April Haze

It happens in the woods. Jules and I are smoking weed on top of a giant rock, just passing the joint back and forth. She used peach rolling papers and I can taste a little bit of sweetness with each hit. 

The woods are kind of our place, me and Jules. We’ve been coming here for years. It’s nice to get away from the noise of the city sometimes and just breathe. 

Today Jules is wearing these huge purple sunglasses and a neon pink crop top with cut-off denim shorts. She’s got Doc Martens on her feet and her dark curls are squeezed into space buns. A 90’s fantasy girl, if I ever saw one.

I’m wearing my cut-offs too, but I have on a plain black T-shirt and it’s starting to stick to me. I swear it wasn’t supposed to be this hot. It’s only April, but I guess the sun felt like proving a point today. I blot at my armpits and hope that the smell of weed and peaches can save me the embarrassment.

“What did you do today?” I ask, inhaling.

“Nothing,” Jules says as she takes the joint back.

“Really? Didn’t have class?” I reply.

“Nah, I did. But I didn’t go,” she says. I watch as she lays down and spreads out her arms and legs to get tan. I want to warn her that the straps of her crop top are going to leave bad tan lines, but I know better than to tell her Jules what to do. 

Instead, I lie down. “Right. I just went cause it’s one of the last classes. We were reviewing.” 

“I already reviewed,” Jules says. She takes off her sunglasses for a moment and rubs her eyes. 

“That’s chill,” I say with a nod. 

There’s a lot more I want to talk about with Jules. Like ask when she’s going back to Chicago for summer break. Or how things went with that guy at the party at Beta Ro. Or what she thinks about the new iced vanilla bourbon latte at Dave’s. 

None of it seems relevant, though. In the woods, it’s just us and the trees. No need to bring other people into it. 

I close my eyes for a bit, waiting for Jules to ask me a question. Ten minutes go by. Then twenty. I fall asleep at a certain point and then wake up. She’s still just lying there, texting and taking hits from the joint. We’ve stopped sharing it. 

Finally, she says: “Do you think you’re gay?” 

I blink at her and let out a sound similar to that of a duck choking on bread. “No.”

“You wouldn’t say it all snappy like that if you weren’t defensive,” she says. “I think you could be. Or bi. Or something. You like girls.”

You like girls. 

The way she just tells it to me, like it’s a fact. The same way someone would say: ‘You go to school’ or ‘You have two brothers.’

I pull at the laces of my converse high-tops and try not to grit my teeth. 

“I’m not wrong,” Jules continues. She’s sitting up now.

“I mean,” I say. “I’m not really sure. Never thought about it.”

Jules is coming closer to me now, closing the gap between where we lay on the rock. There wasn't much space between us to begin with.

Taking a breath in, I tell myself it’s not a big deal. I’ve slept in her bed before. We’ve kissed each other’s cheeks. I've seen her get changed. She’s my friend.

“I think you have thought about it,” Jules breathes as she tosses the butt of the joint onto the forest floor. 

She’s straddling me now and I close my eyes, feeling her torso rub against mine. This is the part where she kisses me. 

Our faces are inches away from each other now and I can feel her breath on me, a mixture of mint, Purple Haze and that damn peach blunt wrapper.

I expect us to start making out immediately, like she does with the boys in frat houses on Friday nights, but we don’t. She just stares at me, licking her lips, inviting me to make the first move. 

It would be a complete injustice to say that I wasn’t turned on right now. That I didn’t find Jules to be one of the hottest girls I knew. That I wasn’t attracted to her athletic body and unshakeable confidence and 'zero fucks given' attitude. That I hadn’t had a girl crush on her since the day we met at office hours in Chem 0030 six semesters ago. 

“You should get off,” I manage to grunt. 

Jules puts a finger to my lips. “Don’t fight it.”

So I close my eyes again. And I do kiss her. 

I fucking kiss her. I kiss her like that’s the last joint I’d ever smoke. I kiss her like there’s a group of ten of the hottest frat guys trying to make a move on her. I kiss her like she’s going to disappear any second. 

She kisses me back, hard, for what feels like hours. Our tongues entangle and my breath catches and I feel my body heating up even more. She tugs at my hair and I cup her jaw. I hear her moan as I gently bite the inside of her lips.

But then she leaves. She doesn’t even say anything. She just gets up and sprints through the woods back to campus. I stand up and follow her. I’m faster than her and she knows it, but she takes a shortcut past the pond. 

She knows I hate water and purposely splashes some at me. The look in her eyes is devious, like someone who just blow torched an entire city and felt good about it. 

Jules sprints to her dorm, faster than I had ever seen her go before. It’s not too far of a run. Once we’re out of the woods, we just have to cross the street and run up two blocks before we hit the campus green. 

I watch the other students milling around, finishing up their books as the final bits of sunlight begin to disappear. They’re so peaceful, while me and Jules are wild and carnivorous as we dart towards her building.

She whips out a key and then stands at the door, smiling. One of her space buns has come loose and her hair is falling into her eyes, but I can still see her smiling. I look at her cut-offs, which are riding up. She looks at my black T-shirt, which is stuck to my skin like a new tattoo.

Then Jules turns to unlock the door and I stand there, catching my breath. I expect her to go inside and slam it closed right in my face like in the movies.

But she doesn’t. She leaves it open.