TW: naughty words, casual drug use, college kids making dumb decisions
Yes, this story is inspired be a tweet. Please don't judge me. I couldn't help myself.
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The mushrooms kicked in not long after I lost Michelle, and I figured I was on my own then. I had no idea what time it was, or how I was going to be awake for orgo in the morning. Probably I wouldn’t be. I was mostly okay with that, even if I figured Michelle would tear me a new one for cutting class this early in the semester.
At some point it had gotten hard to move around the floor. My mouth was dry and I was desperate for a drink, but I couldn’t remember which room the kegs were in. Maybe that was for the best. The fluorescent lights above burned bright like stars, flaring all colors of the rainbow. I wondered if I could find somewhere quiet to go lay down for a while, like the laundry room or something, and if I could make it through a quick nap undisturbed by some drunk frat douche.
After a little longer, I began to understand all the psychedelic shit people painted on the sides of vans. The walls ran and swam. How long had I been staring at the goddamned wall? People were crowding past me on either side, and the sensation of a stranger’s bare arm brushing against mine made my skin crawl. I still didn’t know how long I’d been at the party - 30 minutes, or 3 hours? - and I didn’t care. I was fucking done, and I was going home. Or I was taking a nap out in the quad. Whichever came first.
There was still no sign of Michelle, so I made my way toward the end of the hall near the laundry room and hoped I was going in the right direction. Jess had been smoking Sandy out in a triple that was being converted into an oversized hotbox, and I figured I should let someone know I was about to dip so they could pass the information along to the cops in case I got kidnapped or wandered into the canal on my way home.
The crush was getting to be too much for me. I hated crowds, always had, and the junior I’d bought the liberty caps from had promised me they’d make it easier for me to handle it. Lying fuck. If I saw him again, I was going to kick his shins. But I could see the haze at the end of the hall and I figured I was close. Find Jess, get the fuck out, go to bed. The end was near.
Then I saw him.
It was like he’d teleported right there in front of me. I looked up and I saw this tall, blond, ghostly creature, and then I was surrounded with a fragrant miasma of kush.
“You smell like weed,” I said, mindlessly.
He looked down at me. Our eyes met for just a moment, and I thought I’d be okay with it feeling more like an hour.
“I am weed,” he said, and somehow I heard him easy as could be over all the chaos and commotion around me.
And then, as suddenly as he appeared, he was gone.
“I swear to God, he disappeared like a ninja in a smoke bomb.”
I could tell Jess thought I was out of my mind, but she nodded and took a puff from her vape. “Ninja. Okay. Cool.”
“He probably wasn’t even actually that hot,” Cristy said. “You were super high, right? It’s like beer goggles.”
“Fuck you,” I answered, without heat. “He was an incubus, or something. I would’ve climbed that like a tree.”
“Except he disappeared,” Jess reminded me. “And if he’d wanted to be climbed, he would’ve asked for it. I mean, I got mad dick that night. They were handing it out like candy.”
Cristy grimaced, but nodded her agreement.
And fuck, I had to consider that they were right. It had been two weeks since the party at Hecht, and I hadn’t seen my weed ninja since. I couldn’t believe I’d miss him. It wasn’t a big campus, and he was so damn tall. Or maybe that had been the drugs. I’d shrunk like Alice, so of course the Caterpillar would seem like a giant.
My weed ninja. God, that was pathetic. I sounded like a desperate freshman. So I tried to forget about him. It got easier as the days went on. October came along, and midterms with it. That sucked. But it kept me too busy to daydream about weed ninjas, and that was a good thing, right?
I left the math building feeling like I’d been hit by a truck. It was still light out, but all I wanted was to crawl into bed and sleep for 48 hours. Not for the first time, I considered just dropping out and moving into the little trailer my Uncles John and Ron kept on Sugarloaf Key. I’d live off of conch fritters and Corona. And if a hurricane came along...well, when it’s your time, it’s your time, right?
I must’ve jinxed myself, because when I stepped out of the little Starbucks in the breezeway outside the library it was pouring rain. Just my fucking luck. There was a boom of thunder in the background. I wanted to be back in my room, damn it. I wanted to see if Jess had any edibles to spare and just pass the fuck out for a while.
It’s just a little water, I told myself. And lightning, but I was too short to worry about that. I could change into something warm as soon as I was in my room. I’d needed to wash my hair, anyway. Sighing, I tugged the hood of my sweatshirt over my head and stepped out into the rain.
I only made it a few steps, my arms gripping my bag tight to my chest in an attempt to protect my laptop from the water before I realized that I was still dry. I lifted my head, puzzled, and found a cheerfully yellow umbrella open above. What the fuck? Someone had fallen into step just behind me and to my left, their movements so quiet I hadn’t even heard them coming. Stealthy. Like a ninja.
My weed ninja looked down at me. “Hey,” he greeted, with a tilt of his head. I stared at him like an idiot, gobsmacked. I could smell him over the rain, and he still smelled like pot - quality shit, not that rank stuff my RA got from her boyfriend. I should say something. I had to say something.
It was a short walk from the breezeway to the cover of the Student Union - too short. I was still trying to think of what to say by the time I was out of the rain. To my horror, my weed ninja immediately veered left, steering for the walkway that wound toward the languages building.
“Wait!” I called after him, my voice embarrassingly shrill. “Hold up - what’s your name?”
Thunder shook the windows of the campus store. It was no use. My weed ninja was gone once more, swallowed up by the deluge like a chilly curtain drawn between us.
Fuck.
“I don’t want to be the cop.”
“Someone has to be the cop.”
“Priya can be the cop.”
“I can’t be the cop,” Priya said. “I’m the nurse!”
She pointed at the cloth nurse cap pinned to her hair.
“How come you get to be the firefighter?” I demanded, and Jess shrugged.
“Because I’m smokin’ hot,” she answered. “Also, you’re too small for the costume, so get over it. You’re the only one who fits into the cop.”
The stupid costumes had been my idea. I’d watched Mean Girls with my older sister once, and the sexy entourage had seemed like a fun concept for Halloween night. That was until I got stuck as the sexy cop.
“The skirt’s not long enough for anyone else,” Michelle said, reasonably. She was our sexy doctor, and she twirled her stethoscope absently as she waited for her turn at the mirror to do her makeup. “Nobody’s going to care.”
“I care.”
“You should’ve been our sexy patient,” Cristy said. “With, like, a hospital gown or something.”
“That doesn’t go with the theme,” Sandy countered. How she found a sexy park ranger outfit, I had no idea. But I guess that’s a thing, now. “And don’t forget your handcuffs, okay?”
I held them up. “Yeah, about those. Why do you have real handcuffs?”
She shrugged. “Just, you know, for fun.”
“No, I don’t know.”
“Safe, sane, and consensual,” Jess put in. “This is a judgment-free zone.”
“Maybe your weed ninja is into that kind of thing,” Cristy suggested, and the other girls laughed.
By the time we got to the frat house, the front lawn resembled something out of a Bosch painting.
“Remember the buddy system!” Michelle said, sharply. “Don’t lose your buddy!”
“Me and my buddy are gonna go find some acid,” Jess announced, grabbing me by the arm. “Anyone else want some acid?”
I decided to pass on the acid. I’d taken a couple edibles earlier in the evening while we were all pregaming, and I had a comfortable buzz going as I trailed after Jess as she made her rounds. A girl abruptly projectile-vomited by the illegal bonfire in the back, hitting her date full in the face and narrowly missing my shoes. I couldn’t blame her. I didn’t like my costume either. In the ensuing hubbub I lost track of Jess, which I’d known would happen sooner or later. So much for the buddy system.
I was on my own. For now, anyway.
There was still enough space for me to move around without getting claustrophobic, so I took advantage of the opportunity to people-watch for a bit. Mostly it was a lot of dumb college kid shit. Lots of drinking, some drugs, a couple douchebros taking off their shirts to swing wildly at each other, posturing more than really trying to kick each other’s asses. I scanned the crowd for any coolers. A couple drinks, raid the candy stash, and maybe I’d make an excuse to leave early.
I smelled him before I saw him. He had his back turned to me, but he towered over the rest of the group he stood with, his pale hair nearly glowing like a halo in the dim light. My heart stuttered. I stood there frozen like an idiot again for too damn long. Before I knew it, he was lifting a hand in a wave and moving away from the group.
Oh, no you don’t.
I followed him. I wasn’t going to lose him again.
“Hey!” I called after him. He didn’t hear me. I ran faster, cursing my short legs. I was close. So close. Sometimes I fucking hated tall people, with their damn long strides. “HEY!” I called again. He stopped, turning his head. I caught up with him only to find that I was too breathless to speak. He watched me, puzzled, as I wheezed. I started to worry he’d walk off again. So I took Sandy’s handcuffs from my belt, fastened one cuff around one of my wrists, and snapped the other around one of his.
If he had any problem with being handcuffed to some strange girl, he gave no sign of it. He just blinked at me.
“Who are you?” I asked, finally.
He looked at me for a moment. Then he smiled. “I’m weed.”
“Weid - w-e-i-d, Weid.”
“That’s not how you pronounce that.”
“That’s how I pronounce it. You got a problem with how I pronounce my own name?”
I’d taken the handcuffs off before we went into the frat house, because it only occurred to me after the fact that cuffing my weed ninja had been a fucking creepy thing to do. What if it had been the other way around, and some rando had handcuffed himself to me? I would’ve clawed his eyes out. Jay Weid, though, hadn’t seemed to mind all that much.
“I’ve had weirder shit happen to me.”
He passed me his cigarette and I took a long drag. Ashes flittered to the filthy carpet below. Neither of the guys on the couch across from us seemed to notice, intent on the big screen TV, controllers gripped tight in their hands.
“Are you a ninja?” I asked.
Weid snorted. “I wish. Ninjas are awesome.”
“So not a ninja,” I answered. “And not a bizarre manifestation of marijuana-”
“Nope,” he told me, with a rolling shrug. “Just a guy.”
I shrugged back. “Nothing wrong with that.”
We sat quietly for a moment. “So,” I said.
“So,” Weid repeated.
“Now what?” I asked.
Weid hummed thoughtfully for a moment. He sucked deep, finishing off his cigarette, and flicked the butt to the carpet before grinding it out with his scuffed sneakers.
“Wanna get out of here?” he suggested.
I needed to find Jess. I needed to text Michelle, or Sandy, or somebody. But more importantly…
“God, yes,” I replied. “Let’s go.”
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