Vredesbyrd

I I became a regular at Steven’s house. We all did. Every day after school we met there and smoked. My new relationship with Scott lasted only a week. I broke up with him and David quickly asked me out.

My journalism class took a field trip to the local college one day. We were given schedules and had to sit in on several courses. A girl in my class who I had never paid much attention to named Janet made a comment in passing that she would rather be getting high. I made eye contact with her and she soon came my way and told me she had bud. We decided to ditch the rest of the day and drove off towards our school. David was already out of school for the day so we picked him up and drove off into the country. While I drove, David fashioned a pipe out of a soda can. We parked and smoked it.

Later I took David and Janet to Steven’s house. She told me that she had been here before. As it turned out, Janet use to date Steven’s best friend, Jeremy. Steven called Jeremy to bring more weed, and our group grew that day. 

Janet and I became the best of friends. She began dressing "goth" like me. Jeremy was also never without a black trench coat, metal spikes and singing a death metal song. Our dark group turned Scott from a happy skater to a very dark person. Him and Steven really hit it off and became good friends. Steven would often preach to Scott about LaVeyan Satanism, and because Scott never really grew up with any authoritative figure, his mother committing suicide when he was an infant and his father lacking in any people skills, Scott was easily accepting. I listened too.

I felt safe in my circle of friends who most people avoided out of fear of our appearance.

Often, Steven’s mother would join us in our smoking circle and sometimes make Janet and I a mixed drink. I think she liked having other girls around. I began buying Cd's that I knew David would approve of and I actually started joying the music. Janet introduced me to the band Jack Off Jill and when it was just the two of us in my car, we would blare it. Janet would also steal packs of cigarettes from her dad or Jeremy, who was 23, would buy a pack for us and we would split it, often smoking all of them in one hazy night.

I would come home smelling like stale smoke, hoping I didn't smell like weed and alcohol as well. On weekends, I "slept over with Janet" and we would party all night at Steven’s. It became our ritual.