The Summer I Found Myself, By: Michelle Stone [the kiss of deception read online txt] 📗

now if I just walked home. I started and the wind was blowing my hair in all directions. The tears wouldn’t stop falling from my eyes as my hair started sticking to my cheeks.
When I got home about an hour later I collapsed in my bed crying myself to sleep.
The next morning I woke up and jumped into the shower. When I went downstairs I realized that nobody was home. I made myself breakfast and decided to go and sit out on the gazebo in the back. Shelly walked up and sat down next to me.
“Where were you last night? You disappeared again.” She looked at my red ringed eyes and then added “Is everything okay?”
I tilted my head towards her and said “No, everything isn’t alright. When Mike saw me smoking that cigarette yesterday he said we needed a break so I can get all of this crap out of my system.”
“Oh, no. Everything will be okay Macy. I promise.” She said concerned.
“I know. Thanks though.” I weakly smiled at her.
After a few minutes of sitting in the quiet Shelly then asked “Does this mean you don’t want to smoke that weed with me?”
I looked at her and said “I don’t know. Don’t make fun of me but I’m scared to smoke it. Just the idea of it gives me a heart attack.”
“Where are your parents at?” She asked.
“My mom went to her friends house and my dad is at work.” I said as I looked at her.
“Well, how long do you think your mom will be gone?” She asked.
“I don’t know? Usually she stays there all afternoon. Why?” I asked suspicious.
At that second Shelly pulled out the same plastic bag now with a joint in it. She pulled the joint out and lit it up.
“What are you doing?” I said looking around nervously.
“I’m enjoying my teen years. Do you want a hit?” She nudged the joint at me and I looked around again and took it between my fingers. My heart started pounding as I took a hit of it. Automatically I started coughing profusely. It felt like I would never stop and then Shelly gave my back a hard slap and It stopped like magic.
“Thanks.” I said as I looked at her.
“Here, try one more hit.” She handed it to me.
I took a hit this time and didn’t cough.
“Just hold it in for a few seconds.” She said taking another hit of it.
I finally blew it out and Shelly handed it back to me again. I took another hit this time holding it in longer. Finally Shelly stubbed it out and put it back in the bag that went back in her pocket.
We sat there for a few minutes when all of a sudden it rolled on me like a haze. I looked at Shelly and She was just sitting there quiet looking at her fingernails.
“You’re acting oddly cavalier. Have you smoked weed before?” I asked as the words coming out of my mouth sounded different.
“A few times.” She looked up at me.
“What? When?” Shocked I asked.
“I don’t know? With Mariah, and Carter a couple times.”
“So, you smoked weed for the first time this summer too?” I looked at her.
“Yea.” She said and started laughing. “I hate relationships.” She added.
I looked at her confused, “Why?” I asked.
“I didn’t tell you, did I?” She looked up from her finger nails and blinked at me a couple times.
“No.” I said as I looked at her tilting my head to the side.
“Carter cheated on me.” She paused. “He wasn’t who I thought he was.” She continued.
My eyes opened up wider than normal. I looked at her shocked. “With who?”
“I don’t know. I guess it was some girl from the Community College. He was dating her before we hooked up. What’s crazy is, He never stopped seeing her while he was with me.”
“Oh my gosh, I am so sorry. You know, we don’t need men.” I looked over at her as she was staring at her nails with her brow furrowed.
She looked at me with a little half smile and replied “You know, Your right. Fuck men. Who needs them anyways? All they do for us is just screw us over and quite frankly I am way over it.” She looked back at her nails.
We sat there for a while before Shelly got up and looked at me really serious.
“Dude…we need some Fritos, like stat.”
I started laughing uncontrollably and the next thing I knew Shelly had joined in with me. We were both bent over holding our stomachs laughing so hard.
I sat down to regain my breath when all of a sudden I just felt so emotional that my face got beat red and I started crying. Tears were flowing down my face and every time I wiped them away more streamed down my face staining my cheeks. Macy came and sat down next to me in the grass and whispered in my ear “It’s going to be alright” and “No guys worth the tears”.
I looked at her. “You don’t understand. I really loved him. I believe it.” I looked out in the yard and stared up in the sky. I whispered “I still believe it.”
Shelly looked at me and said “If you love him than what are you doing? I didn’t love Carter, that’s why it’s so easy to let him go. When you find someone like that Macy, you don’t let them go. You have to go and get him. Alright? If not for yourself then do it for me. Love didn’t work out for me.”
I looked at her eyes and realized that she was completely right. I missed Mike but I didn’t want to admit it for myself. I needed to find Mike and tell him the truth. I got up and started walking towards the house when I realized that I was really high.
Looking around I decided I was also extremely tired. The crying physically wore me out.
As I walked inside the house I sat down on the couch and Shelly sat down next to me. I put on a movie and the next thing I knew I was sleeping.
A little over an hour later I woke up startled when I heard the garage door closing. I looked around and Shelly wasn’t with me. I remembered smoking weed with Shelly and I ran upstairs to my room. I shut and locked the door then ran over to my nightstand and grabbed my perfume and started spraying myself. I finally started coughing from the fumes and walked out of my room. I slowly walked downstairs and into the kitchen where my mother was walking in with her arms loaded up with plastic bags.
“Macy, I need you to go and bring in the rest of the groceries.” I nodded my head and walked by my mother when she started coughing and said “Oh my gosh Macy, did you use all of your perfume up just now? I can barely breathe in here.”
My heart started thumping thinking that maybe she knew about the pot. “No mom,” I said quickly trying to think of an alibi. “Shelly sprayed me with guys perfume earlier as a joke and I was just trying to get the smell off of me.” She looked at me then waved me off.
I walked outside and started grabbing all of the groceries out of the trunk and when I turned around shelly was standing right behind me. I let out a little yelp. “Oh my gosh Shelly. Where did you go anyways?” Shelly looked down at her hands holding a big bag of Fritos chips. I laughed “Are you still high?” she looked at me then said “No, I just got really hungry and that movie you put on was all about food. So, I went home to get some.”
I looked at the Fritos bag and realized my stomach was growling. Shelly grabbed the rest of the groceries and we went into the kitchen where my mother was putting the food away. Shelly and I sat the food on the table and walked out of the sliding glass doors that led to the back yard. We sat on the grass and Shelly opened the bag of chips and for a few moments we sat there just eating them.
“I need to find Mike.” I finally broke the silence.
Shelly looked at me then said “Are you sure you want to do this?” looking at me concerned. I let out a sigh and said “Absolutely.”
We sat there some more just munching on the chips and then Shelly started talking about Carter. “You know, I had sex with him.” I looked at her with my jaw dropped.
“When?” I asked. “We went out to the movies about a month ago. I didn’t want to tell you because I though you would be mad at me.” I laughed. “I couldn’t get mad at you for that.” I said.


A few days went by as I sat around the house refusing to go anywhere. Shelly tried to get me out to a few parties but I told her that I’m taking me time.
My mother even intervened and asked if I wanted to go out to dinner with my mother and father. That sounded as appealing as letting monkeys throw poop at me.
I knew I had to do something about Mike. I missed him so much. I missed that straight perfect grin he always had. I missed the way his hand felt intertwined in mine. I missed the way he knew when something was wrong.
The best way to go about this is call him. I picked up the phone and dialed the numbers to his cell. As soon as I heard the first ring I chickened out and hung up right away. Stay Focused I thought. You can do this. I picked the phone back up and pressed re-dial. This time I let the phone ring. After about 3 rings I was going to hang up when I heard “Hey.” My throat went dry and I found it hard to breathe with my stomach up in my heart. I managed a cackled “Hi.”
“How have you been Macy?” Mike’s familiar voice came right through the phone, melting my heart.
“Good.” I sat there and then added “I miss you.”
“I miss you too.” He said.
After a few moments of silence I asked “Do you think you can come over? I want to talk.”
The line went silent when all of a sudden I heard “Yea, sure.”
My stomach went back to normal, but now my heart was racing at the thought of seeing Mike again. I hurriedly said “Alright, I’ll see you when you get here.”
“Alright. Bye Macy.” He said, his voice soothing my entire soul.
I hung up and ran into my room. I sat down at the bed thinking about what I was going to say to him. I thought about everything I prepared in my head. A silent speech but when I looked out the window and saw Mike pull up I forgot everything I rehearsed. I started walking out to the hall when I caught a glimpse of myself in my vanity mirror. My hair was a mess. I guess that’s what happened when you didn’t care for a couple days.
I raked a comb through my hair holding back the screams. I pulled it up into a pony-tail to get out of my way. I finally finished