Your Turn.

About 4 months ago Tyler and I had walked around the school together one lunch break, hand in hand. He asked some fellow on his basketball team who he could buy some weed off of. Within ten minutes he had spent $10.00, and had a couple joint's worth. I didn't think of it as a big deal, in the few months we had been dating he'd blazed once or twice before, "but hey, this is high school," I had thought, "it's not a big deal, not at all." Later on that same day he rolled his first joint, as I lay on his couch, fiddling with his guitar. Who knows why, but I felt proud to be part of something like that, maybe I felt grown up, or mature.
Three months later I would find him smoking weed more and more, it wasn't too big of a deal, but i was getting worried. One night I called up my friend Brittany, she said that I shouldn't be worried, "it's high school," she claimed. Although, earlier that night Brittany said that she had seen Tyler, and he was 'high as a kite.' I tried to explain to her that I didn't want to be controlling, Tyler could do what he wanted, I wasn't his mother. The following night when Tyler came over, his eyelashes were burnt. He had invested in his first pipe. Four times that week - although that's all I knew of - he got stoned.
By April, it was ever, single, fucking day. I had tried to talk to him about it, but nothing worked. I didn't want to press 'T' too hard, we had just gotten back together after being apart for a month or so. Brittany agreed that now was the time to be worried. One Sunday night, when we were watching some show about Mandy Moore, she played herself, Britt told me "it's no fun to talk to someone about how much weed they smoke, but you need to do something." Some night, or morning, depending on everything, I asked him "if I asked you to pick weed, or me, what would it be?" He tried to convince me that it would be me, every time. I knew better than to believe him. Through the tears I tried to trust him but I couldn't. I didn't want to hurt anymore. Neither of us were happy. From the words both of us were saying - to other people of course - neither of us wanted to be with the other.
One night a bunch of us - his friends and mine - went to Brittany's. Tyler immediately ran upstairs with Brittany, Connor, and his 'ex', Alicia. Leaving me in Britt's room, with her sister and boyfriend, and my friend Ally, watching Nightmare on Elm Street 3. Yippee, what a fun night we had. The four of them came back down and hour and a half later, completely ripped, and slightly drunk. Ally and I left shortly after that. I was completely irritable, and tempted to end it there and then, but I couldn't, I needed him too much, "I cant be with him, but I can't not be with him," I told her. We spent the rest of the night smoking Bulls eyes, and jokingly planning to hook up, even though both of us were 97% straight. Drunken nights spent kissing members of the same gender do take away straight marks. Besides, nothing bugs a guy more that having his girl cheat on him - with another girl.
As tempting as that sounded I decided to try a different method. I couldn't be with him, but I couldn't not be with him. Psych him out I thought, let him realise that if he couldn't stop blazing, he couldn't have me either.
It took him a while, but soon enough he got the 'hints'. I wouldn't be around him at school when he was stoned, which surprisingly, was quite often. I was yelling at him once or twice a week, always about the same things. One day he found me wandering the halls when i should have been in some class. It took him about twenty odd minutes to get it out of me, once he hit the right spot though, I wouldn't shut up. We were outside in the rain while I yelled, again he sat there in silence, patiently waiting for me to stop, as he'd done time and time before. The only words that came from his lips when i was finished we "That sounds like everything you've said before..." I was speechless. If I had said all those words time and time again, then why didn't he get it?! I love him so much, still, but whatever I did to try and help him, just didn't matter. I cried myself to sleep that night, and many more following.
A week or two later we broke up, once again. I was the one who brought up the subject of ending it, but I believed at the time that I was the most upset. We tried to just leave it and be friends, I still needed him. In our months together he became my best friend, although at the time I hadn't ever realised it. But his claiming to still have strong feelings for me got in the way. In the end, I left it all shaken, and more upset than when I began.
In the beginning, I mean the real beginning, when this 'crush' first bubbled up inside of me, apparently he was already going through all of this. Except mainly from my angle. He was in love, hurt, and smoking. Flash forward to the following Halloween week, and he finds me laying on his bed, in a pair of his boxers. We talked on the phone every night before one of us would admit defeat, and fall asleep. It was usually Tyler though, I needed to hear his voice too much to give up any phone call. Only recently did he admit his distaste to talking on the phone. Leaving me alone to only my breath, my heartbeat, my body, and my tears.
"You really shouldn't say 'I love you' unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget."