I cleared my throat. “Did you get it?”
He nodded as a thin puff of smoke curled out of his mouth and rose up into the air.
I looked back down at the joint, it was nearly finished. I brought it up to my mouth again and took a slightly bigger breath this time. I held it in until it felt like my lungs were going to explode, and then quickly brought my mouth back down to Alex’s.
This time Alex’s hand came up to my cheek as our lips met. He opened his mouth slightly and I placed mine over his, breathing the smoke into it, as he inhaled. Again, I didn’t move my lips off right away. Instead, we both seemed to close our mouths slowly at the same time, causing our lips to rub together gently. The tingling feeling was back and it felt so good that I didn’t want it to end and then suddenly, it felt like we were kissing.
Were we?No one was moving their tongues or lips though. Alex lifted his other hand to my cheek and held my face in place. I moved closer to him, until our chests touched. I was so aware of our lips. His against mine. Mine against his. It was all I could feel. We kept them so still, that when they both finally started moving, it was very obvious. My lips curled into a smile, and I felt Alex’s doing the same. We smiled against each other’s lips.
“Whoa!” I said softly and slowly against his mouth. My words sounded dreamy and slow and heavy.
“Whoa,” Alex imitated me as we slowly pulled away. We looked at each other, stupid smiles plastered across our faces.
“Whoa,” we both said at the same time and then started looking around. The forest appeared more beautiful than it had a few moments ago. The greens were greener and almost shimmery now. I watched Alex, he seemed to be gazing straight ahead of him with a faraway, distinct look on his face.
“Alex, are you okay?” The words came out of my mouth, but it didn’t sound like me. My voice wasn’t mine, it was as if someone had hijacked my vocal chords and was speaking through me. Someone with a strange, slow, mechanical, voice. “Oh my God! I’m channeling Siri!” I suddenly said, putting my hand to my lips to see if they’d changed shape. “Helloooo.” I was surprised by the sound of my voice again. “I’m Siri!” I looked up at Alex. He looked at me and smiled.
“Hello, Siri,” he said.And that was it.The world’s funniest moment. The joke to end all other jokes. A punchline like no other punchline that had ever come before it, well, that’s how it felt anyway as an explosion of laughter filled the space between us. It was so loud and frightening that I’m sure we terrified all the forest animals.
Alex moved towards me, he was laughing so much that his shoulders were rising and falling and he looked unsteady on his feet. We reached out and grabbed each other by the shoulders, clinging on tightly.
“It hurts!” I cried, as tears started pouring from my eyes.
“Me too!” Alex said, as his laughter became hysterical.
I pulled Alex into a hug and we held onto each other, screaming with laughter until we were both crying tears.
“Let’s walk,” I suddenly said, pulling away from Alex.
“Which way did we come from?” he asked.
“I don’t know.” I shrugged and then an idea hit me. “I know!” I closed my eyes and stuck my arm out, pointing one of my fingers, and then spun around and stopped.
I opened my eyes and looked at my finger. “Siri wants us to go that way.” I turned and looked at Alex. He started nodding in agreement.
“I trust Siri,” he said and then we both stumbled off in that direction together.
CHAPTER FORTY
We were surrounded by forest and the world was moving in slow motion. Somehow everything looked crisper and clearer, yet muted at the same time. The colors all seemed to hum at me, as if each one had a different sound and I swear, I could feel some kind of vibration moving through the air.Maybe this was mother nature whispering to me?
“Wow!” I said breathily.
“I know. It’s so like, like . . .” Alex held his arms out and wiggled his fingers around. “It’s like I can feel the air.”
I burst out laughing again, and soon Alex joined in. We stumbled and cackled through the undergrowth like two people who’d escaped from a mental asylum, almost insane from all the laughter. We walked a little more and luckily “Siri” had chosen the right way, because suddenly we found ourselves standing at the edge of the forest, the town stretched out in front of us just behind the row of trees.
“Where does Siri want us to go next?” Alex asked.
I closed my eyes again and spun around, this time completely losing balance and falling to the ground. As I hit the floor I began screeching with laughter again. I could hear Alex laughing too, then I felt two arms under mine and a firm tug. I stumbled back up to my feet and then crashed into Alex. He wrapped his arms around me and then we both fell backwards onto the floor again.
We both cried with laughter. The kind of laughter that renders your body useless. We were gasping for air now and I’d never known laughter like this. It was so intense I thought I might actually die from it.
“Are you okay?” Alex asked, still holding onto me. I was lying on top of him now. I lifted my head up and looked him in the eye. This time his gray eyes looked slightly purple, not a garish bright purple, but as if they had a touch of lavender field in them. His lids were heavy, giving him a cute sleepy look. I propped myself up on his chest and looked down at him. I could feel myself smiling, as if it were out of my control.
“You have purple eyes,” I said, lowering my face all the way up to his, touching my nose with his.
Alex widened them so I could look even more. “Your eyes are blue,” he stated. And for some reason, this was again the funniest thing I’d heard all year. I burst out laughing so hard that I could barely hold my head up. It crashed down onto Alex’s shoulder and he began to laugh again too.
