vibes and stuff [african saturday school lot]

↳ INES DUVAL

Ines rides her skateboard as far as she can while every bone in her body is trembling, terrified of the place that she's about to put herself. She knows that it's silly, this anxiety, has been to these parties before. She'd never really gotten her own invite though, had always walked through the door with Holly, arms linked.

She stops three blocks away, feels tremors in every one of her fingers before she digs nails into the soft of her own palm. Without warning, she curls over and vomits, nearly toppling face forward off her board in the process. Ducking into the shadow of the building, she catches herself on the wall, wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and takes a sideways step, slumps down against the brick and pulls out a joint from the little silver case she'd been keeping in her backpack.

She smokes it, the smell wafting around her, bringing comfort as she sits three feet from the puddle of bile. At least she hadn't eaten anything today.

"This is so stupid," she says to the shadows before pushing herself up. "What am I doing?" she asks herself before swallowing, planting her feet on the ground, and walking the rest of the way.

She doesn't bother trying to answer her own question.

She doesn't want to know why. She just wants to do it, for once. Alone.

Walking through the place, skateboard tucked under her arm and backpack slung across her back, it's not hard to figure out why Kemali picked this place. He's the first one that she spots, and she goes to him immediately, the crumpled up invitation still burning a hole in her first pocket. He didn't mean to give you one, her brain shouts at her, but she shoves the tension down her own throat until she feels it settle in her stomach, filling the space where food belonged. Without ceremony, awkwardly, she offers the few dollars she can along with a smile fueled by smoke, which she definitely wants more of now that she's actually here. "For the booze," she says, pulling her silver case out of her backpack too and plucking another joint from its temporary home. "Plus, a couple other favors."

She holds it up, pinched between thumb and pointer finger.

The way to everyone's heart is through weed, right?

It the way to hers, at the very least.