High Life

Waking up, sweating to his alarm, was not how Jakobey wanted to start his first day of senior year. Trying his best to get himself out of bed, the odds already seemed stacked against him. After five minutes of getting ready while half asleep he was in the car on his way to the first day at a brand new highschool. His blonde hair was messy and his green eyes were bright but his stomach was churning. 

Jakobey pulled into the parking lot of North O’Reed high school and waited in his car, watching people flood into the school. After sitting in his car for a while, he mustered up the courage to walk into the building. 

His parents and family weren’t too happy about his recent transfer, especially his cousin Mellie. Mellie and Jakobey were about a year apart in age, Jakobey being older. Even though Jakobey was older, Mellie acted more grown up and was the responsible one in the relationship. Mellie and Jakobey had been close ever since they were little, with their dad’s being brothers, they were always together. 

Pushing the thoughts of disapproval from his family, he found his way to his first period class. He sat in the back corner of the classroom and a lanky boy sat next to him. The boy’s clothes looked worn out and ragged. You could smell the smoke on him from twenty miles away.  

He looked at Jakobey and said, “Sup. My name is Forest. What’s yours?” 

Jakobey hesitated and nervously ran his fingers through hair, “Hi, I’m Jakobey. I’m new this year.” 

Forest looked him up and down, “That makes sense, I didn’t think I recognized you, but then again, I come to school baked most of the time.” Jakobey didn’t know what to say back to Forest, but desperately seeking validation from him, Jakobey responded, 

“I do that too.” Jakobey knew that was a lie because Mellie would have killed him if he would’ve ever done something like that. Class started and after forty-five minutes of going over the syllubus, kids were zoning out and asking dumb questions to try and be funny, the bell finally rang. As Jakobey was packing his stuff up and putting it into his bag, Forest yelled out to him 

“Hey what’re you doing right now?” 

Jakobey had a blank stare, “Going to second period?” 

Forest laughed, “Grab your bag lets go smoke.” Jakobey not knowing what to do, but being easily influenced, agreed and followed Forest out of the classroom. Jakobey was quickly realizing this school was nothing like his last. 

Forest led him to the bleachers of the football stadium. They walked up the bleachers to the highest row. Forest sat down and Jakobey was almost clinging to him because he was so scared of getting caught. 

“Jakobey, I want you to meet my friend Boe. He’s a junior here.” said Forest gesturing to the kid staring at nothing, lightly laughing at the blank space. Forest leaned over to Jakobey and whispered to him, “I know Boe seems a little off, but he has the best hook-ups in town.” Jakobey nodded, just agreeing with him so he wouldn’t have to verbally say anything. 

Forest, Jakobey, and Boe sat huddled at the top of the bleachers and passed around a blunt for twenty minutes. Jakobey’s mind was already racing. Filling with possibilities of getting caught, being expelled, or kicked out of his house. 

Finally, Jakobey summed up the courage to spit out the sentence, “Hey man, maybe we should get back inside.” Forest taking one more hit agreed because the temperature had dropped and the wind was picking up. Jakobey and Forest both did a wave bye to Boe and headed back into the school. 

Jakobey noticed the rest of the day went by pretty fast, mainly because he had marijuana flowing throughout his system. Jakobey never liked school and he didn’t get caught so this bad habit had now become an everyday occurance. After about three months at North O’Reed, Jakobey was getting in with a bad group of kids and already had a reputation flowing throughout the school. However, as far as his parents and family knew, Jakobey was doing just fine at school. Forest, having had taken Jakobey under his wing, had taught Jakobey how to lie and get out of tough situations, making Jakobey’s family assume everything was fine. 

The first semester had been completed. Mellie had grown to be suspicious of Jakobey, she could tell something was off. But being an hour away from him, there wasn’t much she could do.  She shrugged it off and just blamed it on her anxiety. Mellie had a day off from school and decided to take the hour long trip up to Jakobey’s school to surprise him. Mellie walked into the school and got his class schedule from the office and went to go find him. After about twenty minutes of aimlessly wandering around, Jakobey was nowhere to be found. Defeated, she went to the front of the building and sat outside on a bench, reviewing his schedule to see if it was right. 

She looked around at the gloomy sky and noticed three heads on the top of the bleachers at the football field. Immediately she could tell one of those boys was Jakobey. Confused on what he was doing, she started walking over. As she got onto the bleachers, her and Jakobey made eye contact and he knew he was in big trouble. Mellie’s eyes filled with tears and she ran away from the sight of her cousin with drugs in hand. 

She heard footsteps coming towards her and looked up to see Jakobey standing there out of breath. “You’re not gonna tell my mom are you?” Jakobey said. Mellie couldn’t help but let out a sob at that moment. 

Mellie looked at Jakobey, wide eyed, “Jakobey, are you selling drugs?” 

Jakobey looked down and muttered a small “Yes”. They sat in silence and after some time passes. 

Mellie let out softly, “You know you have to get help right?” 

“Yeah,” Jakobey said trailing off. “Forest is gonna kill me.” Mellie pulled herself up from the ground and took Jakobey by the hand and walked to the car. Jakobey called his mom on the way to the rehab clinic and came clean about everything. 

Jakobey had been in treatment for about two months and was still getting messages from his ex drug dealer friends, threatening his life if he snitched on them. Jakobey completed his treatment and graduated after six months. With the help of Mellie and his family, Jakobey got a job helping get teens off of drugs and rehabilitated. He now makes it his life goal to prove to teens that there is more to life than chasing a high.