and there’s nothing new. For me, there just isn’t any appeal to relationships, maybe i’m a pessimist or maybe too much of a realist. People often find comfort in relationships, amongst other things. Such as friendships, family, hobbies, you know. Personally, I can’t find comfort in anything.
Well, except drugs. I find comfort in things like lighting a blunt, feeling it burn its way down my throat, flicking the ash off a cigarette, nose bleeds, and other typical drug addict things. Now, I know you must be thinking, “Seventeen and a drug addict?” I know I’m destroying my body and my health before I even hit eighteen, but, I just stopped caring about that after a while. Starting to smoke weed at fourteen, getting caught, being sent to rehab twice, and going through every type of treatment there is, just for nothing to work. I do not condone the use of drugs, not at all, please, do not get into that shit unless you know it’s going to fuck up your life and you’re willing to let that happen.
As I said, nothing fucking worked. Not therapy, not weaning off, not rehab, nothing. Not even knowing that it was destroying my relationship with my mom and my little sister made me stop. To my surprise, it was the boy in my gym class that made me stop.
Rodrick Heffley. A self-proclaimed ‘teenage dirtbag,’ piece of shit. I wish I could hate him for all he shit he put me through, I genuinely wish I could, but he was the one who made me stop doing everything.
How did he do it? Let’s start from the beginning of everything.
It was the first day of my junior year, eighth period gym class. I sat out as I always did, which is I’ve been in gym since freshman year and have yet to have gotten my credit, reading some stupid horror novel that made no sense. Rodrick came and sat next to me out of nowhere. He had shaggy brown hair, big brown eyes, and dressed like he was out of 2009. A black shirt, brown flannel and blue jeans, with ratty ass sneakers. He must have been like 5’11 or something, pretty tall and lanky. I've known him since freshman year, of course, he’s a grade above me. I don’t think he knew me though.
“Hey,” He had said to me, nothing more. He looked at me with some sort of fascination in his eyes, like he had never seen me before.
I looked up at him, slightly confused, “Um, hi?”
“What are you reading?” He asked with a softness I hadn’t expected, and to be honest, his voice was quite dulcet. Deep and smooth, that was one thing I found myself liking about him.
“Just some horror book, it’s pretty boring.” I replied, shrugging at him.
He just stared at me for a few moments, not saying a word. It wasn’t an uncomfortable silence, there was something peaceful about his presence, can’t say that feeling lasted very long after meeting him.
“Do you smoke?” He asked, no hesitation.
The question caught me off-guard, making me cough a little, “Oh. Uh, yeah.”
He hummed in response, nodding and turning to look at the class doing whatever they were doing, can’t remember.
There wasn’t much more to the conversation, he asked me my name, talked a bit about his band, and just lightly chatted until the dismissal bell had rung.
The same thing happened over the next couple of weeks, talking through gym class and avoiding actually doing anything. Talking to someone was actually really nice, I didn’t have many friends, so it was nice to have someone to talk through a class I normally isolated in.
The third friday of the school year came up pretty fast, we were talking more about his band that day. It was a rock band, he was the lead singer and rhythm guitarist. It actually sounded okay, until he played me one of his covers, and god, it sounded awful. But still, I kind of liked that about it.
“We’re playing a gig tomorrow night in my drummer’s garage. Do you wanna come?” He asked, his elbows resting on his knees and his chin held in his hands.
I smiled warmly at him and nodded, “Sure!”
“Give me your phone.” He said, holding out his hand.
I hesitantly pulled my phone out, unlocked it, and handed it to him. He went to contacts and put in his number, taking a really bad contact photo, and then handed it back to me. Then, he handed me his phone, I put in my number and also took a god-awful picture for the contact photo.
“I’ll text you the details.” He said as the dismissal bell rung, signaling the weekend finally being here.
Driving home, I had a sense of euphoria. I hadn’t been out to hang out with someone or have fun in ages. I couldn’t help but smile to myself the whole way home. I felt genuinely excited for the first time in a while, it was such a nice feeling.
That night, he texted me all the details, the time, the place, etc. And I found myself smiling even more. 6pm at his drummer’s house.
The next day rolled around, and I spent the day counting down the hours, the minutes, even the seconds until I could see him again. I don’t know why it was so exciting, seeing him outside of school, yet I was. Even though I despise relationships and love and all that gooey shit, I found my heart tightening with every text he sent me, my breathing growing heavy as I thought about him, and my hands shaking as I texted him back. I hated how my feelings grew, how they fluttered into something more than just friendly feelings.
I showered, did my hair and makeup, and got dressed in a cute little outfit. A pink long sleeve crop top, a black skirt, fishnets and thigh highs, and of course accessories. I caught myself while I was getting ready to leave. I was dressing up for him, getting all pretty to impress him, and I hated myself for that. But did I do anything to change that? No, I did not.
I packed a few blunts, just in case.
I drove up to the house, the garage was open and all of the band equipment was set up, being practiced by the band members, and Rodrick, of course. There were maybe 10 or so people already there, all looking grungy like the band. I parked on the side of the road and stepped out, I could feel Rodrick’s eyeliner covered eyes on me as I walked up to the garage. He smiled at me, looking me up and down. I liked the attention I was receiving from him, even just the look he was giving me.
The gig went pretty well, the band sounded somewhat better in person, still pretty bad though. People left pretty soon after, leaving me, a few stragglers, and the band members. We went around to the backyard to hang out, sitting on the back porch. People started to smoke, so I took that as my cue that I could smoke too.
Rodrick was sat next to me, a bit close too, our knees nearly brushing together. I pulled out a blunt and a lighter, holding it to my lips and lighting the end, breathing in the smoke. I offered it to Rodrick after taking a couple drags, and he took it with a smile, pressing it to his own, soft lips and breathing it in. He looked beautiful like this, exhaling the smoke from his lungs. I could watch him like this for hours, days even.
I stopped myself as soon as those thoughts popped up in my head, dismissing them and pretending like I never thought them. I stopped looking at him after he handed the blunt back, taking in a couple more puffs and trying to figure out why I'm all of a sudden feeling this way. There is no way I’m falling for Rodrick Heffley, no fucking way.
“Do you wanna get out of here?” Rodrick was whispering in my ear, his hot breath against my ear and neck pulling me out of my head.
I nodded quickly, a little too quickly for comfort. And he grabbed my hand, pulling me up out of my chair and pulling me back out the gate of the fence. He led me out to his van, not letting go of my hand the whole time. He opened up the passenger door for me and shut it once I got in, I wouldn't have expected that from him.
Once he got in, he lit up a cigarette, took a hit, and passed it to me. I took it, breathing it in and breathing it out. He stared at me the whole time, his eyes almost sparkling. I handed it back to him, he took one inhale and then snuffed it out on an ashtray in his cup holders. He didn’t stop staring at me, and I couldn’t stop staring back.
“You look really nice tonight.” He whispered to me, not sure why he was whispering, but it felt… special.
I couldn’t stop the flush that ran to my cheeks, “Oh- So do you.” I replied, turning away to hide my blush.
Out of nowhere, he grabbed my chin, making me face him. “I mean it,” He said, my name rolling so gently off his tongue. It sounded heavenly, him saying my name.
I leaned in a bit, instinctually. I’ve never kissed anyone before, surprisingly. A little bit of fear rose up in my chest at the thought of him kissing me. What would it be like? Would his lips be as soft as they looked?
He leaned in too, pulling me closer by my chin.
And that was it, his lips pressed to mine.
He tasted of cigarette smoke, and his lips were as soft as I had imagined.
He kissed me for a while, his hand running up through my hair, and mine against his chest.
And then he stopped, pulling away with a smirk.