Page 4 of Choices

She runs to the recycling bin and pulls out an empty can. She grabs a kitchen knife and my alarms go off. But instead of launching at me, she pokes holes in one side before flattening it. Then she holds it up, beaming at me with pride.

I shake my head and laugh a little. Who the fuck was this soccer mom who knows how to make improvised smoking devices out of the trash? Maybe I'd underestimated her. Maybe there's more to her than she appears.

Now, I'm definitely staying.

She grabs a lighter from a junk drawer and the baggy from her purse before just sort of staring at me.

"You're right, you know. 'Rich white soccer mom drowns in her own pool after smoking pot', isn't a great headline." I say, moving past her and sliding open the back door for her. And just because I like her a bit nervous, I add, "I’m going to keep an eye on you while you smoke to make sure you don’t do anything stupid. As long as I don’t hear about you going to the cops or news about what you saw tonight, I’ll let you live."

She whispers a 'thank you' before slidingpast me. I can't help the leisurely perusal of her body as she passes close enough to me. I can feel the heat coming off of her body.

I really have no interest in killing a suburban soccer mom, but if she's a threat to my carefully constructed regime, I won't hesitate to put her down. I might even lose some sleep over it.

She sits on one of the lounge chairs by her pool cross-legged, looking much younger than her 30-something years.

She gives me a quizzical look before offering me her smoke. I shake my head before taking off my leather jacket and sitting on the lounge next to hers, facing her. It's August, and August in the DMV* is always stiflingly hot.

"A good drug dealer doesn't smoke his own shit."

She peeks out of the corner of her eye, checking out my arms and my tattoos. I smile.

She lights the weed and sucks in through the drink hole of the can, trying to hold the smoke in her lungs but failing. She tries to stifle her coughs, tears squeezing through her pinched lids, but loses the battle.

Yeah, mami, weed's not like it was back when you were in college anymore.

"So, you're just going to sit here and watch me smoke?" she asks once she's regained her composure.

I nod.

“So, what’s a good girl like you doing, buying drugs from a low life while her husband and kids are gone?” I ask finally.

She frowns, her hands wavering as she tries to find the words. “I don’t know who I am anymore.” She says quietly. The deep, aching sadness weighing her words hits me like a punch to the gut.

I frown. Here's this rich white woman, with 2.5 kids and the picket fence, and more money than sense, and she looks so incredibly small and lost.

“I used to have passion and energy. I had plans and dreams. I rode horses and partied with my friends. We went on adventures, and I was fearless. And then…” She drifts off, staring holes through the pot and coke can in her hands. More silence interrupted only by crickets and nighttime sounds fill the surrounding air around us, while she's lost in some memory.

“And then I don’t know... I don't know what happened next, but it seems like I gradually lost my old self and became a new person. However, the new me isn't someone I'm familiar with.”

She shakes her head as if to shake away the bad thoughts and takes another drag of the weed.

“I love my kids…I’m a GOOD mom…but my husband’s cheating on me with his 20-year-old secretary, and he doesn’t even have the decency to hide it from me. I have no friends, no hobbies, no dreams anymore…I haven’t even touched a horse in years…I wake up every morning a slave to my to-do list and I realized I have nothing to look forward to….”

I'm silent, giving her the space she needs to confess something I'm not even sure she's admitted to herself.

“I just…” She sighs, and it sounds like her bones are tired. “I just wanted to do something for ME. Something selfish. Something…something the new me would never do…”

"Even if it got you killed? It's not safe to be on that side of town at night alone, mami."

A sad laugh escapes her as she leans her head back against the lounger and closes her eyes.

"I thought about that. My parents would raise my kids, maybe not the way I would, but they'd be provided for, and then I could finally rest..."

She stills as if the realization of her words hit her just as hard as they hit me.

"Jesus, Princess, that's depressing as fuck."

She takes another toke before tucking her knees to her chest and wrapping her arms around them.

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