I got the call from Rena in the late evening.

There was a lot of noise in the background.
My sister was always having people over until late hours of the night. I hated that when we lived together.

"Hey little bro!" she said in her thick Eastcoastian accent. She had lived in East Coast City her whole life, even though she was born in The South.

She followed me when I moved to Westcoastville three years ago.

"Listen, can you come over? I need you to try something. Life changing shit bro."
I could hear glass breaking and laughing over the fuzzy connection.
"What?" I said loudly, unable to hear past what sounded like an absolute rager.
"Look, I got something from someone and I really think you'll like it!"
She was being purposefully vague.
That meant that this whole conversation was about getting stoned.
She's stuck in the past I thought to myself.
Why the hell would you need a weed dealer in Westcoastville?
It's basically legal.
Who the actual fuck wants to go on a quest to smoke mids on a weeknight?
I shrugged, not that she could see it.
I didn't want to go.

"It sounds really crazy over there I honestly don't know..."
Bitching usually got me out of any social situation i didn't wanna be in, but not this time.
"I'll give you a free sample!" she laughed "C'mon don't you wanna see your sis?"

Free? I thought.
I was running low on that sweet herb.
"Alright give me like 20 minutes."

____

One hour later, I showed up to my sisters apartment complex in Bellhearst.
I'd never been over there before.
The elevator was full chrome, and smelled of floral cleaning products.
I took it to the top floor.
She lived in one of those new builds. A cookie cutter building that looked like it was straight out of a yuppies wet dream.
The place was clean. Too clean.
I felt extremely out of place.

Apartment #419.
I could already hear the loud music pumping from underneath the door.
I let myself in, preparing for the crush of people that usually hang at my sisters place.
The party had died a while ago, leaving me filled with relief.
My sisters boyfriend had money, and the place reflected that.
A couple of normal-looking northwest types looked unresponsive, laying upon her uncomfortable looking black couches.
My sister was sitting at her kitchen table, fiddling with a large jar.

Rena was the opposite of me.
Hyper feminine, with shiny brown skin swathed in fashionable clothes.
She was tall. Taller than me, with chronic popular face.
Someone who was used to getting exactly what she wanted.
Someone with friends.
I unconsciously touched the scar under my eye from the time she kicked me in the face when we were eleven.

She beckoned me closer.
With her other hand, she reached into a jar and pulled out the largest bag of weed I'd ever seen.
"Hey...you want this?" she casually tossed the bag on the table.

It was heavy. Probably like an ounce. Maybe two.
The buds were gorgeous. I wanted to look at them through a microscope.
I picked it up, weighing it in my hands.
"Wow. All of this?" I opened the bag.
I was awash in weed smell. Loud would have been an understatement, it was screaming at me.
The closest passed out person stirred, as if the smell of it was enough to rouse them from their deathlike state.
I sealed the bag once again.
"What's the catch?" I eyed the sack suspiciously. "What is it? I need details."

Her smile faded a little, and was replaced by a thoughtful look.
"I think it was called...Spicy Jade? I forgot. He said it was grown somewhere in the Andes Mountains."
She glanced around the room. "Someone who was at the party..."
Weed out of the bag, into the grinder, into the joint.
This was once a daily ritual for us.
"He left a while ago...Some old guy." she said slowly. "Said he was a like, a shaman or some shit."

I felt immediately skeeved out. I thought back to the last time that I had
bought weed from a perfect stranger.
A guy named Spaz. He sold me weed with PCP in it, and I tweaked out for 48 hours straight.

"I don't know, sis...he just gave it to you? For free? From some weirdo? Have you considered
that this is sus? What if we smoke this and die? Or get horribly sick?"

Rena laughed that cool laugh she always had. The one that made me feel like everything
was going to be alright.

"Okay, okay fine". She tucked the joint behind her ear and leaned back in her chair.
"Take the bag anyways, I've got my own stash." She gestures to the large jar.
It was filled to the brim with the same rare exotic that was in the palms of my hands.
My neck started sweating.
"Damn, how much weed did that guy give you? For free?" I glanced at the jar skeptically.

Rena laughed again, and reached back behind her ear. "Pretty girls get whatever they want." She untucked the very same joint that she just stashed away.
"Who knows if there is something wrong with it? Only one way to find out." She said, with a mischievous smile.

I felt a strong pang in my heart. True yearning.
Despite my reservations, I already knew what it was that I actually wanted.
I wanted to smoke that mystery joint.
I loved doing things that were bad for me.

She lit the joint with a long inhale, and the flair of a girl who has smoked everyday for as long as she could remember.
The smoke almost seemed purple filtered through the lights of Westcoastville glaring though the windows.
She reached out to me, handing it off.
I glanced over at the bodies of her guests as they begin to stir, sensing their own turn to hit the weed.
I immediately felt my social battery hit zero.
"Maybe next time." I stuffed the sack in my backpack. "Listen, I've got to head back. Thanks for this."

She waved goodbye to me, her face a dreamlike mask. Men and women began descending on her, preparing for their turn in the cypher.

As I turned to leave, my sisters infectious laughter echoed behind me. My face felt hot. Something pulled on my chest, tugging on my heart.
I couldn't place it.