Wendigo Island (ONC2024)

Jennifer's Journal 8: Greener Grass

Jennifer's Journal Chapter 8

Cheryl, "Can I confess something? You can put it in your journal if you want, I don't care."

Me (Jennifer), "Oh, yeah, of course."

"I'm a terrible person."

"I doubt that."

"You don't know me like that. Not really, Jen. It's hard to fuck up out here with nothing to fuck up." She took a deep breath in, "When I was seven, I shot my dad. The court claimed it was an accident. The police said he had it coming since he'd been pedaling drugs for years. Mom just cried."

"Oh my God, that's horrible, but you shouldn't beat yourself up about it. That was so long ago."

"I know that now, but I did."

Cheryl took her time rolling a stick of tobacco. I don't know if you'd call it a cigarette or a cigar, but unfortunately, we do have tobacco on the island. She finally finished and lit it with the last lighter in existence, a beat-up zippo that we keep in the cabin.

She exhaled deeply out the window. The multiple colors have washed from her hair almost entirely. Shades of white and pink still linger like bleached ghosts in her otherwise raven colored hair.

"Mom beat herself up to. We both turned to drugs. Heroin. I don't think she knew I was stealing some from her stash, not at first. Not until it was too late. By then I was getting it on my own. Running with a crowd. That crowd became a gang. The gang became professional. I was on the plane that day because I was hauling drugs. I had a two foot tall teddy bear packed tight with Heroin. So tight that the X-ray didn't pick up on anything odd. There was no little baggy floating around inside. The stuffing was just one-hundred percent heroin. Undetectable."

"Oh, wow, that's still kinda sketchy, though."

"Yeah, that's why they have 'the bitch' do it. It was either in a bear or in me. But it's all in the ocean now."

Cheryl was smiling from ear to ear and crying at the same time.

"It's as lost as I am, and I couldn't be happier. I mean, I'm sad. I've never felt so sad... but it's such a beautiful feeling. And afraid to. I had the weirdest nightmare about a slug with a dozen heads last night. It was so disgusting, but I've never felt more alive. I still get chilly down to my bones, but last night, I was sitting by the pond shivering, and Dale put his arm around me."

She shivered visibly at all of the memories, "I almost attacked him right there, I was so horned up."

I laughed pretty hard at that, "well, next time you should, just find somewhere quiet. But I'm happy for you two. I hope you never have to see drugs again."

"Same, I want everyone else to get back to their lives, but..." She gazed out the window at Dale, who was feeding Bulbasuar, the large eyed bug with mushrooms on its back.

"You never know if you don't ask."