In the Forest of Light and Dark Read Online Free PDF Page B

     She had rushed past paying me no mind what-so-ever as I stood there in the driveway. Of course I had asked her, “What happened?” and then followed that up with, “Are you alright?” to which both questions garnered no response.
     After seeing my mama so upset yet again, I had decided not to follow her into the house. At the time, I really didn’t feel like dealing with whatever it was that happened this time. So, I figured I’d just duck out for a while escaping to Lettie’s house where I could stay in blissful ignorance for at least a bit longer before finding out what had Mama so upset.
     It didn’t do me any good though, because once I had gotten to Lettie’s all I could do was think about my mama and how upset she was. It had weighed on my mind so much that I just couldn’t block it out no matter how hard I tried. Not even after I had smoked a joint with Lettie and Tucker after he had showed up a while later with a few already rolled.
     After smoking, we had ended up watching television, and that didn’t help to get my mind off things either.
     Eventually, Gerralyn had stopped by along with another friend of ours, Marzie Kirkland. They had been sunbathing all afternoon down by the wharf where Marzie had received a good sunburn after having fallen asleep on her beach towel and forgetting to re-up her lotion.
     All of us had then ended up hanging out at Lettie’s for a little while longer and as soon as the episode of the Simpsons that we’d been watching had concluded we all then piled into the bed of Tucker’s pickup shooting over to Owen’s house. He by then had already used his brothers ID to pick up the refreshments for the evening in the forms of a bottle of cherry flavored vodka, and a thirty-pack of Keystone. We then set off for the woods not far from Owen’s house, where we knew of a nice little clearing in the trees where we could chill and have a fire without the fear of being busted.
     Having been still worried about my mama and feeling weighed down by all the money troubles my parents were having, I found myself hitting the bottle of cherry vodka pretty hard, and it wasn’t long before I felt my stomach begin to turn and I became nauseous.
     Now it may have just been the alcohol, but I had believed that the spinning world, I was experiencing may have also been aided by my lack of dinner that evening and the joint Tucker, Lettie, and I had shared earlier. Either way, before I knew it, there I was on all fours puking my guts out on a patch of ferns while Tucker held back my hair so I wouldn’t  get vomit in it.
     Wow, two guys coming to my rescue in the span of a couple of weeks, what a lucky broad I was.
     Towards the end of the night, Tucker had offered to stay with me after everyone else had gone home because I wasn’t in any mood to go home just yet even though I was still feeling pretty ill. And, I definitely did not want to go home before midnight for fear that my parents might still be awake. The last thing I needed was for them to see me come stumbling into the house completely wrecked and reeking of cigarettes, weed, and cheap vodka.
     We had ended up hanging out by the fire and talking about nothing while we gazed up at the myriad of stars in the night’s sky, eventually ending up snuggled comfortably in each other’s arms. He didn’t even try to hook-up with me, which was nice, and a first, but now that I’m reminiscing about it. I’m pretty sure it was because I might’ve been messed up worse than I thought I was, or maybe it was the smell of vomit still on my breath that had something to do with it?
     Either way, at about two in the morning Tucker had taken me home and by then I had regained enough of my motor skills so that I was able to sneak back into my house without his assistance.
     The next morning I had slept in until almost noon, and when I had finally gotten