"Did someone eat the other brownie in the bag on the counter?" Piper asked, sauntering into the living room where we were all watching a movie.
I winced. "Sorry...I thought those were communal brownies."
Everyone turned around to stare at me for some weird reason. Olivia's eyes widened and I could physically see her cringe. Mark and Kade were trying not to laugh. Piper, on the other hand, was looking at me in horror.
"They were...for all of us to share," she said. "Did you eat the entire thing?"
I wiped my hands nervously on my jeans. "Why would you share two brownies between seven people?"
"We weren't going to share them with you since you don't do edibles," Piper informed me, finally stating why it was such a big deal that I had eaten the brownie.
It took a minute for it to settle in that I had just eaten an edible. Not only had I eaten an edible, but I had eaten three times the intended dose. Even though I knew it took at least 30-40 minutes for them to take effect and it had only been about 15, I immediately felt paranoid. Out of the corner of my eye, I had seen that Liam was also trying not to laugh but he finally let one escape only to cover it up as a cough.
"Oh man..." Jenna chimed in. "You're going to be flying here in about an hour or so."
I shook my head. "Maybe I can still throw it up or something."
Piper shook her head. "I'm not a science person or anything, but I'm pretty sure at least half of it is in your system already."
"Might as well sit back and enjoy the ride," Kade suggested.
I sunk back into my chair, wide-eyed. I'd only done edibles once before and that was before high school before weed was even technically legal in our state. Even then I don't remember it having that much of an effect on me. Maybe I'd get lucky and be one of those people who doesn't react to THC.
"Don't worry, I won't let these two asshats draw penises on your forehead like they did to me last year," Olivia assured.
Olivia's assurance, while not the most motherly or nurturing one, made me feel better. I shouldn't be too nervous. Other than my parents, these were the people that I trusted more in the world and I knew they wouldn't let anything bad happen to me. Besides, god knew I had taken care of all of these fuckers drunk or high before. I'd even babysat Piper during an acid trip once.
"Luckily, I brought some to smoke," Piper added. "I had no idea Snoop Dog over here was going to eat half of my edible supply."
I smiled back at her sheepishly, still not quite sure if I was starting to feel it yet or if I was pseudo-high.
"Oh, no," Olivia objected. "I want to be sober for this. At least for the first hour or so."
While everyone talked about how they were going to deal with me, my mind stayed at one moment in time for longer than just a moment. Time and space were on a completely different frequency than my brain. My entire body was sinking further and further into the chair.
Yeah, I think I was high.
***
Olivia and Kade were the last ones to get high. Kade always liked to wait until half the joint was gone before he started to partake. Olivia, however, stole my phone so that she could take pictures and probably fuck with my Snapchat. I had gotten a Snapchat because Olivia told me to and now she's the only one that ever uses my own Snapchat page.
I snapped myself back from my own stray strand of thoughts.
Even though everyone else was starting to get gigglier and hungrier, somewhere in the back of my mind I knew that they weren't nearly as high as I was. Their brains just weren't on the same wavelength. I was starting to vibe to the universe now.
Yeah, that high.
"Here's your s'more," Liam announced.
Oh shit. I had completely forgotten about the s'more. But this was definitely a welcome surprise.
"Oh my god, I love you," I blurted out, reaching out and taking it from him.
All of my neck muscles tensed as I realized what I'd just said, but Olivia had already jumped to cover my ass.
"Marley loves anyone that gives her something with chocolate," Olivia said. "Once a cashier at Noodles and Company gave us a free chocolate chip cookie and Marley gave her a hug."
I don't think I'd ever actually done that. That I would remember. Olivia was just really good at making up stories on the spot.
"Sorry to disappoint, but I was actually just talking to the smore," I told Liam, shrugging my shoulders.
He just smirked back.
Suddenly overwhelmed by everyone and having everyone's attention on me (or that could have been a streak of paranoia that I went through on and off the entire evening), I stood up abruptly and started walking into the forest.
"Marley!" Olivia called. "What are you doing?"
It was so weird having our usual roles switched and having her keep and eye one me instead of vice versa.
"I'm going to...explore," I told her.
Explore? What was I, five? Or on acid? I thought it sounded too weird for it to be believable, but no one else seemed to be thinking about it twice. The truth was actually that I was trying to get away from Liam. All evening I had accidentally kept making eye contact with him and it was giving me jolts every time. Plus, I didn't want to embarrass myself again.
"Stay close," she called out to me.
"I will," I lied.
I wanted to get as far away as possible. Maybe I would even walk all the way back home. Might take a few days, but was that really worse than going back and having to make eye contact with Liam again?
There was still a lot of light left, but the tall pine trees blocked a lot of it. I wasn't just going anywhere all willy-nilly, I was actually following a trail. There was steep hillside covered in Indian Paintbrush. We had hiked up to it a couple times that last few visits up here. It only took about ten minutes to get up here.
Every time I saw the hillside, it always took my breath away. This was probably one of my favorite spots in the world. By some miracle the smaller hills surrounding this one hadn't built on it so it probably looked just like it did a thousand years ago. Now the colors were brighter, more vibrant. The golden tint from the sun still peeking over the hilly horizon gave the flowers a glow, almost like the flowers had flames burning on the inside.
The first time I'd saw this landscape, the person I wanted to share this view was with June. This most undoubtedly be one of her favorite spots as well. Now that feeling was swelling into my throat, forcing me to swallow so I could breath.
A twig snapped under the weight of something, making me whip my head around my shoulder to see if it was a bear. While rare, it wasn't completely unheard of in these parts. But no, it was even scarier.
Liam.
I crossed my arms, partially mad at the fact he had caught me in such a private, vulnerable moment, partially trying to pretend that he hadn't scared the shit out of me.
"Were you following me the whole way here?" I asked suspiciously.
"I tried to catch up with you but gravity got stronger so I couldn't walk as fast," he tried to explain.
Any thoughts of June immediately scattered to the depths of my brain as I giggled at Liam's high. He couldn't walk fast because of gravity? At least I wasn't the only one stoned as fuck.
"Dude," I muttered, clapping my hand on his shoulder like I was about to tell him the secret to life. "I think you're high."
He raised his eyes brows and chuckled. "You think? Well, at least I'm still in this dimension."
I'd been in this dimension the whole time, I was just operating on a different frequency. I had tried to communicate that to everyone telepathically, but like I said, I was on a different frequency. What was so hard about that to understand? But how could anyone know if I was the only one on my own wavelength? I cringed as my own thought process gave me a brain freeze.
Now I was Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz in that scene right before they get to Oz and my eyes got droopy. The flowers looked like a lovely bed. Collapsing down into the field of flowers, I laid back and put my hands on the ground under my head. I tilted my head up to look at Liam, who's face I could tell was befuddled with the little light left in the sky.
"Come on, Marley," he said, with the tone of a mom in the grocery store trying to negotiate with a toddler. "What are you doing?"
"Looking at the stars," I told him. "You don't get a view like this at home with all the light pollution."
He was hesitant, but he was easily convinced to also come down here with me. At this point, only Venus and Jupiter were actually visible, but it wouldn't be too long until the rest of the stars would dot the sky. Unfortunately, the effect of the absence of a ball of fire in the sky was beginning to be noticeable as little goosebumps were starting to pop up on my arms. I glanced over at Liam, who actually had a hoodie jacket.
As if sensing me looking at me, without missing a beat or looking away from the sky he asked, "what?"
"You look...warm," I admitted.
"Only one way to find out," he quipped.
When I didn't respond, he attached the body part of his coat to his hand like a vampires wing would be attached. At least that was the best analogy I could come up with while stoned out of my mind. He managed to slide under my shoulders and roll me towards him so I was now somehow inside his jacket now. Despite my initial reluctance to be in this position, I was too warm to care anymore.
"Oh look, you can see Andromeda from here," he remarked.
I lifted up my head from his arm. "Chemistry? Astronomy? I think you're officially a nerd."
"Gary's big into astrology, so he taught me all about it with his telescope when I was a kid," he explained.
I couldn't quite make out the constellation when he pointed it out to me, but I remembered the story from a Greek Mythology class I'd taken as a freshman. Perseus, the son of Zeus and a mortal woman, saved Andromeda from a monster and they fell in so in love despite many obstacles that Athena placed them in the sky as stars so they could be together for eternity.
While he continued point out constellations, I drifted off easier and quicker than I had all school year.