Topsy Turvy Kinda Love
don’t know your parents, but it sounds like they’re a couple of idiots. I want you, Mia. You are wanted very much, so don’t keep thinking for a day that you aren’t. You’re… important to me.”I muster up a smile as he stares at me with those soulful chocolate-colored eyes. “You like me as more than a friend and roommate, as more than just a teacher, don’t you, Brooks?”
“What was your first guess?”
“Besides the dragon in your pants… No one has ever willingly treated me like something more than a doormat. Most people only want something from me. I mean, I guess you want sex lessons from me, but something about you is different. You’re the first person who’s made me feel like I’m worth anything at all. Like I’m a human being. Someone you want to be around. It’s like you care for me.” He chuckles, but it’s not hardy. Before I can pull away, he reaches up and rubs his calloused thumb against my cheekbone, making me look up and get lost in those dark brown eyes.
“Why don’t you really believe in love, Mia? Why don’t you kiss people? Why hide away under your brightly colored hair and gothic clothing facade? Who was it that wrecked your whole entire world? Let you down? Crushed your spirit? Your parents were clearly idiots, but someone did this to you. Someone did this to you, and I want to crush them for you.”
I shake my head, and a tear slips out. He leans over to wipe it up as it falls, and I can’t take these emotions. My pasts lock is breaking open without the key. My heart’s going to shatter itself into every single corner of this room—fragments upon fragments of heart littering the floor like broken glass from a windowpane.
“You don’t have to tell me today, but boy, do you have a knack for shutting down.”
We eat the rest of our breakfast in silence. My mind whirls with everything that’s been said and not said between us in such a short period of time.
It’s been a couple of hours since we’ve eaten breakfast, and we’re snuggled on the couch watching a Star Wars marathon. We started with Episode IV: A New Hope. I don’t want to tell Brooks, but I keep getting lost and can’t seem to follow along. He is distracting.
He’ll laugh at something or cringe when a bad part comes up, and I find it interesting, just watching him. His eyes sparkle when he laughs, and when he looks over at me and winks, I could die right here. I’ve successfully told Brooks more about myself in a whole two days than I have to anyone else in years and I can’t understand my propensity for such word vomit. I’ve never been a sharer, but now my brain decides to dispense all of my past like a PEZ dispenser. One sugary morsel at a time. It’s like he’s brainwashed me into sharing all my demons.
I let my gaze linger on Brooks for just a little while before he finds me staring at him and smiles. “You like what you see?”
“Something like that… Hey, you want to try something?”
“What’d you have in mind?”
“Getting high and painting.”
He nods. “I’m down to try it.”
“Okay, I’ll be right back.” I hop up and run to my room to grab my jar, papers, and grinder before returning to the living room. Cleaning off the coffee table, I pull out a few buds and start to break them down before dropping them into my grinder. Fully ground, I dump it out onto the coffee table and scoop it into the paper. Rolling up the ends, I lick the seam to hold it together, making sure the ends are tight. I use the lighter real quick to heat up the place I just licked, so it’s not wet.
Raising the lighter to the end of the joint, the fire ignites the paper to a slow burn. Lifting it to my lips I puff a couple of times, exhaling in between. Now that it’s going, I pass it over to Brooks like a good host would do.
He takes a puff on it, but doesn’t truly inhale.
“No, no, no… you have to inhale it. It doesn’t count if you don’t.”
I watch as he puts it between his lips again and breathes in way too deep. An instant intense cough breaks free from his chest, and I grab the joint from his fingers. He can’t seem to stop coughing and hacking up a lung. He’ll be good with that one hit, being his first time and all. “Hey, it’s okay. Just breathe.” I hand him a drink to try and help with the coughing, and he willingly accepts it.
“Jeez, that was intense,” he says, hand pressed to his chest like he’s still fighting to breathe in the air his lungs are probably crying out for right now.
I hit the joint a few more times, letting my head rest against the back of the couch. We end up sitting staring at each other for the next twenty minutes. “I feel like I’m floating and my head feels like it’s not even attached.”
“Welcome to the high life, my friend.”
“It’s weird, but I feel so relaxed and a little…”
I raise my eyebrow. “A little what?”
He leans over and whispers “Horny,” and I can’t help the giggles that follow.
“Hey, what’s so funny?”
“I don’t know, but I just can’t stop laughing. I don’t even know why it’s funny.” Brooks starts laughing too and we can’t stop… two fools laughing at nothing in particular. “Hey, let’s go paint something…”
“Okay, what do you want to paint?”
“You… on the floor.”
His brow furrows in confusion. “Why me on the floor?”
I roll my shoulders in a shrug. “Because it’ll be fun, why not?”
“I’m not sure.” I pull him up as I stand and walk toward my paints on my art table. His hand dwarfs mine, and it’s a little rough. His eyes catch mine and