I grabbed the lighter from the pocket of my jeans and passed it to her. Adjusting my posture, I positioned my body to the side, still leaned over the railing though, and glanced over at her. She toked the blunt and took a puff. The orangish-red blaze, lit from the tip of the blunt, cast a glow on her face before she exhaled.
“Shit,” she coughed, scrunching up her face while looking at the blunt. “Damn!”
“Rookie. Gimme my shit,” I grinned and snatched it from her. “Over here wastin’ good weed. The fuck is wrong wit’ you!”
“I wasn’t expecting it to be strong like that,” she responded, her voice groggy.
“That’s ’cause you used to that gas station weed,” I joked.
“Shut up,” she giggled once her coughing subsided.
I pulled from the blunt again before exhaling the smoke into the air, my eyes forming a squint.
“You ain’t supposed to be out here no way. You’re supposed to be resting.”
Removing from behind me, she joined me and leaned over the railing, her curly hair flowing in the wind.
“I did rest.”
“How you feeling?”
“I feel better,” she cut her eyes at me, giving me a closed-mouth smile. “Thank you for saving me. I didn’t know what happened?—”
“You don’t have to thank me for that,” I downplayed. It wasn’t a favor. Saving her saved my life too. “I didn’t know yoass couldn’t swim.” I held the blunt out for her to take it, but she declined it.
“The instructor said the chances of falling off the boat were slim. I don’t know what happened.”
“The instructor said if you start to feel sick, we’d have to stay out here for aftercare for a few days. Just let me know if you’re feeling any different than you are now.”
“I will.”
“I’m serious, Synthia,” I warned her as I put the blunt out.
She didn’t rebuttal. The silence that rested between us was loud, like the sound of the ocean and the birds flying above us.
“So she really left, huh?” she spoke up, cutting the silence in half.
“Yeah,” I muttered.
“Romelo, that’s not the way I wanted her to find out,” she said, twiddling with her thumbs.
“Well, how would you have preferred it?” I asked, my tone laced with sarcasm.
She shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“It ain’t gon’ make shit better. There ain’t no better time than now.”
“The day before her birthday, though,” she scoffed in disbelief.
“You blamin’ me for how shit turned out or sum’?” My tone was gruff. “Either way, I don’t give a fuck how shit turned out. Shit was bound for her to find out. Her feelings ain’t on my list of priorities right now.”
“Am I human for feeling bad?”
“Yeah, that’s just a flaw that you need to work on,” I mumbled.
“So, what’s next?”
“Whatchu’ mean?”
