Midnight Drag

With My Life

   She didn't want to be out with her friends; they had dragged her along with them to presumably smoke weed and drink beer in the park. The usual. It's what she usually did on friday nights, but she was exhausted from everything. She just wanted to cuddle with her cat and watch old horror movies alone in her room; maybe get high by herself and wallow in her own depression.

   But here she was, being dragged along to the usual shenanigans, crammed into the back of a 1983 Chrysler while her friends screamed along to the pop songs on the radio. She smashed her face against the cool glass of the jammed window and silently wished to be anywhere else; she was starting to get a headache.

   The car finally came to a halt and she opened her eyes; they weren't at their usual spot, but a different park in the next small town over. She started to feel uneasy. They had had minimal run ins with the law smoking out the alcove under the slides in their own neighborhood, but she was anxious that they were going to get busted just for being here past the time posted on the sign outside the gate.

   Her friends scrambled out of the car, and hopped the fence, leaving her behind to grab the goods and the blankets from the trunk of the car. She sighed and climbed over the front seat to pop the hood and reluctantly scooped up everything, feeling like a pack mule.

   "A little help, maybe?" she yelled out, catching the attention of Vivian, who quickly ran over to grab the things from her so she could hop the fence.

   "Shit, sorry," she apologized, "I knew we forgot something."

   She just grumbled an "it's okay" and climbed to the other side, where the rest of her friends were already packing a bowl and cracking open the warm cheap beer.

   She watched them for a second before realizing that she didn't have the mental capacity to deal with five intoxicated friends at the moment and escaped to the bench at the edge of the park, making sure that she had her cigarettes in hand as well as the joint that she had rolled specifically for herself. She sat down, taking a moment to embrace the crisp autumn air before removing a cigarette from the half empty pack she had pulled from her pocket and lighting it.

   She was four drags in before a noise pulled her out of her thoughts, causing her to drop the dart on her jeans, singeing the fabric.

   "Shit!" she exclaimed to herself, before putting the cigarette back in her mouth and scanning around in the dark to find the source of the noise.

   Her eyes landed on a man climbing over the fence; she stood up and took a step back, facing him and giving him a look of confusion, slight fear overtaking her.

   "Um... hi?" she called out.

   She shouldn't have been so confused or offended by the action, considering that she had snuck in the same way, and she was the one who was actually up to no good. He also didn't appear to be a cop, which slightly soothed her.

   The man stopped in his tracks, looking her up and down before lowering his head and looking at his feet.

   "Oh, didn't realize anyone was out here," he stated, "I can go somewhere else. I don't wanna weird you out." He gestured back to where he came from.

   "Oh, no. You can stay. I'm just um," she glanced at the playground equipment that her friends were currently taking shelter in, "avoiding my friends... for some reason." Saying it out loud made it sound ridiculous that her friends were a few yards away having fun without her while she sulked in the corner like a kicked dog.

   "Did you want company?" he offered. "IfnotIcantotallygoawayI'mnottryingtobeweird" he quickly added, stumbling over his words at a mile a minute.