Read White Lines for Free Online Page B

loud, rude, and often dirty-looking. The only reason anyone even bothered to socialize with Lucas at all was because he always had weed, always had money. Hanging with Lucas always meant a good time. Jada was beginning to suspect that Shante and Lucas had something going on. It seemed that every time Jada visited Shante these days, Lucas was there already. She couldn’t understand what Shante saw in him, but figured it was none of her business, as long as he kept the weed coming. On this day, everybody was smoking Lucas’s blunt. It wasn’t unlike them to experiment with different types of weed: hydro, blueberry, chocolate, purple haze. They mixed it with hash, and smoked with bongs, different cigars, and rolling papers. Almost every time they got together, they tried something new. So when Lucas rolled up a blunt and passed it to Shante, Jada thought nothing of it.
    Jada watched Shante puff eagerly on the blunt, and how that look of complete peace washed over her friend. The expression on Shante’s face was similar to how someone would look after taking a long drink of water after being thirsty for days. She seemed relieved.
That must be the good shit!
Jada thought. When Shante passed the blunt to her, Jada took a long, hard toke, and exhaled. Then she took another one. Immediately, a fog swept over her. She could feel her heart galloping in her chest, and yet she felt better than she could ever remember feeling. Jada took another toke and felt all the nerves in her body tingle. She felt higher thanshe ever had in her life. Jada had never felt more alive than she did at that moment. She felt like she was floating, and all her senses were heightened. She took another toke.
Damn!
she thought.
This is the best shit I ever had.
Reluctantly, she passed the blunt to Lucas, who sat grinning at her in the most sinister way. But Jada was oblivious to Lucas’s grin. She was off in space, her mind taking her on a trip unlike any she’d ever experienced before. By the time the blunt made its way back to her, Jada took it anxiously. She relished the feeling it gave her, and took long puffs as she enjoyed it.
    When it was finished, the three of them were extremely high, Jada most of all. Shante and Lucas held an animated conversation about something that Jada paid no attention to. She sat in silence, enjoying her high. The music seemed louder, the colors in the room somehow brighter. She started laughing to herself at jokes no one but her could hear. She felt completely carefree. As it wore off, and she began coming out of the fog she had been in, Jada looked over at Shante and cleared her throat.
    “What was that shit we just smoked, Shante?”
    Shante smiled at her friend. “Girl, that was a woolah.”
    Not wanting to sound like a lame in front of streetwise Lucas by asking specifically what kind of weed it was, Jada simply nodded her head. “Damn. Woolahs is the bomb!”
     
    After the first time they smoked a woolah together, Jada loved it. The high was unlike anything she had ever experienced before. And for the rest of the night, Jada thought about that feeling. It wasn’t until the next day, when Lucas wasn’t around, that she finally asked Shante why the previous night’s high had been so much better than normal.
    That’s when Shante explained to her friend that they had been smoking weed with crack mixed into it.
    Jada was stunned. “We’re smoking crack?”
    But Shante acted like it was no big deal. “Nah. It’s not like we’re smoking straight-up crack. That’s the shit that gets you addicted—when you smoke it straight, no chaser. We mix it with weed, and it takes someof the potency out of it, so you won’t get addicted. Stop worrying,” Shante said, nonchalantly. “I’m surprised you ain’t never heard of it, with you being from
Brooklyn
and all!”
    Jada frowned, and Shante knew she’d touched a nerve. Jada often liked to behave as if she was so far ahead of the girls her age in Staten Island. She