One Page #10

The ballpark was empty as we passed by. The game had long since ended and I wondered whether my little brother’s team had won or not. My dad couldn’t make the game today, and I knew my brother was pissed at him for it. My mother would have been there, as always, hot dog in hand. I think she went more for the hot dogs than to see my brother play. My friend and I cut across the diamond on the way home. The light was waning and the white painted lines were scuffed on the gravel. The grass looked torn up. The sky was turning from a deep purple grey to an inky black and stars were starting to appear. The air was cool and I felt goose bumps on my arm. I felt my friend’s arm to see if she had them too. She did. We compared our small mounds, but it was hard to see them in the dark. On the other side of the field we crossed through the break in the chain link fence and leaned against it on the other side for a smoke before going home. We hadn’t smoked until last week when my friend found a pack in her sister’s room and stole it. I had found a lighter in my dad’s pocket and we agreed to try smoking together for the first time. We coughed a lot at first, but now felt like pros, breathing in and out evenly and watching smoke pour out into the air and dissipate into nothing. We loved that we could create something that disappeared so completely. We felt like God creating clouds that whirled and faded. The smoke tasted bad in my lungs, but I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to sound stupid somehow; I figured I was supposed to like the taste. Later, lying in bed, I could still feel a slight burning in my throat from the smoke and a little dizzy in my head. But I wouldn’t say anything. And I knew my friend wouldn’t say anything either, if she was feeling the same way. After we stomped out the butts on the gravel mixed with lawn we walked the two blocks toward home. We lived across the street from each other, and I wondered sometimes whether we were friends by default. I hoped not. We walked down the middle of the street, following the yellow lines, because there were no cars around. It was quiet. Everyone must be eating dinner. I knew my friend was going to be late for dinner and her mother would be angry. But I also knew that there was no dinner happening at my house right now. My mother would be full on hotdogs and most likely asleep on the couch, and my father would still be at work. My brother might be eating Cheerios in the kitchen, or a microwave burrito in his room. I didn’t want to go home. When it came to parting ways, I always wished I could go to my friend’s house instead. But I never asked. And she didn’t offer. She didn’t even think to. She didn’t know.