I'll Take Care of You

         “Molly, I’m going to call Carter.” I shouted because I always shout when I’m getting nervous and excited. I was already dialing the number. “I don’t want to walk into Donny’s house by myself.”

         “Danielle, it’s fine,” Ellie turned from the front seat to roll her eyes at me. “You just open the door and walk in. It’s not a big deal, hun.”

         “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I waved my hand at her to shush her as I heard Carter answer the phone. His greeting was exceptionally awkward over the phone. I realized that in all our years as friends, we had never spoken over the phone before. Weird, I thought. “Hey, Carter. I’m almost there. Will you come outside and meet me so I don’t have to walk in by myself?” it sounded even more pathetic once it came out of my mouth.

         He chuckled. I could tell he had done some pre-gaming before I got there. “Are you that nervous?”

         “Yeah,” I whispered into the phone.

         “How about this?” he said rhetorically. I knew I had no other options. “I’ll stand by the window and when Molly drops you off, I’ll come get you at the door. You won’t have to walk through the house by yourself.”

         “Thank you, thank you thank you, Carter. I love you. Bye.” I rushed through on the phone. I was so grateful that he was going to be at Donny’s house, too.

         He laughed again in a friendly way. “Love ya too, Danielle. I’ll catch ya in a few.” At that we both hung up the phone. Carter was the one guy that I could always count on in the best guy friend kind of way. He always had my back.

         It seemed like Molly was driving so fast. I could feel the excitement in my smile and I knew I was thrilled, but at the same time fear kept creeping up on me. What if my parents found out? What if someone told my little brothers? I wouldn’t be their role model anymore. What if you really could get addicted after only one time?

         “Molly, can you drive one more time around the block before you drop me off?” I pleaded. I wasn’t really ready to leave the safety of my best friend’s car yet.

         She was stern. “No. If you’re unsure, don’t do it. But, in one minute, I’ll be at Donny’s. If you get out, I’ll pick you up at eleven o’clock. If not, we can go out and do something else right now.”

         I could tell she still hadn’t come to terms with the thought of me and drugs. She was trying not to freak out, but she never thought I would come this close to actually smoking. “No. Drop me off.”

         She sighed as she pulled her twenty-year old Buick into Donny’s driveway. I saw Carter’s face in the window as I unbuckled my seat belt and opened the door. “Thanks, Molly.” I yelled as I headed up the driveway.

         Carter flung open the door just before I reached the steps. He held it open for me and I walked into a surprisingly beautiful home. I glanced around the entry room and almost felt sad at seeing how family-oriented it was. Pictures of Donny and his sister, as young children, donned the walls. Tasteful, floral curtains adorned the windows, and there was a shelf with a pretty tea set hanging on the wall.

         Carter led me through the entry room into a spacious living room with two large couches facing an enormous plasma screen TV. Donny was sitting on the couch.

         “Sup, girl? What’s good?” Donny smiled from the couch.

         “Hey, Donny.” I smiled nervously at him. We really hadn’t met each other before. “Thanks for letting me come over.”

         “I’m always willing to host a pot virgin.” I laughed at that and loosened up a little.

         “Where’s the others?” There were supposed to be four more people coming, but I was really only interested in one: Dupre. He was the one who had arranged this whole group so that I could smoke in a safe, small environment.

         He was the most hardcore drug addict I knew; yet, I was madly in love with everything about him. Alex Dupre was undeniably the sweetest guy I had ever met in my entire life. He was beautiful and sexy and brilliant, even though he didn’t know it. And he always treated me like a queen.

         I thought to the morning. Dupre had texted me, “good morning,” bright and early. I had been shocked, knowing that he had gone to bed late after staying out. He told me that he had woken up just to talk to me, to find out how I was feeling, if I was nervous, if I needed anything from him. Every time he said anything to me it became the sweetest thing I had ever heard. That was always the way things had been between the two of us. And I knew there was no way that I was going to put drugs into my body if he wasn’t there to look out for me.

         “You’re the one he cares about, not me.” Donny said snidely. “Everyone knows he’s only chilling with us for you. Why don’t you ask him?” A mixture of anger and happiness swelled inside me. I could feel my face grow hot, knowing it was tomato red with embarrassment; yet I was angry that Donny couldn’t just answer politely. I was obviously nervous and scared.

         As if he had read my mind, my cell phone buzzed in my hand with a text message from Dupre. It read, “hey dani. sorry im late. I’ll be there in sec, hun. :p”. I smiled and sat down on Donny’s couch, waiting for Dupre to arrive.

         Donny’s couch was so huge that I felt like it swallowed me. When I leaned all the way against the back my legs extended on the cushion until almost my ankle. I felt tiny sitting there. I clutched my cell phone like a safety blanket and wished that Dupre would arrive faster.

         In a few minutes Carter jumped up to let Johnny, Tanya, Tanya, and Dupre into Donny’s house. Both Tanyas gave me smug, nervous smiles and whispered soft, “hey Danielle’s” across the room. I gave each of them fake smiles. They were the popular people, the ones everyone wanted to be. Except me.

         The Tanyas kept walking, heading towards the kitchen where Johnny was already sitting down. Dupre locked his eyes with mine and gave me a small, but completely genuine smile. We stayed that way, smiling at each other, his eyes staring deep into mine for a long time, possibly as long as a minute.

         Donny broke our intensity. “Yo, Dupre man, what’s good?”

         Dupre headed towards the other couch, where Donny and Carter were seated. He gave both guys daps and took out the bag with the weed in it. “Yo, let’s everybody throw down before we get this shit started, a’ight.” Dupre had warned me that he basically smoked professionally. He wanted to make sure he got his money before he got too baked and became generous.

         “What’s the cut?” Carter asked Dupre as he took out his wallet.

         “20 a piece, dude. We be smokin’ headies tonight, yo.” I felt like they were speaking a foreign language even though Dupre had been giving me stoner lessons for the week leading up. Carter, Donny, and Johnny all fumbled for their money. Each took out a crumpled twenty dollar bill and slapped it into Dupre’s hand, looking pissed off that their bad habit was so costly.

         “Yo! Tanyas!” Dupre shouted into the other room. “You smoking with us or not, guys?” He sounded annoyed at their presence already. I knew that he wasn’t a fan of people who talked up a big game, but never played at all.

         They answered that they weren’t going to smoke. They were just there to chill. Dupre tried not to roll his eyes so obviously. I walked across the room with my twenty to give to him.

         He turned to face me before I got to him. He shoved the other money into the pocket of his jeans and looked at me. “Put your money away. Yours is on the house.” He waited for me to slip my money back into my pocket and then wrapped me in a giant hug. I felt safe with his arms wrapped around me. My had rested against his strong chest and he let me stay that way for a while. He toyed with my hair and then pulled my head away from his chest. He rested his right hand on the side of my face and pulled mine close to his. “Don’t worry,” he whispered, making the moment private, despite the fact that everyone in the room was watching us. “I’m going to take care of you, okay?” He waited for me to nod my head, and then pulled me back into a second hug. “I would never let anything bad happen to you, Danielle.”

         He released me and walked away to go roll a few joints in the kitchen with Donny, Johnny, and Carter. The Tanyas swarmed towards me, their eyes both buzzing with excitement.

         Tanya B grabbed my right arm and enthusiastically asked, “Are you really gonna do it? I’m so excited for you.”

         “yeah…” I said skeptically. We weren’t friends and it was odd that she was clinging to me.

         Tanya M grabbed the left arm. “What if your lungs explode? What if Dupre kills you with that stuff? Danielle, people who go to Yale don’t do drugs. What if someone finds out?” The questions came out of her mouth so fast that there wasn’t room to even slip in a small remark. I let her ramble her list of questions.

         “I’ll be fine guys. Really. Nothing is going to happen.”

         I walked away from them, but they followed, not even step behind, one on either side of me. It felt like a role reversal. They were the ones that everyone else followed around, not me. They had always been uninterested in my life. It seemed ridiculous that they should only be interested in the illegal part of my life.

         In the kitchen, the guys were finishing. Dupre grabbed my hand and led me outside into the backyard. He opened the door to Donny’s pool house and led me inside, still hand-in-hand. Everyone else followed. It was freezing outside. The thermometer read that it was a mere seventeen degrees in the pool house. I could see my breath, and imagined that it was smoke coming out of my mouth.

         The five of us who were going to smoke gathered in a circle around a black, metal table. The two Tanyas sat on the edge of the empty hot tub. Dupre let go of my hand and took a lighter out of his jacket pocket. He lit the joint and brought it to his lips. He breathed in deeply, letting the smoke sink in. He didn’t speak or breathe for a moment, letting it set in. After what seemed to me like a long time he exhaled, letting a huge puff of smoke slip from his lips. He handed me the joint.

         I stared at it and then laughed. I was shivering in the cold, standing there with the boy I loved, and I realized that I had absolutely no idea how to smoke.

         “Dupre, I-I-I, I don’t know what to d-d-do.” I felt my face grow red again. I looked down at my feet, embarrassed.

         Nearly everyone in the room let out bursts of laughter. “I knew she would wuss out,” Tanya B snickered.

         Dupre got angry. He calmly, but sternly turned to the Tanyas and said, “Either thrown down and come smoke with us, or get the fuck out. Go home and leave her the hell alone.” The Tanyas saw the truth of his words in his eyes, and slipped out of the pool house, mumbling quick goodbyes. I watched them run across the lawn as they hurried out. Dupre turned his attention back to me. He stood behind me and placed his arms on my shoulders. He leaned his head over to my left ear so he could coach me. “Ignore everybody else, alright. Pretend it’s just us here, ok?” I nodded. “Now place the joint against your lips so that it’s barely touching.” I followed his instructions without speaking. “Now, breathe in really slowly. You don’t want to take in too much on your first hit.” I started to breathe in, feeling the smoke go into my mouth, down my throat. “Don’t let it out yet. Keep it as long as you can.”

         I let the smoke stay in my lungs as long as I could until I coughed loudly, a huge cloud of smoke coming out my mouth. I couldn’t tell what was smoke and what was my breath in the cold air. I passed the joint to Carter who was on my left. I turned my head slightly to glance at Dupre, looking for some sort of approval. He smiled and gave my shoulders a slight squeeze. He stepped back to my right, no longer standing over me.

         I watched as each guy took their hit on the joint. I watched as Dupre went in for his second hit. I marveled at how skilled he seemed with a cigarette in his mouth. I knew I shouldn’t admire a smoker, but part of me did. When he passed me the joint for my second hit, I was ready. There was no turning back.

         I stood in the cold of the pool house, waiting for the high to set in. we smoked another joint like that, then another. Slowly I felt the high creeping up on me. I started to feel a warmth in my chest. My head felt light, tingly. I was fully aware of my surroundings, but everything seemed different. It was as if my senses were heightened.

         Everything suddenly seemed funny. Everything. I felt happy and couldn’t explain why. It felt good. All I knew for sure was that it felt good. Amazing, really.

         “Guys, I’m fucked.” Johnny laughed as he spoke. “Let’s take a break.” He laughed again. He turned to me. “Girl, you must be fucked because, man, I’m so fucked up right now.”

         Dupre took my hand and said to everyone, “Good idea guys. Let’s take a break.” Before we walked out of the pool house we made eye contact. I could the high in his eyes. His pupils were so dilated that I couldn’t see his beautiful, blue irises anymore.

         He saw some sort of sadness in my eyes and let go of my hand. I could tell he wanted to ask me what I was thinking, but he didn’t press it. The five of us left the pool house and walked through Donny’s yard, and back into his house. The heat in his living room felt even better with the pot buzzing through my head.

         Donny lunged for the kitchen. Johnny sunk into one couch next to Carter. Dupre stood in the doorway with me, waiting to see what I wanted to do. It took me a long time to process everything in my head. I could tell my face was frustrated. I wasn’t used to taking a long time to think about anything.

         Dupre looked concerned. “Are you alright?” He asked, and I could see the concern in his face and his eyes, too.

         “Yes!” I exclaimed, and then started laughing. I was so happy that I arrived at the right answer that I kept giggling. I couldn’t stop.

         He caressed the side of my face. “You’re cute.” He didn’t grab my hand again, but instead nodded his head towards the empty couch. I followed him.

         He sunk down into the couch and looked up at me. The couch was enormous, yet I settled in next to him, resting my head on his shoulder. He acted as though that was completely natural. He stayed that way for half an hour. We occasionally glanced at the Patriots’ game on the TV. Sometimes I would lift my head if I felt his eyes on me. I would look into his eyes, searching to see if I could find his love for me. He let me stare without question. As hard as I looked, I couldn’t find the reassurance I was looking for. If I hadn’t been sitting in his arms, high as a kite, I probably would have cried.

         Time moved slower, that much I could tell. I realized that if I moved my back and forth the sensation in my head felt even cooler. Dupre watched me, amused, as I experimented with my high. After a while longer, he lifted me off of him and headed for the back door. I followed.

         I flinched as the cold hit me once more. I felt surprisingly happy as the warmth in my chest stayed. I was so high. We stood in silence as he pulled a pack of nicotine cigarettes out of his jacket pocket. He lit one and took a drag. He looked up at the sky, and then back at me. I wanted to break the silence, but the words escaped me.

         “Danielle?” he asked quietly.

         “Yes?” Our eyes locked once again.

         “Promise me something.” I think he intended it as a question, but it came out like a statement.

         “Anything,” I answered him.

         “Don’t end up like me,” he said with complete honesty. “You’re going places. You’re smart. Don’t end up like me.” I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t agree with him. I thought he was extraordinary. I couldn’t disagree. He was so serious that it hurt me. “Don’t say anything, okay.”

         He put out his cigarette in a snow bank and threw it into the bushes. He pulled me into another hug. His hug felt better than anything I had ever imagined while I was high. My heart beat stronger. His smell smelled better than usual. His muscular arms wrapped around me, shielding me from the cold of the outside. I wanted to freeze the moment in time.

         It couldn’t last forever, though. We walked together back into the house and found Donny and Johnny grinding more weed to smoke out of a bubbler. It looked complicated. I wanted to smoke more, but I knew that I was already so high. I passed them preparing it and walked into the bathroom. There was no lock on the door, and that small thing bothered me. I kept staring at it, trying to will a lock there, but it failed. Eventually I gave up.

         I looked at myself in the mirror. My hair was still perfectly straightened. My eye makeup was flawless. Yet, I looked into my eyes and saw that my irises had disappeared, too. The blue of my eyes was gone. My cheeks were rosy as always. My freckles were still in place. But my eyes made me look completely different. I felt different. Maybe the difference wasn’t as noticeable to the rest of the world, but it was to me. I felt good, but I knew it wasn’t me.

         I couldn’t stand to stare at myself in the mirror anymore so I went back out into the kitchen. When I saw the four boys gathered around the bubbler in the kitchen, I realized that I was the only girl present. I wondered how I had missed that before. I should have seen that when the Tanyas left.

         Carter giggled and asked me if I was prepared to do some more.

         “Hell yeah,” I let out, knowing that at this point I was already really high. What the hell?

         The boys headed for the door to the backyard. I cringed just thinking about the cold again. Dupre suggested we smoke in the garage instead. It would be warmer than the pool house or the backyard. I mouthed “Thank you” to him and he nodded in my direction.

         Donny had the bubbler, and Dupre grabbed my hand. In the garage we gathered in a small circle again. Each boy took a lighter out of their pocket. I was shocked that they all carried one around. I didn’t even own a lighter.

         Dupre took the bubbler and began to suck on the part that looked like a straw. He lit the ground up weed and sucked in holding his finger over the hole. I watched as the smoke built up inside. When he felt there was enough he let go of his finger and inhaled deeply. The whole concept seemed so complex to me. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to do that by myself, especially not when I was already so high.

         Dupre moved behind me once again. He held the bubbler to my lips and told me he would coach me through it. He told me when to start sucking on it, and he lit the marijuana. I kept sucking in, waiting for his instructions. Eventually he let go of the hole on the side and I inhaled the biggest hit of weed. I felt it slide down my throat, into my lungs. My body tried to expel the smoke, but I fought to keep it there. I was trying to be one of the guys. I didn’t want to be such a girl.

         I couldn’t keep it in any longer, and I coughed out a massive cloud of smoke. Johnny clapped in awe. “Damn, girl, youse gonna be fucked all night after that.”

         I laughed. I was beginning to feel the new hit already.

         We took two more hits each using the complicated tool. When we went back in the house, the boys all rushed to the refrigerator. I was surprised that I wasn’t hungry. Everyone had told me I would be starving.

         Before long, my phone vibrated again, scaring me. I hadn’t been expecting it. I read a text message from Molly.

         It read, “outside when you’re ready D.”

         I hadn’t noticed that it was already eleven o’clock. I was ready to leave, though. “Molly’s here to take me you guys,” I yelled to them. Dupre gave me an intimate look that said goodbye. Carter came over to hug me.

         “Love you, D. Hope you had fun.”

         I hugged him back. “Thanks, Carter.”

         I walked to the front door and let myself out. I felt off-balance walking down the stairs and moved clumsily towards Molly’s beat-up car.