The Strange Workings of Virginia Thomas

Bullshit

It was a summer of gateway drugs and fake smiles. Meaningless sex with girls that I would probably never talk to again. Days numbered by empty bottles, unfinished thoughts, gaps in my memory from benders all alone. I was seventeen. I was supposed to be spending this summer at parties with friends, a smiling girl on my arm and a cup of cheap beer in my hand. The kind so light on alcohol that you could drink it like water. I wondered what summer would be like for a normal person.  Someone who wasn't fucked up in the head over some girl that died. A girl that killed herself. I missed her, god I missed her. I could still hear her voice in my head. The way she had screamed at me to pull over. Her limbs gracefully swaying in the air as she leapt from the bridge. Silent in her last moments. She wanted to die. Now, I sat. In my scummy little bedroom on the south side of Chicago. A film of smoke across the ceiling, a joint dangling from the fingers of my left hand, a bottle of vodka clutched in my right. And there he sat, Rilo Peters. Skin sticky in the August heat, shirtless, sitting in the window frame with his eyes closed. I could see the way his chest went up and down with each breath. It was funny, we were given these bodies. Bodies that could run and breath and laugh, but what did we choose to do with them? Drink and smoke and lay on the bed for hours on end, cry and not eat for days, pop pills just for that little moment where we didn't have to remember.
"What are you thinking about?" He asked.
His voice was soft and sleepy. Pot always made him tired. It never made me drowsy, it just made me think. His red hair was in his eyes. It really was red, not like the orangey color you might see on someone walking down the street. It was fiery, it was bright, like a candle in the dark. Her hair had been red too. Well, at first. She had died it so many times, she hated it. For a while it was brown, and then it was blonde. Every week she changed it. It was like she thought dying her hair would turn her into a different person, get rid of all the shit in her head. I remembered the last time I had run my fingers through it. It was dry and damaged, and rough on the end. I could see little bits of dull red coming through from the top. Looking at her, dry crusty mascara caked around bloodshot eyes. Tiny dress lose around a skinny, strung out form. When I had first met her she was beautiful. She was always beautiful, to me at least. But in the beginning, she had these piercing blue eyes, and her hair was soft and shiny. She didn't have the body of a super model. I mean yeah, she had an ass, and she had boobs. But no gap between her thighs, no perfectly cut abs. To me though, she was perfect. But then again, I had always had a thing for red heads. I remember the day she started to change. She started dying her hair, and got really skinny. She caked on the makeup, and started wearing six inch heels wherever she went. I never thought much of it. She was still the same girl. She was still Virginia Thomas, and I loved her. I guess I should have cared a little more though. That was a mistake I would never forgive myself for.
"Hello? Earth to Allen Young!"
I snapped out of my thoughts, he had been talking to me, Hadn't he?
"Oh, yeah what's up?" I tried to force normality in my voice. But he saw past my bullshit. Thats what it really was, wasn't it? It was all bullshit. This summer? Bullshit. The drugs? Bullshit. Virginia? Bullshit Bullshit Bullshit.
He furrowed his eyebrows. "I said what are you thinking about?"
I was quiet for a while, but the thing was, I knew the answer. You, her, the fact that everything is pointless and that life is a cruel motherfucker who just loves to screw you over. But I didn't say that. After all, life would be pretty fucked up if we always said what we were thinking, right? Or at least more fucked up than it already is. So instead, I settled on the usual "Nothing." And shrugged it off.
"Yeah okay" He said sarcastically,but he didn't dwell on it.
"Pass me the joint would ya?"
I silently walked over to him, he plucked it from my fingers, freckled arm traveling up to bring it to his lips. Smoke traveling out his mouth in a cloud, dissipating into the air. It was weird watching him smoke. He looked like a character out of a British fantasy novel. I mean, how would you feel if Ron Weasley decided to pull out a fucking blunt? But none the less, he still looked good doing it. Every thing he did he just looked so damn cool. Not cool like trendy or hip or whatever the hell you want to call it. The kind of cool when someone is just totally at ease, content. I never knew how he did it, the cool thing. I mean, I always looked cool on the outside too, but that was because I was too busy drowning on the inside to let any of it translate to my exterior.
"I fucking loved her, you know? And she was so fucked up, and she fucked me up too, and I just wish I never met her." The words tumbled out too fast to stop. A rushing river of shit that nobody could help me with.
He was silent for a little bit. I hated silence, it was deafening, no matter what the situation was. Virginia's silent body falling from the bridge, the silence in the house after dad went out drinking again, and mom went after him. Yeah, silence sucks, as a matter of fact, it can suck my dick.
Finally, he spoke. "Yeah, she was fucked up alright, but that never stopped you guys from fucking each other."
Maybe it was just the mix of weed and vodka. Maybe it was the heat, or the depression messing with my head. But at that moment, I couldn't help but crack a smile. My first real smile in months. That soon turned to genuine, loud, obnoxious laughter. Laughing about everything. The sex, the drugs, the benders, and last but certainly not least, the loss of Virginia Thomas.
Bullshit could be pretty damn funny.