I was the kind of kid who wore Wranglers or Levi 501's every day where it wasn't hot enough to wear shorts. Even some days when it was I would wear them and wither. I was the kind of kid who also accompanied those jeans with a trucker or flat bill baseball cap and boots. I mean I did as much as I could. The real cowboys I knew called me "gay" for it, but I was set on square toed cowboy boots. They were worn almost every day. I would sometimes mix in my Nike's to throw some questions at a few people. Those accompanied with a graphic tee. This was high school.
She was a hippie. Hot as all hell, but nobody thought we'd be friends. That's because she wore a wool poncho almost every day. This "drug rug" was a staple in her outfit, especially in the Oregon weather. It went well with her turquoise earrings and wire wrapped gem necklace that was worn almost as often. Most people could guess both of our outfits on any given day. That was about the only similarity we had with the known public. She hadn't had dreads at any point in her life when I met her but I wouldn't have been surprised any day if she showed up with them. Her legs were shorter than most girls that were considered as good looking as she was. It helped that they built one of the most iconic asses on our high school campus. She didn't have large breasts, but since when did that matter. She had boobies and we were all eighteen and under. They were still a decent size and everybody could tell from their comments, some of the perkier. That's because she never wore a bra. Combine those with a flat stomach and more than a cute face. She was an eight or nine in almost every other place in the world with her wavy shimmering brown hair. However, here she was a ten. She was easily one of, if not the best, looking girls on this high school campus. It's not all about looks and your sexual arsenal, we all know that, but in high school I don't know if one of us knew that. Years away from a clear head and more than one thing on your mind. She was deemed as about as far politically opposite as most everybody in the small logging town where we lived. That was part of her appeal. It was sexy to be against the grain. She was the sweetest rebel you could find. Nobody thought we would be friends, including me. This was high school.
Everybody knew we didn't party. I mean birthday cake and ice cream, shit yeah, but neither one of us drank. We hung out with those kids but us, no. They expected her to smoke weed. I mean it was an Oregon high school and she was a textbook definition modern day hippie. Flicking shit at hipsters and spending time with her mother, nature. She hung out with the crowd. She never smoked with anybody but me and her best friend. Not even her parents, even when they offered. That's where our story started. Most didn't expect me to smoke. Most assumed I didn't. I only partook with a certain small group of certain friends, well, and her.
It all started the week I began high school. Within the first year as a scrawny, way too loud, smart-ass ninth grader I saw the "hottest sophomore" around. We locked eyes. I knew she was attracted to me and everybody was to her. It was that look where you know something's going to happen. Your gut just tells you. I didn't know what she saw in me. I had friends that were more handsome. Some were more friendly. A lot listened better. Hell, most were all of the above, at least in the crowd I hung out with. I even had die-hard hippie friends that were the male counterpart to her. She still chose me. She would later date one of my family friends but always held onto a smile for me. In a small town with a high school coming in from two middle schools we knew of each other but never really talked. We didn't know each other. It took two more years before we got the chance to. Just long smiles and locked eyes in between.
Junior year, her senior, we were in the same class. It was the first time I'd had a class with her. While most classes were divided by grade, the electives were all of the grades. Sitting as close to I could one of my best hippie friends. I happened to sit next to her. This was the best class of high school so far. I was delighted. I was probably sitting with the widest smile I had since I hit my first home run. It didn't take long for the term of smoking come up. Dan was one of the friends I smoked with. So eventually he asked for us to try it in lunch. She looked at me for approval. Now as somebody that really didn't smoke that often I was hesitant, but apparently, my smile gave her enough of a good feeling. She ripped back one side of her face so fast it looked like it hurt. She slowly pulled her hesitant little lip up to show the abalone sparking bleach white teeth. She glanced back over at me. She then locked eyes with Dan.
"Yeah, when?"
He looked down and pondered for a minute, "How bout lunch?"
Again looking at me, "Well yeah, I guess I could"
"Saweet" blurted Dan, "I think I have some ready in my car"
Looking over at me, "When do you not have some?" as she startled to giggle.
"Yeah, I keep pounds on me in my backpack, they call me Snoop. I'm friends with Willie."
Dan made his classic peace sign. A stickered response sign for a Dan "yes" or a "hell yeah".
Then he added as we started molecular equations a, "Sweet, sounds good"
As we sat there two of us were anxiously awaiting the class to end. The other was probably slightly more relaxed knowing he had to buddies to smoke with. After the class ended we all gathered in a bunch to walk to his car. Climbing into the white Toyota Camry she started to get into the back. As badly as I wanted to climb in right behind her, I also didn't want to make it awkward. I got into the front. I was surprised she hadn't called shotgun. She was that type of girl. It added more icing to the mound of cake she had already piled up on. She had become more sheepish the closer we got to the car. Maybe she was realizing this plan we had thrown together was actually going to go through. That had to be why. We still hadn't decided where to eat. Being the super-rich high school kids without jobs that we decided on the littlest of Caesars. It was the least expensive for munchies. After having concluded the journey of conquering the eating location, we set off. He was immediate to reach under the seat and pull out a bag of his finest oregano. He passed it to me to stuff the pipe that was in the bag as well. He explained he planned on doing this anyway, before we had decided to join. That's why he pulled it out of his trunk the period before lunch. As I finished my job looking as green as the rookie I was, I passed the pipe back to Dan. I was trying so hard to not embarrass myself loading the bowl I hadn't realized we were already done with the five minutes of driving. Dan went to take a rip before we went in. His car, his greens. I had tried not to look like a fool and failed, twice. I had not only taken the whole drive to do what we later did in seconds, and I overstuffed it. He couldn't rip the bowl. My face as red as the pepperoni on the pizza we hadn't gotten yet. He was quick with a Swiss army knife toothpick to unclog the bowl. He had it cherrying within the minute. He then reached behind his back and handed it to her. She put her thumb over the carb and sucked. The red ambers in the bowl lit up. No lighter required. She released her thumb and inhaled. her eyes were instantly Dunkin donuts glazed as she put it forward to me. I took the lighter, then the pipe. I put the tip of the glass penis shaped pipe to my mouth. I bent over, sparked and finished the bowl. Setting the pipe down in the console under the radio I grabbed the door handle we went inside to get our lunch. After collecting the pizza we returned to school smoking two more bowls on the way back.
As we got back we started to separate with five minutes left on our lunch break. She walked one way in the eastern direction, Dan and I the other. We discussed how cool she was and how that should be something that happened more often. I mean it was high school (weed pun intended). We were high as giraffe balls having only been a time in single digits for each of us. He proceeded to go to a wildlife class as I went to biology. Walking in class smelling of pizza and thankfully not weed, I sat in the very back corner of the class. I was not used to being this high. I was High as a giraffe's balls. Wait did I say that already? The top shelf, the one that cookies were on when you were a toddler, that's how high I was. Yet, I wasn't worried about the school work. It was easy as all other high school classes. I was a little worried somebody might notice though. Reaching into my backpack to grab my note taking binder I heard somebody sit down next to me. I was still digging in my pack for a pencil or pen I could draw with, seeing as I never took notes. Then that bastard sitting next to me stole a breadstick. The best fucking part of my lunch. They took my second to the last one. I rose up to sitting fully back into my seat and snapped my head around. I was ready to punch the man that laid hands on my fucking garlic salt laced sticks of bread.
It was her. Pinching a breadstick between her thumb and index finger. Laughing at me for how pissed I must have looked. Half cocked back and hammer pulled to the side of those white teeth. She had the best cowboy smile I'd ever seen. She wasn't even considered a cowgirl.
"You're in this class?" I asked with my voice cracking like I was back in the fifth grade.
"Yeah, we're as lucky as we are" she started to chuckle as she pointed towards the ceiling and looked up, "high"
"Well I would be if you sat in front of me"
"Why, what difference would that make?" She questioned. " I couldn't even talk to you"
Glancing back at the isle way behind the desks, then directly at the leggings stretched a little too tight over her legs as they came to meet the booty cake.
"Well, I'd get to stare at that"
I was expecting her to not take it so well. I was too high to have the little filter I ever did. To my surprise, she instantly made a sizzling sound as she placed a finger on her ass. We both laughed as the class got underway. As the first week came to a wrap some things changed. While she was no longer in the chemistry class. She had switched. While she had changed that class, luckily she hadn't changed the class after lunch. We still had biology together. If only we could take anatomy with one another. I'm sure I could lose my time studying that. After about a week of sobriety after lunch, she asked to go out again. She said the next day she could pick up some stuff from home and we could roll out to eat together. I, of course, said yes. The next day I expected her to have invited somebody else for the trip, at least one of her close friends if not Dan or what I thought was still her boyfriend. I mean I never saw her alone. It was just us two I found out. I climbed into her rig. It was much nicer than my 89' Toyota pickup. I mean mine was custom made out to be my perfect rig, but hers had a backseat. That's where I was hoping to end up. It also helped she drove the first generation BMW SUV. Her dad was a large property owner so he didn't want much. He just wanted his daughter to be safe, and not ever have to worry about road conditions. As she pulled out a little mini bong from a container in a bag resting on the heavenly back seat. She handed it to me. I took her hydro flask filled with icy water and poured it into the plastic piece. As we talked that day we decided a few things,
1. We would do this every opportunity we had.
2. Hour minimum would be our goal once a week.
3. We would switch who brought the goods (weed) and whose car we used.
As our first day came to a close I learned she had since put things on hold with my family friend, her boyfriend. I had nobody I was pursuing at the time so this was music to my ears. Not any of that bad shit either. This came across with as much joy as listening to Tupac, Sublime, Waylon, or the damn Stones. We went out every week.
The year continued we had preceded to go to lunch at least once a week but more likely, three or four times. One time we were seen together. With the spike in questions at a small school, we should stop being seen. So I would swing around on all days I didn't have plans and pick her up on the street leaving school. When it was raining, she would do the same for me. We would go get food, smoke a little too much, and proceed to go back to class where we would make fun of the stoners. This is where our relationship was built. The more often we did it, the less stoned we looked upon our return. It amazed me. The Volcom sponsored skater stoners would roll back in smelling like they had rolled in their entire jar of flower, eyes red as the devil's dick, and always a half second slower than they should have been. Where had their tolerance gone? They smoked more than we did but proceeded to not conceal any part of it. I don't know how the teachers didn't say anything. It was like they thought it as a fashion statement, just like they thought being emo was cool in middle school. Her sparkling eyes always had me entangled in our conversations. Every time I thought of moving in for a kiss something held me back. I had no problem with making successful moves on other women. There was just something different about her. She was better than they were to me. Maybe not to others, but to me, she was the crème of the crop. Fuck that she wasn't in the crop. She was the organic farmer rowing in a crop so well, it made the others look bad. She was the whiskey in my glass.
Then the bottle was knocked out of my hand. It hurt. With two months left in school, I was in a rocky relationship and she was taken. We both still hung out at least once a week. Even getting together outside of school not to be noticed and to extend the time we had. We would always continue making fun of the half dozen stoners in our biology class and wrap all the way back around to our life issues. While we both wanted each other we had dedicated ourselves to others. No idea why. We could see the sorrow in each others decisions. Neither one of really knew why we did it. Always calling one another the hypothetical best choice. Neither one of us knew why we couldn't, but we couldn't. It could have been because we always wanted the other to make the move. It was one of those things you don't really understand how to get past until after you've been through it. It was high school.
With two weeks left in school, we went out for the first time in weeks. we had a long break as I was in baseball season and she was preparing to graduate and head off to another four years of sub-par learning. She got in the car much more timidly than usual. Not talkative, holding back her eye contact for most of the ride. She had even forgotten her lucky lighter. This was okay. My truck had two in it at all times, but this was unlike her. She pulled out a joint she had rolled the previous day. We never smoked J's. Not because we didn't like them, because we'd return smelling like our favorite group to make fun of. I had decided to switch to school for my senior year. She knew that. She had decided to not go immediately to college and take a year hiking, traveling, and making money. I knew that. So it was awkward when she brought it up. She was hesitant about going over our plans for the next year. Something was different. She then lit the J. We passed it back and forth without a word between us. We arrived at the local Chinese for some MSG we split. Still not another word. Eating pork in my truck, scraping down the last pieces and minutes of lunch.
Then she surprised me. Still no words spoken in the last half of the break. She turned and opened her upper body toward me. Not making any eye contact. Sliding her legs slowly over the top of my lap past my truck's stick shift, and mine. The top of her tank top was up to my chin, breasts even with my eyes. hands wrapped together on the other side of my neck. I was so floundered at the motion, I didn't say anything. I didn't move.
She had a boyfriend. I was still seeing the girl I had taken to prom. She leaned forward and brought her lips to mine. It was a peck at first. A soft kiss with more emotion than I'd seen from hours of doing much more with others. She immediately came back for more. As our lips locked, our tongues twisted, and our eyes stayed gently closed. She tasted like heaven. Well that, and a touch of shallots and soy sauce. In the background, we heard the bell ring for the end of lunch period. She pulled back. I didn't want it to stop. I was more speechless than I could have been earlier. She wiped her lips and the smile off her face with the back of her wrist. I grabbed my bag and asked if she was coming to class. She waved her head side to side calmly.
"Not today, but we'll do this again before it's done"
I swallowed the lump in my throat, nodded, and hurried to class. I couldn't even focus on the slides. I was too busy wrapped up in what had just happened. I was praying the next day I could get more. I wouldn't touch myself for weeks without thinking of that kiss. I was trying to think of how we could get something to work. We only had two more weeks of school. Even just over the summer before we were separated, something.
I never saw her again. Not the even in the remainder of that class. I didn't hurt. It just left a blank space. It was something I could never proceed with. I had her number. I texted her on the Saturday of her graduation and my first summer baseball game. I never heard back. I never talked to her again. I hope she is doing well. I wish I could give her the letter I wrote years ago. I wish I could see her today, thriving, happy, euphoric, and still beautiful. I wish all these dreams I have, knowing they probably will never come true. Then again, I never thought I'd get a kiss as a "cowboy" punk from the "flower power" hippie girl. Then again, I was wrong.