Confiscate This
It was their ritual. Every Friday night for the past three months, Lena would find something—a joint in a makeup bag, a flask in a purse, now this. And every time, Bianka would dare her. But tonight, the air was different. A storm had rolled in, cutting the power ten minutes ago. The only light came from a single candle flickering on the hallway table, throwing dancing, monstrous shadows across Lena’s face.
Bianka stared at the pen. Then at Lena’s face—the hard lines, the tired eyes, the clenched jaw that was trying very hard not to cry. PervMom.21.05.16.Bianka.Blue.Confiscate.This.XX...
The silence that followed was absolute. Even the rain seemed to hold its breath.
They sat on the top step of the staircase, the candle between them. Rain lashed the windows. Confiscate This It was their ritual
“No. You didn’t. Because I didn’t want you to. I wanted to be the mean one. The one you hate. Because hate is easier than grief.” Lena set the vape pen between them on the step. “So go ahead. Take it back. Tell me to confiscate this. And I will. But I’ll also sit here until dawn, because I’m not losing you to a cloud of smoke.”
“Why do you do it?” Lena asked, turning the vape over in her fingers. “The sneaking. The attitude. The constant… war.” But tonight, the air was different
“Hand it over,” Lena said, her voice low, calm, and sharp as a scalpel.
The grandfather clock in the hallway struck midnight, its chime swallowed by the thick silence of the suburban house. Bianka Blue, eighteen and terminally bored, leaned against her bedroom doorframe, arms crossed. In her right hand, she held a sleek, black vape pen—the size of a finger, the guilt of a felony.
Lena nodded slowly. “Fair. But I confiscate this stuff because I found my own mother dead of an overdose when I was sixteen. It was a different drug, but the same stupid, shiny little object in her hand.” She held up the vape. “So when I see you with this, I don’t see a rebellious teen. I see a body on a bathroom floor.”
Outside, the storm began to pass. And for the first time in months, neither of them moved to break the silence.