Finding Mary Jane by Amy Sparling

Chapter 1
     
     
    As the days of my summer fly by, Jill calls fewer times than usual and comes over even less than that. Jordan is the sole essence of her existence now. And Ben had Marla stuck to his hip on every day she didn’t work. Marla typically worked on weekends at the smoke shop. Bluntz worked there too. I would think that since Ben got miserably lonely without Marla, he would want to hang out with his little sister and do fun stuff to get out all his pent up angst.
    Well, he doesn’t. He just sits in his room and plays Xbox all night, waiting like a lost puppy for Marla to come back and take him for a walk.
    It has been about two weeks since the bowling alley trip which means it has been two weeks since I’ve done anything fun. Some nights when I sit in a bed watching the old nineteen inch TV I had plugged in on the floor, I wonder what is different from life with Mom and life here at Dad’s. Ben was supposed to be the difference; that and no computer-obsessed mother ignoring me. Both my options right now suck.
    My cell phone, though beautiful and now decorated with a cursive L made of rhinestones stuck on the back, is now obsolete. No one ever calls it and I don’t have the numbers to the few long lost girls I was sort of friends with at school, so I have no way of reaching out to find a replacement for Jill.
    A big part of me wants to go home, back to Mom’s house and to my room that has my up-to-date belongings in it, but another part of me wants to stay here. If only to prove my mother wrong. Plus I still have my mission to make Ben stop smoking. That part isn’t going so well.
    Earlier in the week, on a night Marla was working, I walked downstairs to find myself in a fog of marijuana smoke, Ben slumped in between the fluffy couch cushions.
    “Are you high?” I asked, waving smoke out of my face and then coughing for emphasis. He laughed a sinister, cruel laugh. Like I had just made a joke so funny it was criminal. His eyes were bloodshot, which was understandable, but I couldn't shake the feeling that he looked like he had also been crying. An ashtray on the coffee table, filled with black ashes and a small white thing caught my eye. “What's that?” I pointed to it.
    “It's a roach.” Ben laughed again, if you could call it laughing. It was more of exhaling air in a quick fashion, eyes half closed. Geez, he was really baked. “It doesn't look like a roach,” I said, sitting next to him.
    “Well it's not a cock roach.”
    I put my hand on his arm. “Ben, are you okay?”
    His red eyes looked into mine for a long moment before he replied. “I'm perfect.”
    Now, lying backwards and upside-down on my bed with my head hanging upside down, arms swaying across the floor, I realize I have failed entirely on my mission. And also, that I’m getting dizzy from the blood rushing to my head. I sit up and decide to try again. It’s not like I can truly fail at something I never really started.
    I make a mental list of tactics I can use to persuade Ben to give up his new lifestyle. My first instinct is to beg and plead with him, but that has no long lasting rewards. I can try to get him in trouble with the police, but that’s taking things a bit too far because it could ruin his whole life. Plus he’s my brother. I could never ever turn him into the police. Even if I do secretly wonder if it would make him straighten up and stay away from the drugs.
    There’s also my old standby: the guilt trip. It works pretty well when I want to get my way, especially with Ben.
    The most important thing in Ben’s life right now is Marla. If she would side with me, then it would be easy to break Ben. Too easy. Doubt tugs at my heart strings; something tells me that Marla may be part of the problem. She does work at a smoke shop, after all.
    I’m going to need backup.
     
     

Chapter 2
     
     
    It’s Friday night. Marla is at work. Ben is in his room playing Xbox, talking strategies with a stranger on the other