#I couldn’t fathom going back to cigarettes after weed

[whumpingcrow]

Pt.20 "Into the Frying Pan"

CW: airplane setting, hospital setting, police mention, drugs/alcohol/cigarettes, nightmare/ptsd mention, tics/tourettes, injury description, discussion of noncon/dubcon, nsfw themes, conditioned whumpee trying to initiate sex with caretaker, dehumanizing language/discussion, discussion of past abuse, food mention, discussion of wearing a collar, derogatory language, strangling mention (let me know if I missed anything!)

It was all at once insanely overwhelming and yet incredibly simple for Elias to be away from August, to be on his own. He was allowed to just sit peacefully on his own, no one's hands were on him, there was no tight collar to make him feel suffocated. The flight attendants would occasionally sit with him and ask him how he was doing, if he needed anything, and he was thankful to be otherwise left alone. The lack of constant stress allowed him to lull himself off into a fitful, drunken sleep, where the dreams were horrendous but not stronger than his fatigue. At some point, one of the nice flight attendants keeping an eye on him draped her jacket over him, smiling at him when he woke up to look at her.

"You looked cold," she excused herself. "We'll be landing in about an hour and a half."

"Thank you so much." He grumbled back, tightening the jacket around him to get warmer, then he promptly fell back asleep.

The hospital visit was long and tedious, and by the end apparently also pointless, because they simply couldn't do anything for him. His injuries were plenty, and they had all been severe in the beginning, but by now they were all healed just enough for the doctors to slap some antibiotics and pain relievers on him and call it a day. The meds they gave him seemed diluted by the leftover drugs in his blood, so even that didn't matter.

He wasn't allowed to go straight home after that, like he'd been hoping, instead he was taken to the police station to talk about August. By then he wanted nothing more than to just be back with No Name, and the longer he wasn't the worse he felt.

"Is there anything we can get you while we wait?" People kept asking him, ever since he'd gotten on the plane. It was incredibly unnerving, didn't they know he was just an idiot pet, that he didn't get wants? He guessed maybe not having a collar on wasn't helping his case.

Right now the person asking him was a large police officer, waiting with him outside. Elias felt his stare fixated on him, probably on the tears stained on his face, or the tired, far off look in his eyes.

"Would you be able to get me a cigarette? Please?" The request came out slightly mangled and watery, he was surprised to hear himself asking for it. He was never allowed to ask for anything, he half expected to be slapped across the head for it. Instead, the officer reached out at a safe distance with one in hand. "Oh. Th...thank you so much."

As he lit up, the chill breeze ran through his hair, making him feel gradually more sober. He looked up at the palm trees swaying slightly, the realization that he was home really started to sink in. It was all gonna be ok because he was home. After talking about August and all of the atrocities he'd put him through with the police for a few hours, he felt like he had relived it all. And now it could be done, he just had to wait for No Name.

"Is that him there?" The officer piped up suddenly, making Elias flinch. He looked up to see him approaching, his shoulders high with tension.

Elias dropped his cigarette to the ground with a gasp, his hands flying to cover his eyes in pure shock. He was there! He came! Elias could've fallen over in ecstasy.

"Elias, my darling," he was saying as he got closer, his voice on the very edge of breaking, "Elias I'm here. I'm here."

One inch at a time, Elias dropped his fingers, peering up at him with tears in his eyes. How could he possibly have any more tears left? Now that he was looking at him, he was overwhelmed with relief, absolutely flooded with the promise of safety. No Name's hair was so much longer than Elias remembered, put up in messy dreads, and his face was glowing healthily. Was there...genuine, actual love in his eyes? Elias hadn't seen that in August's face for so long, his stare was often only predatory and arrogant, despite how often he threw around the word, he didn't ever look like he felt love for Elias. He couldn't fight the tears anymore, he dropped his hands to the side in complete surrender and choked back a few pathetic whines.

"Hey, hey, it's ok," he assured him, timidly stepping toward him, "you're alright."

"I c-cant...I'm so happy t-to see you." He sobbed, biting his lip to try not to get too loud. "I'm s-so relieved."

With a small, pleased hum, he grabbed Elias's arm gently, testing how much touch he would allow. "Come here, Eli."

The nickname sounded heavenly back in his mouth, and hearing the way his voice glazed over it with no remorse or second guess made Elias positively break, stumbling the step forward into his welcoming arms.

Cologne and lemons and weed. That's what he smelled like. That's what Tyson smelled like. "Oh god. Tyson. Fucking hell, Tyson."

"I've got you Elias," Tyson whispered, voice watery with his own tears, "I'm here, darling."

Elias couldn't contain himself after that, he was ticcing melodically in Tyson's arms, his name slipping out every few seconds, his hands tightening and loosening around his shirt. "You're here, Tyson. I'm so...oh Tyson..."

Slowly, Tyson led him to his car, without fully letting go of him. Only when he opened the door for him did he pull away, watching him duck in with red, swollen eyes.

"You look so different," Elias mumbled, picking at a loose thread on his borrowed pants, "I feel like it's been years."

Tyson sighed heavily, reaching over to take his hand. "Nearly 10 months."

Elias closed his eyes, a breathless whine squeezing past his lips. Ten months?! He couldn't believe that it had really been that long since they'd seen each other, and yet at the same time it felt more like years. It made him feel sick, thinking about it in that way. Ten whole months of torture, of wondering when August would snap again, terrified he would get killed if he said something deemed unpleasant. "That's...that's a really long time."

Tyson gave a somber nod, then glanced over and saw how sad it had also made Elias, and he squeezed his leg softly and forced the subject to change. "God, I've missed your voice so very badly. I'm so happy to hear you talking."

Elias couldn't take his eyes off of Tyson, and he found himself desperately holding his wrist with both hands to make sure he didn't pull away. "I forgot your name." He blurted. "I'm so sorry."

"My name?" Tyson chuckled, throwing him a questioning glance.

"When I was out there I...all I could remember was your voice and your face. I-I forgot your n-name and I feel like shit a-about it. I'm so - fucking shit - I'm so sorry."

Tyson's jaw flexed a few times, and Elias thought maybe he'd pissed him off. You're off with August for not even a year and you forget about me? You stupid slut, I can't believe I ever thought I could love you-

"Elias, you've been stuck in an absolute nightmare for the longest time. I cannot even begin to imagine..." He trailed off, shaking his head to himself. "Things are gonna be ok. You're here and you remember my name now. That's all that matters."

A shuddery breath shook Elias's frame as he tried to calm himself, and he slowly reached up to loop his fingers around his throat. When his fingers fell onto bare skin, a jolt of panic shocked through him. He didn't realize how used to the collar he'd gotten, but now that it was gone he felt stripped, naked in the worst way. He kept his hand there, cold fingers pressed to his own pulse, the entire ride back to the apartment.

It looked about the same as he remembered, which didn't mean much because every memory was sort of hazy and muddled through the drugs and injury caused brain damage. He stood in the center of the living room while Tyson set his things down in the kitchen.

"Can I get you anything Elias?" Tyson asked when he came back in. He had a glass of water in his hands, and Elias cringed hard as he took it from him.

"People keep asking me that," he mumbled, "I'm not...not allowed..."

Tyson frowned at him, tilting his head to the side. He gave Elias a second to answer on his own, but he'd already decided to stop talking. "Not allowed what, Eli?"

"Not allowed to want things. I wish people would stop...stop asking what I want. I can't want anything."

The face Tyson made at that was like he smelt something foul, his nose wrinkling as he thought about what he'd been told. He had guessed that Elias would be damaged when he got back, but it had been so long he couldn't even fathom what broken pieces he'd have to work with.

"Ok. Finish your water and we'll get you in the shower. How's that?" He kept his voice gentle in the suggestion, relieved when some of the tension dropped from Elias's shoulders with a nod.

"Thank you."

"Let me know if you're ready to talk about anything, yeah?" As he asked, he inched his way forward, looking him over carefully. He could see the faint outline of sharp bruises around his neck, a large scar barely healed on his bottom lip, and on top of it all large purple and blue blotches scattered his pale skin. "Elias...I'm so sorry I didn't do more to stop him."

Now it was Elias's turn to flinch at the distasteful words, shaking his head quickly. "It was my choice, please don't be-"

"No, my love," Tyson protested, softly caressing his arm, "no, I should have done more. You got hurt, I should have done more to help you. I am so incredibly sorry."

Elias was tearful at the words, leaning into his touch eagerly. "Tyson I... I missed you so bad. I felt so empty without you." His lungs tightened as Tyson got closer, his hands staying so gentle against his arms that it was jarring. Elias had to remind himself that he wasn't going to hurt him, this was Tyson, Tyson wouldn't do anything to harm him, but he couldn't help the uncomfortable anxious burning in his chest when he got so close.

"I love you, Eli." He whispered.

The look on his face alone was enough to send Elias reeling, the genuine, evident adoration made his head spin. The last time someone was telling him they loved him, the only emotion he saw on his face was some sort of sick obsession, a look that told him the "love" was only surface level. He began to openly cry, barely able to bite back his sobs.

"Y-you...you do?" He whined, suddenly not able to look at him head on. The emotions were so strong and heavy that he felt weighed down. Again, he wondered how his body was still producing tears. It was probably why Tyson had given him the water. "Really?"

"Yes, really." With that, Tyson kissed the bridge of his nose ever so gently, even when he flinched a little and closed his eyes. "Now let's get you cleaned up, huh?"

"Please."

Being nude wasn't nearly as intimidating as it had been before, being forced to put himself on display for prying eyes and watering mouths ready to grab and pet and squeeze made him shamefully accustomed to not wearing clothes. Even though Tyson could easily overpower him and do any of that to him, he only touched him when he was sure it would be alright, only looked at him when he spoke. He was a little uneasy because he couldn't tell what Tyson was thinking, if he was disgusted or put off and that's why he wasn't touching him. Or maybe he'd done something wrong and Tyson was punishing him. Or he just wasn't pretty enough. He could make himself pretty, he was getting good at that, at carrying himself the way people liked him: as an object.

He did this as he was helped out of the shower, a towel wrapped around his waist. He was relieved when he felt Tyson's stare fixated on him, and he forced himself to look up at him through half-hooded lids. "Thank you, Ty," he murmured, in that way that August always loved, the way that made him go soft for a split second and then hold him closely and gently. When Tyson didn't do that, he took a shaky breath and closed the space between them, grabbing his bicep to get closer.

"Do you feel better?" He grumbled. Elias's eyes fluttered closed when Tyson reached out to run his thumb along his cheek.

"I do. Thank you so much." When he was met with silence, he turned his head slightly, pressing his lips against Tyson's wrist. His whole demeanor was screaming "touch me, please touch me" but Tyson didn't move, keeping his hand against his jaw, watching, waiting. Elias could scream.  He was too used up, that's what it was. August would hardly touch him anymore either, for the same reason: because he was a used up toy, no fun anymore. And Tyson felt the same way. It killed him to know that he wouldn't ever experience the bliss of Tyson's adoring hands on him, his warm mouth murmuring sweet nothings against his skin, his name falling from his lips, ever again.

"What are you thinking about in that pretty little head of yours?" Tyson asked him, shifting a little to stroke his hair, humming when Elias pressed into his touch desperately.

"I'm so...I'm afraid that I'm useless now." He admitted. "I know that you won't use me and...and if I'm not being used I...i just want to be important. Useful."

Tyson let out a soft, seemingly disappointed sigh, one that made Elias cringe. "Is that what it was like with August?"

He nodded slowly, not even making an effort to look up at him, too afraid he would see anger or betrayal or even nothing. That's what he was really afraid of, seeing no emotion there, the same blank stare August often gave him, toward the end. "I was just a toy, and August used me for a little while but then other people...they just started taking me too, because I was made t-to be used. But I guess I messed up cause August started hiding me and no one was allowed to touch me or speak to me and I don't want that to happen again, Ty, I want to be useful and good-"

"Eli, take a breath angel," he cooed, stepping closer to him, "I'm not them. You're a human being, and I care about you a great deal, I'm not going to use you."

Don't cry, Elias thought to himself, save your tears for when you really need them. Don't fucking cry. You look so ugly when you cry. He noticed that the voice saying it wasn't his own, rather August's low grumble. He wondered if it would always be there, saying awful things in the back of his mind. Tyson pulled his hand away, leaving Elias to sink into a frigid, freezing loneliness, the feeling of being in the basement was now inside of his chest. He brought his own fingers to his throat, wrapping his hands around his slender, bruised neck to ground himself. He hated himself for admitting it, but he knew deep down he'd look so much nicer with the collar, and maybe Tyson would use him then. Or he'd at least look at him the way he was meant to be looked at, with an intrigue and a thirst that barely overshadowed the guilt of it all. He knew the look well, he saw it every time he got up the courage to look up at the people using him. The dark eyes, the shameful pink tint to cheeks. Tyson would look at him like that, if only he was wearing his collar.

"Don't do this to me," he mumbled, voice breaking just a little, "you don't know how bad I n-need...i just need you-" he cut himself off with a swallow, shaking his head. He wasn't allowed needs or wants, what was he saying? Tyson could use him or ignore him however he saw fit, why did he think he had any say in the matter? "I'm sorry."

"Hey, don't be sorry, love. Talk to me, tell me what you need."

"Nothing," he rushed, smiling through his tears, "I don't need anything. I'm perfect."

Tyson looked on the verge of arguing, ready to pry until he got something out of him, something worthy of a reaction. He knew, though, that Elias had shut himself up again, nervous to even be standing under his gaze. So he stepped away, nodding at him slowly. "Let's get you dressed, then."

Elias was thankful for the luxury of Tyson dressing him, after the whole day spent being treated far too well, too much like a person for his comfort. It was easy to slip back into the practiced doe-eyed, mindless little toy mindset as Tyson pulled his arms through his shirt, holding him steady as he slipped pants on. When Tyson stepped back to look at him, he had a fond grin on his face.

"You're so cute," he cooed, ruffling his hair playfully as he stepped away, "I missed you so much."

Elias blushed, bowing his head as a thank you. He felt cold under his stare, cooled down too quickly from the shower. He couldn't help the tremor that shook him slightly, and the second Tyson noticed, he reached out to grab his shoulders gently, pulling him against his chest. The warmth of being close to him made him weak at the knees, and Tyson tightened his grip as he keened against him. "Oh, Tyson," he whispered, "ah, you're so warm."

"Mm. I could hold you forever. You fit so perfectly in my arms." He gave him a light squeeze, listening to his breathing hitch gently.

"Tyson," he whined, trembling fingers twisting into his shirt, "ple-please touch me. I need you to touch me."

"You need it?" He repeated.

"Y-yes, Ty. I need it so bad it aches. Please." His voice was desperate, slightly fear tinted by hearing his own request. I can't have needs, he reminded himself, but this, oh this is the blood in my veins. This is the oxygen in my lungs. I will die if I can't have this. "Oh god, Tyson, please."

At that, Tyson's lips fell against his throat, causing him to tilt his head back with a small gasp. His skin was hot from Tyson's breath and it was constricting in the same comfortable way his collar was. "I love you, Elias."

Even though it was just a hushed whisper against his skin, Elias swooned, body light and airy at the words, Tyson's hands the only thing keeping him tethered to earth. "Ah...thank you.."

Tyson pulled off to look at him, a small grin on his face as he looked him over. The second he was off of him, Elias replaced Tyson's mouth on his neck with his fingers, dropping his head back down, face flushed and shoulders high. It was too much, entirely too much to have Tyson so close to him, touching him that way, and simultaneously it wasn't nearly enough.

"Anything else?" Tyson teased, leaning forwards as if to try and entice him. Elias was glued to the floor, refusing to look up at him after a breathless whine left his throat. "What is it, baby boy?"

He watched Elias melt at the words, legs shaking slightly as he stepped forward, quickly dropping to his knees in front of Tyson. He kept his arms raised in front of him in submission until Tyson took his wrists in his hands. He looked utterly broken as he peered up at him, the shower didn't help with the cuts and bruises as much as Tyson had been hoping. The bruises under his eyes seemed near permanent, and Tyson sighed heavily.

"Let me...let me make you feel good," Elias whispered, fingers reaching for the button of his jeans. Tyson's grip on his wrists was tight though, and Elias instinctively fell pliable in his grip, dropping his stretching fingers, when he realized Tyson wasn't going to let him move any more. "Wanna make myself useful."

Tyson dropped to his knees as well, keeping his grip secure on Elias as he did, trying to be at eye level. It was difficult because he was so much smaller than Tyson and he wouldn't look up at him anyways, but Tyson returned one of his hands to his own lap and coaxed him to look up with a finger just under his chin. "My love," he soothed him, "you don't even know what you're asking for. You've only been home an hour."

"But I-I don't...Ty..." His bottom lip trembled as he spoke, and now that his arm was free he once again rubbed nervously at his throat. Tyson had just started picking up on it, and all it made him think of was having to go pick up Elias from the hospital the first time, being told he'd been strangled. "P...please, Tyson. Hu-hurts."

"Look at you, Eli. You're shaking. Why don't we get you something to eat?"

"No!" He whined, looking rather afraid at his own outburst. "Tyson, I'm begging you-"

He froze when Tyson's hand replaced his own, fingers loose around his neck. "What is this, why do you keep doing that?"

Elias flinched a little at the harsh tone he used, then he relaxed into his hand. "I don't have my...uh...a collar. I'm not used to it yet, I guess."

"A collar?! Ugh, christ. Why would he..." He trailed off as he saw the sad, dejected wince pass over Elias's face. "Hey, no, it's not you, love. You did nothing wrong."

Elias nodded slowly, then straightened out his posture a little, taking a deep breath to reassure himself. "I'm sorry. I won't whine anymore."

Tyson was shocked by the quick change in demeanor, how, when Tyson's tone changed with him, Elias seemed to correct himself to not look so bothered, so ill. The way he carried himself was more thought out, like he was aware of every muscle in his body, how to present himself in a pleasant way. He stood up with a huff. "Ok, beautiful. Come on, I'll make you some food."

Elias let Tyson pull him up to his feet, then followed him to the kitchen. He was set down in a chair to watch and wait (and look pretty, don't forget to look pretty, Tyson keeps looking over at him and smiling softly but only when he remembers to be pretty). He ignored the burning need in his chest to be underneath the knife Tyson was using to cut up fresh fruit, or to be the water running over his hands as he washed the juice off. He was jealous that he couldn't be closer to him than he was, so jealous it hurt him. But he stayed in his place at the table, because it's where Tyson wanted him to be. And that's all that mattered.

[sunassweetie]

Already Gone.

Pairing: Suna x Osamu (Osasuna)

Word Count: 5.4k 

Genre: Pain haha :):

Disclaimer: Underage Smoking don't @ me 

Warning: I wrote this after I read the galaxy is endless. But also like major trigger warnings for a lot of various things, just know I didn't hold back. 

When Osamu was younger, he absolutely, and indefinitely, hated the idea of holding onto nothing. The idea that a person alone could hold themselves upright, and power through life on their own. Maybe it was because he had been surrounded by the welcoming arms of his family his entire life, hell the man shared a womb with his twin. There was never a time where Osamu had felt alone, and he couldn’t understand the want to ignore those who held their hands out to help. He couldn’t fathom not having a support system, or someone to help him get back up when he fell off the tracks. 

There was always someone there. Until of course there wasn’t, and only then did Osamu realize what he had meant when he said, “The world is unforgiving, you’ll always be alone even when you’re surrounded by millions of people.” 

-:-

Osamu met Suna in his first year at Inarizaki, shuffling into the lowest class, his twin in tow next to him as they moved down the corridor. He could hear people whisper, even through the speakers of his earbuds, unsure of whether or not he liked the attention him and Atsumu had been receiving the moment they stepped foot onto the school grounds. 

Are those the miya twins? 

They’re so attractive! 

I want to ask Osamu out! 

Do you think they are going to try out for the volleyball team? 

Duh, just look at them. 

Osamu could already feel an immense amount of pressure settling upon shoulders as he slipped into his designated classroom, leaving Atsumu’s side as different classes separated them. Idly walking down the aisles until his name tag placed on the corner of the desk seat number popped into his vision, cueing him to take a seat. 

It's uncomfortable, he thinks, I didn’t miss this. His notebook, that he didn’t really plan on using, took up space at his desk along with the small pouch that only contained two pens, a pencil, and extra lead. Leaning back in his chair, his hand fishes down into his pocket to pull out his phone, turning up the volume, as he checks the time. 

He has five minutes till class starts, not that he cared in the slightest. The only thing currently on Osamus mind besides his first high school volleyball practice (after guaranteeing a spot on the team months prior during his middle school scouting days) he was mostly worried about what seasonings he could add to his next onigiri batch. 

There's a loud thump next to him, his head craning to see the commotion. He’s only met with a lanky boy, shoulders broader than those Dorito chips he once saw his old school mate aran eating, and eyes slanted in a bored glare. His earbuds dangle from the neck hole of his shirt, but his large hands quickly come to pull the buds into his ears, leaning forward on the desk  and putting his arms out in front of him to use as a pillow against the hard wood of the tables. Osamu couldn’t describe the way the boy rendered him speechless, eyes staring into the boy wondrously.  

“Do you need something,” The boy says to him, pulling him from his daze, blinking twice as both boys stare at each other. 

“Sorry,” Osamu fumbles, turning forwards in his chair. 

-:-

“So these are the new first years?” The coach says next to a second year whos hair falls in front of their faces, amber eyes weaving in between each of the younger boys lined against the court. 

“There's one missing.” His voice is automatic, cool even to hear. 

 Osamu isn’t paying attention to the talk, his mind blankly staring at the nets, wondering what type of position would he be most effective in. Perhaps Atsumu would play as setter, and he could work alongside his brother, the only harmony that was ever brought into their never ending sibling rivalry. 

“Your late first year,” The coach booms as someone stumbles into the gym. This catches Osamus thoughts, his eyes following the commotion as someone goes to stand next to Atsumu. 

“Sorry, a teacher held me back.” 

“On the first day?”

“I fell asleep during announcements.” 

He falls silent as the coach goes on, explaining how the team would work and what was going to be on the agenda for the upcoming scrimmage game they were suppose to be playing against another school. But Osamu finds it hard to concentrate, looking between the tall brunette and the court. 

-:- 

He couldn’t pinpoint the moment he knew, it wasn’t something he had ever realized before in his life, until the confusion of his emotions finally made him realize it. Over the year, he hadn’t just grown close to Suna as you would expect of friends. No, it was much more to Osamu then he would ever admit to Suna. 

The way his heart would beat out of his chest, or the slight sheen of sweat that would slip across his hands when he spoke to the other boy. Sometimes he hated the way he felt, wishing he could return to simpler times, when all he had to worry about was volleyball, and the next snide remark he’d throw Atsumu’s way. 

He wondered endlessly if Suna ever picked up on those miniscule hints he’d leave. Like when the team would go out for ramen after a tournament went right, and he’d always take the seat next to Suna. The same applies when traveling distances, it was an unspoken agreement that Suna and Osamu would always be paired together in the bus seats. Those little gestures when Osamu would pick a pack of Chuupets to hand to Suna at the most random times, “Saw ‘em when I was grabbing some stuff for the onigiris ‘m makin’.” Possibly when Suna forgot his team jacket on cold days, Osamu would give him his extra that made home in his locker specifically for this occasion to pop up. 

-:-

The first time that Osamu ever inhaled the hazy smoke into his lungs, he was sitting next to Suna. The dark sky towering over them, the pressure of nationals coming to cause a permanent crease in their brows. 

“Wanna hit,” He asks Osamu, as they swing back and forth in slow, repetitive motions on the empty playgrounds swings. 

“I’ve never smoked before,” Osamu admitted, somewhat shyly, embarrassed at his lack of experience in front of someone who he knew had been smoking for a while now. 

“It's up to you, no pressure,” Suna would say, taking another hit, the rolled joint limply dangling from his lips, smoke emitting from his mouth with each inhale and exhale. Osamu wants to, he wants to know the high that Suna had adored so much, the pleasure that Suna would succumb to with each passing moment.

“Teach me,” He was scared he sounded desperate, or enthusiastic. He tried his best to act as if it didn’t bother him, attempting to keep a cool façade in front of Suna. Suna looks at him with a smirk, eyes slanted and red as he hands the drug to Osamu. When Suna slips him the joint, their fingers brush by slowly, lingering momentarily. It takes a few tries for Osamu to stop coughing when he takes a hit, Suna laughing each time until he gets it. 

Osamu gets it now, the feeling Suna chases each time he comes to smoke under the stars, “Does it always feel this good?” 

“Most of the time, sometimes you might have a bad trip,” He says. 

Osamu looks at Suna, wondering when they hand ended up lying in the grass together, at the most a foot apart as they gazed up at the burning balls of fire littering the sky. He always has his earbuds in, and Osamu wonders what is always playing through them, what music accompanies the man in front of him. 

“What are ya listen’ to,” Osamu asks then. Suna looks at him, and without a word, is taking the other earbud and handing it to Osamu.

Cigarettes after Sex. 

He had been listening to Cigarettes after Sex. 

-:-  

At the beginning of their third year, Osamu caught Suna in the halls, long after the bells had dismissed everyone to return home, leaving the building empty of all noise, minus the creaks the old building would create every once in a while. 

He had been kept back by his teacher, insisting to go through his bag as he, as the teacher explained, “Reeked of weed.” However Osamu mentally praised himself for leaving his stuff at home and blaming the smell on a convenience store he had been in, addressing the owner who had been smoking that morning. Of course this was a lie, but the teacher was stupid enough to believe the pitiful lie, sending Osamu on his way out. 

He was propped against the wall, head tilted upright as he crossed his arms over his body. He looked peaceful there, with his earbuds more than likely playing some form of arctic monkeys or pearl jam. Maybe he was listening to the 1975 this time, or U2, it could have been any of them. The sunlight bounced against his complexion, soaking him in a warm bath of melanin. His hair had been slightly tousled, more than likely the job of himself constantly running his hands through his hair. 

“What are ya still doing’ here,” Osamu asked him when he had finally approached him after ogling at him for a moment down the hall. 

“I heard you got called back, figured I wait around to go to practice with you.” Suna says as if it were nothing at all. Osamu would never admit it, but it meant more to him then words would even be able to begin to describe. 

“Ya coulda gon’ to practice,” Osamu mumbles, walking in sync with Suna now. 

“Got me out of warm up laps anyways.” His words are mysterious, not that getting out of warm up laps wasn’t a common occurrence for Suna, but to wait for Osamu, it just wasn’t typical of Suna. 

It surprised Osamu even more, when the next week after finishing a test late he found Suna waiting for him in the corridor, and every time after that. 

 -:-

“Do you ever think about what's going to happen when we graduate?” Suna asks quietly next to Osamu. They had been sitting at the skate park together, smoking accumulating between the two of them, as they talk quietly though they are the only ones here under the dim lights scattered around. 

“We graduate in a week and you want to start pondering what's going to happen in life?” Osamu laughs, taking another hit, lying against the cold cement. Suna doesn't say anything, staring directly in front of him. Osamu wonders what's going on inside of his head right now, though he doesn’t feel like he has the right to know. 

“Yeah,” He hums, “ I guess you're right.” 

But his words have something hidden behind them, something that Osamu can’t describe, but it twinges a wave of fear through him. The words felt cold, distant. He wants to ask, he wants to ask so badly if he’s okay, if there's something he can do if he is not. But he bites his lip and he doesn’t ask. 

He knows Suna too well at this point from the countless nights spent smoking together, the morning practices and pairings in class. He’s been to his hand more time then you’d even be able to count. He knows every little thing, like when he starts complaining more than he normally does, it's because he’s running on an empty stomach. And if his hands start shaking, it's never because he’s cold or because he’s angry, it's because he hasn’t gotten his daily dose of caffeine, and when he goes silent, it's never because he's sad, it's simply because he has nothing left to say. He hates when people talk too much, and it irritates him when people start singing for no apparent reason other than to just sing. He loves chuupet, and volleyball, and alternative music, and smoking. And he doesn’t care about much of anything else. 

But right now, as his eyes hold back the emotions he’s suppressing within himself, Osamu can see right through it, he can see the pain lingering in his grey-yellow eyes. He knows Suna will lie to him, because Suna’s thoughts were Suna’s thoughts alone. 

-:-

Osamu hated the way that the feeling never changed. It never let up, it never ceased. It only grew until the roots had entangled so deeply he could feel it crawling into his lungs branching out in a painstakingly slow ache. Suffocating him like he was ten feet under, buried beneath the surface of platonic smiles and thoughtless gestures. 

Some days he wished he would just say it. Three words, thats all it would take to assimilate this stupid feeling he couldn’t control. Three, simple, little words that hefted the weight of the world. 

In ways, it made him angry. Why couldn’t he just say it, why couldn’t he just tell the boy how he had truly felt. It was a simple feeling, and when the rejection came it would bide Osamu the time to figure himself out, to learn how to breathe again. But maybe that was it, maybe the reason he feared telling him the hardened truth of his feelings is because he knew deep down the rejection would kill him. It would make him lose any ounce of control he had built up, it would make him see red. He had already been hanging by the shreds of thread, if he exploited himself in this way there was no going back, there was going to be no more midnight smoke sessions, no more trips to the convenience store after practice, no more movie nights, no more him. 

Osamu felt constricted by the material wrapped around his body, was it hot in here? It was just him, the pouring rain against the window fogging it with each burst of coldness proving it to just be him. With a sigh, he slips the material off of his body, and throws it to the other side of the room. He’ll pick it up later, he tells himself when it hits the wall with a thud and silently falls to the ground below. 

He knows he won’t though. The pile of laundry that had been piling for the last month tells him exactly that. 

-:-

It's sticky in here, Osamu thinks. 

Its stick, and its muddy, and its hollow. It's packed to the brim with people, it's loud and annoying and they won’t shut up over the obnoxious thumping of whatever trash was blaring through the speakers set up through the house. And it's lonely. He knows Kita and Aran are over in the corner, arguing over who is going to be the designated driver, and he sees Atsumu’s talking to some boy with a mask over his face, thought Osamu notes how the boy looks out of place and uncomfortable (he feels the way this boy looks, but he wouldn’t ever voice that outloud) and he sees Suna. 

He’s sprawled against the leather couch, there's two girls, one on each arm, stuck to him like pesky little leeches, taking hits from his joint with those agonizing high pitched laughs. They were fake, he could see it from a mile a way, and he was sure Suna could see the same, but Suna wasn’t going to complain, not when later he’d mingle his way upstairs with one, if not both of them. 

It hurt Osamu to even think about it, and now the kitchen counter seemed to be pressing into his back more evidently, more uncomfortable then it had been before. He moves quietly outside, ditching the red solo cup that had been placed in his left hand, somewhere now scattered with the array of cups lining the counter. 

His hands pressed into the rail against the outside patio overlooking the backyard. Not as many people were here this time, only the couple in the corner who resembled suction cups and the scattered druggies doing harsher things than Osamu would ever even think about trying. Osamu couldn’t explain what was happening to him right now. 

Why did that suffocating feeling seem deeper, rougher now. Why did it feel like everything was breaking down. He didn’t understand why water had been leaking from his eyes, or why his breathing had picked up in pace, or why the red bleeding feeling felt like it was going to overcome his entire being. He just wanted out, but he couldn’t move. Paralyzed into holding onto that rail, knuckles burning white as he leaned over the edge slightly, rocking back and forth on his heel. 

He just wanted it to stop. He just wanted to breathe again. 

“Osamu,” He can hear the voice, but he can't make it out. It's more like white noise, like that shitty music in the background, or those girls laughing in Suna’s lap just moments ago. 

“Osamu,” He hears it again, it's louder this time, but the panic begins to trickle deeper inside of him, the rocking becoming more violent. Shaking his body in waves of unstoppable tremors, more tears relentlessly streaming down his face. 

“Osamu, hey, listen to me,” There are more words this time. He can feel someone's hand on his shoulder, he could hear the fear in their voice, as he slips further and further down this rabbit hold he can't climb out of. The world shifts for a moment however, and he feels his body slipping, he can’t tell if he’s being moved, but he feels the tugging at his wrist. The voice is yelling again, the music is louder, and Osamu can’t remember how, but somehow, someway, when he snaps from his daze, from that suffocating world of constant agony, he’s in a dimly lit room. 

Suna’s in front of him, his eyes are wide, and he has each hand on Osamu’s shaking shoulders. Atsumu is behind him, nervously biting his lip with his arms crossed against his chest in a worried manner. Kita is at the door with a glass of water, and other members of the team are hanging on at the door frame. All eyes were on him, and it made him feel even more constricted than before. 

“Make them go away,” He whispers, pulling his legs to his body, only now realizing the fetal position he had taken accustomed to on the floor. 

“Everyone out,” Suna says while standing up, pushing even his twin out the door, grumbles and groans following suit, a ‘hes my brother i should make sure he’s okay’ and a ‘he doesn’t need you to see him like this right now, it will only make him feel worse now get out’ before the room goes silent with only the bass from below shaking the floors and Suna’s shuffling from the door back over to him. 

“Are you okay,” He quietly asks, unsure of how he can help Osamu right now. 

Osamu doesn’t know how to respond, so instead he stays silent, he stays so quiet for so long he hopes that Suna will eventually get bored and take his leave. But Suna never does, he never moves from the squatted position in front of Osamu, he never takes his hand away from Osamus shoulder, he never stops the little circles he rubbing into the top of Osamu’s shoulder. 

It only hurts Osamu more, because it only makes him realize how much more in love with Suna he truly is. 

-:- 

“We did it.” Suna mumbles, kicking his feet against the wood chips surrounding the child's swing set him and Osamu had been sitting at. The sun had long since fallen, and the breeze picked up in their black graduation robes, the suits underneath the flimsy fabric enough to keep them warm. It had only been a few hours since they had been taking a plethora of pictures with family, walking across that damned stage and shaking hands with a principle they had only met enough to count on one hand alone. 

“I guess we did,” Osamu mumbles. He thinks back to only a week ago, back at the skatepark, the smoke, the atmosphere, the words that had left sunas lips that night. “Do you ever think about what's going to happen when we graduate?” 

Its only now Osamu truly understands what Suna was getting at. With one foot out the door they had their entire lives ahead of them now, bracing for impact for the true glories and misfortunes life had to offer them.

“I’m not gonna pursue Volleyball in college,” Osamu blurts, speaking softly as he watches the star twinkle in the sky. He had been thinking long and hard about this decision, fearing what the consequences may be of quitting a sport, he not only loved, but was good at. He can feel Suna’s head turn toward him. 

“Really?” 

Osamu stays quiet for a moment, “I love volleyball, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t think I like it as much as ‘tsumu does, and it just doesn’t feel like my calling.” 

“What feels like your calling then?” Suna is quiet. 

“Not sure yet, but I do love food. Maybe I’ll travel, learn different food cuisines, or I’ll start my own shop, who knows where life will take me.” 

Suna goes quiet, his eyes trained down into his laps as each finger picks at the other, his chunky silver rings twirling and twisting with each fumble, “What if life won’t take you anywhere.” 

It was Osamu’s turn to snap his head in the direction of the brunette, curiosity laced in his emotions. Suna won’t look up at him, instead focusing still on his rings, playing with them gently, in particular the snake slithering up his middle finger, whose emerald eyes glare up at him.

“What do ya mean by that.” 

“What if...what if life doesn’t have anything planned for you, what if you're just there to take up space.” 

“Everyone is here fer a reason Suna. Everyone has a purpose, a cause, an effect. One day, yer gonna find yer life heading in directions ya love, and directions ya hate. But there’s always gonna to be a path waiting for ya, there’s always gonna to be somebody there too, to keep ya standing, to keep ya breathing,” Osamu was sure these were the wisest words to ever push past his lips. 

Sunas eyes bore into his now, they’re still on the swings, not even the gusts of wind can move them at this moment. Suna breathes out for a moment before taking off his snake ring, and gently opens up Osamu’s fingers before placing it in his hand. 

“The world is unforgiving, you’ll always be alone even when you’re surrounded by millions of people.” 

-:- 

It was exactly 2:46 am when Osamu had been disrupted from his sleep, pulled out of bed by the crying sounds of his phone, blaring out that ringtone he wished he could just smash at the wall. 

It was exactly 2:46 am when he heard Suna’s shaky heavy breath on the other line. 

It was exactly 2:47 am when he was running out the door, his shoes half on, his keys in one hand, his brother yelling from down the hall. 

It was 2:59 am by the time he had reached Suna’s front door, smashing through it at the speed of light. 

It was 3:00 Am by the time Osamu found him, mopped up by his own saliva, foam trickling from his mouth, his body convulsing in panic rages surrounded by pools of blood seeping from his wrists and pills sprawled across the floor. 

-:- 

Osamu hated hospitals. He hated the smell of antiseptics that flowed down each hall, and the way people walked in almost pure silence. He hated the way he would see people crumble on their knees the moment the doctor came out with that look on his face. He hated that hospitals go be the center of positivity and the bane of someone's worst nightmare at the same time. 

“How did we not know he wer’ gonna do something’ like this,” He hears from next to him, and with the lull of his head and the most deadpan expression Osamu mutters, “Shut up ‘tsumu.” 

And the silence overtakes them, and the entire waiting room is filled with people. So many people Osamu knew from school, and others from when he’d go over to Suna’s house after school. The hardest, perhaps in Osamus opinion, was Suna’s little sister. Her hair was in two separate braids, flicked up in different directions as her eyes were puffed out in an angry red color, glossed over by the tears that had long ago stopped falling. She hadn’t released her bottom lip from the grip her teeth had on it, her hands moving in her lap, similar to the way Suna’s had once fumbled. 

It chokes Osamu, suffocating him, but this time it's not because of the emotions he felt towards Suna. This time it was at the numbness that began to over encumber him leaving him void of any expression. 

-:- 

He couldn’t leave the chair at Suna’s beside when no one else was in the room, he always held his hand too then, even if the wires got in the way of him holding his brittle cold hands. The snake wrapped around his index finger now, curled up against the pale flesh Suna had silently offered to him. 

He was afraid he wasn’t going to wake up. Osamu knew this situation too well, he knew he would drown in this. It was his fault, wasn’t it. He should have picked up on the cues that night, he should have picked up on the cues the week before, or the months before that. He should have known when it started, instead, he was selfish. Instead he only focused on himself, on the feelings he tried to hide from the male next to him. If only he admitted his feelings, if only he had seen the bigger picture, maybe he would have seen Suna. 

Osamu hadn’t cried yet, though he had probably been the closest to Suna, he hadn’t let a tear slip yet, afraid that if he were too, then he would never stop. He brings Suna’s limp hand to his lips, leaving his lips to gently lay a kiss at the spot where Suna’s thumb and index finger were conjoined. 

“Come back to me Suna, I have something to tell you.” 

-:- 

He never missed a day, every single morning he embedded it into his routine to check in on Suna during the following months. He was always still breathing, but never awake. His heart always pumping, but his brain shut off. 

He just wanted Suna to wake up, to hold his hand instead of the other way around, he wanted Suna to know the truth, he wanted to hold him, and this time he would never let him slip. It was a promise Osamu always wanted to make to him. 

“I’ll be back later tonight, you’re mom asked me to drop some things off at your house for her, don’t wait up,” he tries to joke, but it doesn’t ease the feeling inside of him. He looks at the motionless body, his eyes were trained on his lips. Osamu had always wondered what they felt like, but he was sure between the stone cold air of the hospital and the lack of vanilla Chapstick Osamu always saw peeking out of Suna’s bag, that right now his lips would feel bitterly chapped.

It doesn’t stop him from leaning in, to place his own against Suna, just slightly away from his lip however, and onto the silky smooth skin that lie at Suna’s cheek. 

He’d kiss him for real when he woke up. 

-:-

“The key is under the mat, Osamu thank you so much for doing this, I just...I can’t go into his room right now, I haven’t been able to for months,” Suna’s mothers voice was strained, cutting in and out from the sobs she was trying her best to hold back. 

“It’s okay Mrs. Rintarou, I’m glad to help.” 

And the line goes dead as Osamu hangs up with a simple click to the red button as his hand slips under the welcome mat to find the spare key awaiting him. He pushes the key in and the stagnant air hits him like a brick as he steps through the doorway, discarding his shoes at the front entryway. He looks down the hall, his memories flashing back to that moment, as if it were all in slow motion, like it had been happening all over again. 

Osamu shakes his head as he slowly steps down the hall, making a left before the sealed off bathroom, and walking into the room he hoped he’d never have to step into again. If he thought the front door had been a pile of bricks, then his room had to be the cement burning him into the earth. 

“Dude shut up, it was one time.” Suna laughs, throwing pieces of the popcorn from the round bowl in his arms at Osamu. 

“Oh yeah, just once,” He mimics in a sarcastic tone, throwing the popcorn back at Suna. Suna rolls his eyes and goes back to scrolling aimlessly at his phone. Osamu was lying stomach down on the floor, and angled that if Suna looked over, he would absolutely see the younger miya twin staring up at him, but how could he not when the sun was glowing so effortlessly against the boys skin. 

He could trace every curve along Suna’s defined face in this lighting, burning this image of him into the back of his skull. 

Osamu blinks, reality setting in around him that he now stood in the room alone, the basket of clothes Suna had arrived at the hospital now lying in the plastic bag, taking up needless space inside of his hospital room.  He just needed to set it in the corner and leave, that was his only job, nothing more, nothing less. 

But Osamu’s eyes flicker too far to the right, and an envelope neatly placed in the center of Suna’s desk fills his vision. He knows what it is, that's obvious enough from the placement of the paper. When his legs wander to the table, he wishes he had just turned on his heel and left right then. But when his vision is evoked with the letting of Suna’s familiar scribble and his name adoring the empty space of the white canvas, Osamu loses his control to stay strong, and the first tear falls. The second when his hands unseal the back of the envelope, the third when he pulls the letter from the pouch, and the fourth when he reads 

Dear Osamu.

Its not your fault. 

And I love you too, even though I should have said it allowed. 

I love you so dearly.

I’ve lost my fight, but please don’t lose yours. 

Suna. 

He didn’t know when the showers from his eyes began as he collapsed down to the floor, holding the letter closely to his chest as he screams out. For the first time in months, he screams out the pain blocking him, the pain consuming him. 

He doesn’t even have the time to process this information, because that ringtone flares up again, just like it had done that night. 

“H-hello?” Osamu says as he picks up, unsure of the caller id, he couldn't care to look at this point. 

“He woke up Sumu. He’s awake.” 

And just like his legs carried him out of the house that night, he’s sprint full force to his car and sliding into the driver's seat, turning the key into the ignition and speeding down the road recklessly past the stop sign. 

He should have stopped. 

-:- 

“Where’s Osamu,” Suna croaks out, it's the first thing he’s said, the vision of Osamu bleakly pulling into his memory. 

“He’s on his way, he’ll be here any minute,” Suna’s mother says, with joyous tears in her eyes. 

-:- 

“Where’s Osamu.” 

“There was an accident.” 

-:- 

Suna was wrapped in the navy blue sweater Osamu had given to him, tightly secure in the knitted fabric as his white collar shirt peeked out from the bottom of it, contrasting against his dark jeans. His long legs were wrapped up to his chest, his head softly laying in between his knees. 

“It would have been easier if I couldn’t remember you,” he whispers, “You were like a drug you know. You were heaven to have, a high I’ll never get back now that you're gone.” 

He stares at the stone in the grass carefully watching the flowers he had set up hours ago sway with the wind, “We’d probably be smoking right now, except we’d be closer. Sometimes I imagine the way it would feel to have you laid across my lap.” 

Suna can feel the tears now, “I wish I never woke up, I wish I had gone that night, you’d still be here, and it should have gone the way it was supposed to.” 

He can almost hear his words in the back of his mind. Everyone has a purpose, a cause, an effect. He sniffles slightly as he brushes his finger past his nose with his sweater hanging past his fingers, “You would have told me otherwise...wouldn’t you Osamu.” 

[collateralfiction]

26

Third Person Perspective

The next morning over, Adrian was in no better mood as he was last night. His hand was throbbing from the excessive pain he felt after slamming his hand in the concrete wall. His head was pounding, his eyes were bloodshot red and his whole entire body felt as if it had been put through a battle. It was strange how he found the energy to actually wake, get dressed, eat something and leave out the house as if he didn’t have a target on his back or as if he didn’t have shit to handle. For today though, that would all be put to the side. He wouldn’t deal with anything ‘work’ related, he wouldn’t deal with his fraud sister, and he wouldn’t deal with Bailey – none of those things. It was time for him to take a day, or even a couple of hours, to himself without any distractions. There was only one place he could go to without feeling smothered and bothered by anyone and as sad and depressing this place may be, to him, it’s nothing short of relaxing.

Stepping out of his Range Rover, he slammed the door forcefully and made sure all doors were locked on either side. There were people visiting and although they seemed to be immersed in whatever was on their mind, he still had to be cautious with his property; can’t trust anyone, right? Licking his lips, he placed his hood over his head and stuffed his hands inside his sweats’ pocket. It was a little windy for ten in the morning and quite honestly, the weather reflected his mood. Following the pathway, by memory, he walked towards the one tombstone that seemed to be separated from every other one and in its own little world. In italic font, the following read: In Loving Memory of Austin Peters – a son, brother and friend. Sunrise: February 1st, 1984, Sunset: April 8th, 2005.

Adrian sighed, taking a seat on the neatly trimmed area. It was a rare occurrence for Adrian to find himself at the graveyard, but he felt like this was the only place that could remotely calm him down in the strangest way possible. Austin was three years older than Adrian and six years older than Justine. It would be odd for them not to be close with one another and they were. It didn’t matter how much they fought with each other, at the end of the day, they made sure to apologize to one another and move on since they were all that they had, as far as sibling relationship went. With Justine being the youngest and the only girl in the family, aside from the mother, it was no surprise that Adrian and Austin bonded better and it was in their natural instinct to protect their younger sibling as well. Adrian and Austin had a tight relationship and probably were more reckless together than alone.

Even with Adrian being the younger than Austin, Austin always had plans of including his brother into anything that he did. Just like Adrian, Austin began to do illegal work alongside his step-father and it was only fair that Adrian would do the same. Adrian and Austin were similar in some regards but there was no mistaken the two. They were complete opposites, but they meshed and worked well together. Of course, it was devastating for him to lose someone he actually cared for. Even at a young age, there was always this mentality Adrian had and he always surrounded himself with people he trusted. If he trusted you, that meant a lot and it should. If he didn’t, you were easily cut off, no questions asked.

It had been over a year since Adrian had last been here to visit and ‘talk’ to his older brother. He knew in his heart that there was really no reason at all for him to make the drive out and speak to a tombstone, but it did something good for his spirit. For no longer than twenty minutes, he just sat there in silence and allowed his thoughts to consume him – thoughts that weren’t centered around anyone else but himself and the direction he saw himself heading into. It was normal for Adrian to reevaluate his life at moments like these, but they were so rare that he honestly didn’t know what to do with them. How does your own family turn on you? It just didn’t make sense to Adrian. Adrian had done nothing but help his little sister out when no one would even think about doing so and this is how he gets repaid? Actually, it was never a matter of being repaid. It was just about showing gratitude and being loyal; things Justine wasn’t at this point.

He couldn’t fathom his own sister setting him up like that and it infuriated him to the point of no return. It was definitely a stab in the back and a stab he couldn’t see himself ever getting over. He could but he won’t. It wasn’t like Justine did something minuscule in comparison. This couldn’t be excused, and he didn’t want to see Justine ever again. He wouldn’t hesitate to cut off his own family members; he did it to his own biological father, his mother and he could do it to Justine. Adrian really didn’t need his family for support or as a backbone. He had all that by himself, thank God. “You see the shit I’m going through, bruh?” Adrian said, lightly licking his lips. “Never in a million years would I ever think I would have my own blood sister turning her back on me. That shit isn’t normal,” he chuckled darkly.

There were a few things that Austin had said to Adrian before passing and one of those things was to protect and look out for Justine and being that, that was Austin’s request, he gladly did so and he would have done it without being asked to. Now? That’s out of the question. He’s not doing shit if it doesn’t involve Austin. He was the only victim in this fucked up predicament. “I’ve been through so much bullshit and not gave a fuck about one of them but this one? This hit too close to home,” Adrian expressed, something he would probably never have the chance to tell his sister since they will no longer be on speaking terms. It’ll be a while before Adrian can even think of talking to her. “You know, I truly wonder why she would ever fuck me over like that when all I did was be supportive as hell for her. She got me out here looking like a fool while she reaps these benefits I give her ‘cause I want to. That’s some bullshit,”

If Adrian knew better, Bailey wouldn’t be here. There wouldn’t have been a need for her if Adrian had knew all of this from jump. “I feel like shit,” he mumbled, bowing his head a little to avoid the harsh wind. A part of him is man enough to realize that he mighthave made a mistake bringing Bailey around but could he take it back? No so he wasn’t going to sit around and feel guilty. But he could admit when he was in the wrong, that he had no problem owning up to. “If a friend were to do this to me, I wouldn’t be this annoyed and peeved as I am right now. Justine got me fucked up if she thinks I’ll just move on like nothing happened,” Adrian uttered.

There was no justification for Justine’s action and if and when Adrian sees her again, he’ll let her know exactly what he thinks. It was always normal for Adrian and Justine to bicker, probably more than Adrian and Austin but they were just two stubborn people and you know nothing can be accomplished if two stubborn individuals are working together. They could both become volatile at any given moment, but Adrian was the type to hit below the belt when he felt like doing so and he didn’t care who was on the receiving end either.

“That’s a big slap to the face but it’s cool. I’ll just do the same thing back. No hesitation,” Adrian nodded. He was more hurt than what he let on. Last night was only part one of his breakdown and now part two was more of the reflecting and getting himself together stage. Adrian could still function despite the shit Justine did to him and it won’t even appear that it got to him but right now, he was baring his emotions. To no one in particular but he didn’t need to express himself to anyone. As long as he was clearing his thoughts himself, then that was all that mattered. “I know you probably shaking your head right now but I’m straight. I had to find out some day, right? I don’t even feel bad for myself or want any of that pity shit. I’m just going to focus on myself because if anything, I’ve been neglecting my own self and putting others before me. See how that shit turned out?” he said sadly, shaking his head.

Adrian spent another hour at the burial site, finding some sort of peace before he heads back into the city. He knew he was going to get bombarded with a shit load of things to deal with and quite honestly, he had no choice but to handle it like a man. He wasn’t going to run or cower because he knew what he had done. However, he wasn’t going to go out like no bitch. Releasing a breath, he stood and grabbed the pack of cigarettes he rarely uses but does whenever he doesn’t want to resort to weed. It’s not the best alternative but it’s what he has on him. He said a quick little prayer that his grandmother used to make him memorize as a kid before trailing back towards his all black truck. It had been a while since Adrian cried, the last time being when he found out his brother died and that was nine years ago. It probably was hard to believe but it was the truth. Take it or leave it. But pools of tears did swell up in the corner of his eyes, but he fought against allowing any to fall. This was not the time and he had other things to sort through pertaining his life. As he headed back to his car, he pulled out his iPhone and dialed his step father’s number. Anything Justine needed or wanted, she could get on her own and hopefully, her step father is willing to help since communication with her mother isn’t there. But besides Justine, Austin was now a main priority for Adrian. Like he said before, the only person he trusted was God and if it was in God’s plan for him to lose a sister, then so be it.

__

Bailey sat on the couch in the guest house with a wool blanket wrapped around her body tightly. This had been her hideout since Adrian blurted that August had killed Riley. Bailey was in a confused space and didn’t know exactly what to do. Her mind, heart and body were torn into so many different pieces and it didn’t help that she had absolutely no one to turn to. She couldn’t fathom going back home so suddenly and she wouldn’t be able to deal with the influx of questions. She had to take this one step at a time, even if it was something she didn’t really want to do. At this point, she had no choice. Things were too toxic around here and it was only bringing her down. As much as she grown to love and hate a few people, this wasn’t her place to stay for an extended period of time. She had so much to live for and do and being in this house was only dragging her.

The obvious first step would be to call her father but how would that conversation possibly go? Bailey doubted that her father would be jumping for joy over hearing his daughter’s voice. Mr. Banks knew his daughter was alive and well, he had no doubt about that. He just never understood why she chose to stay, at least that’s what it sounded like when Chance had spoken about their encounter. There was going to be a few things they wouldn’t be able to discuss over the monitored phone calls but a visit rather than a call, would be much better. Bailey just has to work up the courage to do either of the two. She had already prepared herself from the disappointment in both her parent’s voice, but it would be a different thing to actually see it.

Since slipping out of the side door leading to one of the various exits of the house, she had made the guest house hers. It was her place of solace and not once has Adrian made the effort to check and see if she was fine. Bailey could admit, she did feel some type of way that he didn’t come following after her but what did she honestly expect? Adrian was handling his own issues and so was she. This was their turning point in each of their lives. All the important conversations the two of them shared meant nothing now. Everything had changed and things would have to be reevaluated, especially with Adrian’s life.

Huffing dramatically, she sat up and reached for the disposable cell phone Adrian always kept around the house. She had been awake for the past hour, building the right amount of courage to call her father. It was usually a long process just to get in contact with the place in which he was staying at for the remainder of his sentence but to Bailey, it was worth it, and she was finally going to do it. It had been quite some time since she’s seen her own father and even a simple, simple is such an understatement, phone call will suffice.

__

There was nothing fun about being incarcerated. Anyone who has can give you an essay 100 pages long on why nothing is fun about being away. But there’s always that lesson that is learned while being away and having your thoughts consume your mind every minute of the hour, every hour of the day and so on. There was not a day in which a sudden epiphany hit any of these inmates; it was sort of inevitable. No one truly wanted to be here, but they had to man up and face the music. This isn’t exactly a life anyone dreams of having included into their future but for some, it happens out of the blue and there’s no escaping it. Mr. Banks is a prime example. He knew that there was a strong possibility of him being incarcerated with his line of work but that was before he had his own family to look after. After? There was no way he wanted to be gone for an extended period of time, even if it involved work. He had three important ladies that counted on him and it seemed like he wasn’t doing his job of being the caretaker, provider and protector to the best of his abilities.

He once said that he would quit when Bailey had graduated high school and that was four years ago. If he had listened to himself back then, he wouldn’t have been in the predicament he’s in right now. It was eleven in the morning and Mr. Banks had just finished cleaning off other inmate’s plates. Even if he was ‘respected’ among other inmates, most of the guards didn’t give a shit because he still had to clean up after others. A younger Mr. Banks would have had an issue with doing any of this shit but the older he became, the more he realized his faults and it was about time that he changed his habits.

Sitting down on one of the tables inside, he became immersed in his own little world. Although there was another person sitting at the table along with him, talking, Mr. Banks was paying no attention to him like that. He had a shit load of things on his mind. One, being his family wellbeing and two, Ryan. At one point, Mr. Banks did like Ryan. He saw Ryan as someone eager for action and willing to learn. Little did he know, his precious daughter had fallen for Ryan. At first, he wasn’t too pleased about hearing such a thing, especially if it dealt with Ryan and what he was doing behind the scenes but then he looked at the brighter picture and realized that an arrangementbetween those two could work. So, of course he gave Ryan the okay to date his daughter but only one condition: he make sure that she’s safe at all times. If not, Mr. Banks is coming for that ass.

“Banks!” A correctional officer yelled from across the room. Mr. Banks gritted his teeth and stood up without looking for the source of the voice. He had been on ‘good behavior’ recently so there should be no reason why a guard is yelling at him with that much bass. As soon as he approached the officer, cuffs were placed on his wrist and tightened.

“Asshole,” Mr. Banks gritted.

“I hear that every day, Anthony. You really think it gets to me?” the CO chuckled, pushing Mr. Banks in the correct direction. He didn’t even know where he was heading and quite honestly, he didn’t care. If it was something urgent, he would have been informed about it from jump. If it was Detective Jason making an appearance, he would have known as well. So whatever curve ball they were going to throw at him would be a surprise for real. “Phone call. You have ten minutes,” The CO said as he sat Mr. Banks down and removed his cuffs. Rubbing his wrists aggressively, he winced at the bruises on his wrist and promised himself for what seemed like the 10thtime that he would never be back here again. It was a waste of time.

Picking up the phone, he looked over his shoulder and scoffed at the guard still standing around. There was no privacy here at all. “Hello?” he answered, his voice a little rough from not speaking the past couple of hours. He didn’t have friends in here and he wasn’t going to talk to just anyone about his problems, especially in jail. There was a long pause on the other end, but he knew someone was on the other end by hearing the faint sound of breathing. Although there was no one talking currently, he rather be here than inside with the other inmates. Anything to get away from them would be completely fine with him. He preferred solitary at a time like this. “I only have nine minutes left of this conversation and it would make my day if I heard something,” Mr. Banks said, leaning back into the steel chair.

Bailey’s throat easily dried up and not a single utterance could be heard from her. Hearing her father’s voice after so long brought silent tears to her face. He didn’t seem angry, but he didn’t seem happy either. Drawing in a deep breath, she exhaled and finally spoke up after so long. “Daddy,”

Mr. Banks grew tense, his posture straightening and the relaxed look on his face disappearing with quickness. His two daughters had very distinctive voices and he could easily tell one apart from the other, this instance being an example. Mr. Banks had a list of things he would say to his daughter once he finally was in contact with her and to hear her voice now, all of that vanished out of his thoughts. He was just blessed to know for a fact that she was alive. It was no doubt that he would be happy to hear from her but there was no telling where this conversation could go. “Bailey,” Mr. Banks finally said something, his demeanor softening a bit. “Talk to me, princess,” Mr. Banks could have gone off but the likelihood of accomplishing anything would be unlikely, especially with a ten-minute phone conversation. If anything, he just wanted to make sure that she was good for now and then he would really get into the nitty gritty. After all, this is his daughter and the heartless person he is to others easily evaporated.

“Daddy, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to cause any heartache. I should have been wise and careful about what I was doing, and I should have left when I was given the chance to do so. I know I’m most likely going to be bound to the house from now on, but I deserve it,” As Bailey continued her rambling, Mr. Banks leaned back and allowed a smooth chuckle to flee past his lips. It was just like Bailey to become frightful of the consequences when dealing with her father. It wasn’t like he put fear into her, but he was a stern parent who knew what was best for his daughters even when they didn’t see it like that. Kidnapping was something so out of the spectrum of what could possibly be done to your kids and no one would have ever thought that their own kid would go missing. But it happened to Mr. and Mrs. Banks and now they would forever have their guards up.

“Slow down, baby girl. One thing at a time,” Mr. Banks said calmly, hopeful that that would radiate on to Bailey. He could hear the worry and fear in her voice and if it continued, they would get nowhere. As angry and frustrated he was, he had to remain with a strong demeanor and mask all that anger for the right person, not his daughter. He had to remember that his daughter was taken against her will. “Where are you now?” he questioned.

“Somewhere in New Jersey,” Bailey uttered, wiping away her tears from under her eyes. She knew not to mention exactly where because she also knew that he would find someone to personally get her. Mr. Banks clenched his jaw slightly before releasing. So, she’s in the area, he thought. Close to home, fuck.

“Are you with someone right now?”

There was some sort of hesitance in her voice before she responded. “No,” she said, finally speaking the truth. “But daddy, just hear me out, okay. I’ll come home, soon and I’ll explain everything for everyone to understand. There’s just one last thing I need to do,” she said softly. Mrs. Banks posture became stern again. He hasn’t talked to his daughter in how long and the one thing she wants to do is what? The correctional officer who escorted him, tapped his shoulder and mouthed three minutes. Mr. Banks aggressively turned around and felt his fist clench into a tight ball.

“Are you safe?” he questioned sternly. “Don’t lie either. This isn’t a joke,”

“I am,” she said with as much conviction as possible. Convincing her father would be the most difficult thing ever. Her father had a great gut instinct. He didn’t need to be face to face with you to know if you was bullshitting. But, Bailey was safe, in an odd way. Although Bailey wouldn’t disclose where exactly she was at, she had to make sure she seemed as sure as possible that she was indeed safe. “I wouldn’t lie if I was in danger,” she murmured.

“Listen, Bailey. I don’t know how much of what you’re saying is the truth, but I need you to be careful. I need you to get in contact with your mother ASAP! Right now is obviously not the right time to hold a conversation and I only have three minutes left,” Mr. Banks sighed, “But I need you to do me a favor, Bailey,” Bailey remained quiet, already knowing where this was leading to. Bailey knew what her father was going to say, and it was expected. She just didn’t know if she would be able to follow his orders for once. “I need you to cooperate with Detective Jason, okay? This nigga who thought it was okay to kidnap you couldn’t have thought for a second this would have just slipped my mind. I hope you’re not trying to protect this nigga either,” he said seriously.

“Okay,” That wasn’t a definite answer for Bailey but knowing that they barely had ten seconds left on the phone together, it would suffice for the time being. Now, Bailey had to figure out what she was going to do in a week’s time before she had no choice but to show up back home.

__

There was obvious tension clouding the area of the Villa. Bags were packed, placed in an elite car service and the four individuals sat around waiting for three o’clock to hit before they would officially leave and catch up with their private jet. Caiden, August, Justine and Austin sat around the clean living room, deep in their own thoughts; more so, August and Justine was. August knew that he should have spoken up about killing Riley, but he couldn’t find it in himself to do so. August and Bailey had formed a good friendship and if she turns around and finds something like that, it’ll only end up making August look like a jackass since he knew all along. That’s why August was ordered to stay back for a while before heading home. August’s behavior proved that he isn’t cut out for this lifestyle and upon realizing his mistakes and having a while to allow it to simmer in his mind, it was best that he quit while he’s ahead. This isn’t quite what he expected but Caiden and Adrian had been telling him that since jump and when he wants to listen, it’s too late.

August was 110% sure that when he returned to New York, Bailey would already know, courtesy of Adrian. He figured it would come out one way or another since everything seems to be taking a turn for the worst. With a sigh, he stood up and went to wait in the car. His brother was pissed at him as well, because the one thing he should at least be able to do is man up and confess his wrongdoings. Caiden wasn’t going to cover his butt and he damn sure wasn’t going to take the blame for something he didn’t have a place in. Justine on the other hand was mentally checked out from any and everything. Her mind was gone; she knew she fucked up and no one had to remind her of that. What she didn’t know, is that Adrian wouldn’t want to deal with her any longer. It was a sad realization she hadn’t thought about and wouldn’t until Adrian makes it crystal clear.

What she did was wrong, and she knew that then and she knows that now. What she should have been more cautious on was love and investing way more into Lonnie than he was with her. It was a messed up predicament and she could silently confess to being blinded by a dream she hoped would come true one day but never would. She was trying so hard to hold onto Lonnie and the little bit of hope that he would prove her brother wrong and show that he could be a good father, but she was sadly mistaken and that’s where she went wrong. Of course, Adrian didn’t know everything but he knew enough to keep his sister safe and Justine was directly putting herself in harm’s way, even if Austin happened to be the one that suffered the most pain. Justine wanted to call her brother and apologize but couldn’t find it in her to do so right now.

She didn’t want to hear the hurt in his voice that he knew he would display. Adrian is very prideful and wouldn’t crack for anyone unless it was something that involved someone as innocent as Austin. But Justine is family. He already lost his brother and mother. In no way, shape or form was he trying to lose the one family member he actually had a good bond with. Adrian had no one besides his little gang of friends but that didn’t mean shit to him if he really lucked out and couldn’t even confide in his own family members. That was also another thing that broke her, and she felt her eyes starting to pool up.

Caiden wasn’t quite sure what was wrong with Justine and although he should be the caring male that he is and ask, he couldn’t. Justine wasn’t talking much and if she was, it was due to Austin being very inquisitive or her expressing interest into talking to her only brother. She didn’t even feel like talking to Lonnie and that was a shocker to all. She hadn’t heard from him since his last call and didn’t wonder why he hadn’t called her back to taunt her, but she was expecting one soon. Little did she know, he was never going to call back. Austin had been distracted with trivial video games and entertainment devices for the time being until they were all escorted to leave. His young mind could process and understand basic human things and seeing two siblings argue was one of them.

He had never seen his uncle and mother go back and forth like that, but he knew it wasn’t his place to question it either as a minor. He knew it wasn’t too good if his uncle was banging on the table and when he walked away without noticing Austin. Austin wasn’t too fond of the disgruntled expression on his mother and uncle’s face and although he didn’t express that to his own mother, he told Adrian about it before Adrian and Bailey departed. Adrian promised Austin that he would see him soon, but Adrian wasn’t too sure or for how long it would be and what would be the outcome of Austin’s faith. Taking him away from Justine would be wrong but it would be right in a sense. He wanted what was best for his nephew and Adrian knows Justine’s a good mother, but her actions make him doubt himself. Whatever he does has to be figured out before anything else happens. Adrian just might have to turn to the one person he never thought he would run to ever again…

Bailey

This couch had become home to me in less than twenty-four hours. It wasn’t for the fact that I enjoyed being on this couch or anything, it was just what was comfortable for the time being. More than a few hours had passed but I didn’t find myself getting up and attempting to do anything besides eradicate the burner phone. I didn’t know whether or not Adrian had left and gone somewhere or whether he was home all along. All I know is that I haven’t seen nor heard from him since last night. I stared at the mahogany colored ceiling fan, watching it circle over and over again before turning my attention to the time on the wall; 8:32 at night. A part of me wanted to creep back in the house and see what’s up but the stubborn part of me didn’t want to do shit. Besides, I didn’t even know what I was doing once I left the confines of this house. Was I going to my mother’s house, my house, Adrian’s condo or a hotel? Who am I talking to first? These were things I definitely had to take into consideration.

Talking to my father this morning seemed so surreal. I was shocked seeing as that he wasn’t yelling at me furiously. It caught me off guard, but I knew better than to think he would just let me off that easy. There was more I should expect for him and the only plausible reason he didn’t spaz was because he had been on a monitored phone call and that talking over the phone about something serious is never something easy to express. I don’t know what to think and I wasn’t going to harass him for answers. He probably has a million and one questions he wanted to ask as well but didn’t because he knew that would overwhelm me. I just know that he wants me home soon and safe. If not, I should be expecting a phone call soon. But in a week’s time, I’m sure I’d be back home, seven days exactly. Seven days too soon.

Just as I was getting ready to lay back down and hopefully fall into a deep sleep of some sort, the side door slid open, revealing Adrian with a bag of Wendy’s in one hand and a tray of drinks in the other. Couldn’t be for me. He said nothing to me as he looked at my face for a few seconds before taking steps to sit beside me. He didn’t speak up but handed me a paper bag that contained a cheeseburger and medium size fries with a medium size drink of Sprite. “Thank you,” I murmured, taking a bite out of the fries, eating for the first time in almost twelve hours. He didn’t respond back to my words and I wasn’t going to force him to do so. So, while I ate in silence, he seemed to be calculating something in his head.

With the latest of news that just hit Adrian, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was trying to come up with the most destructive idea ever. That’s how his mind works- to hurt others. It’s a sad reality but it’s the truth. I had a few questions on my mind that wanted answers too but with the way this silence is carrying on, I doubt he wants to hold a conversation with me of all people. Twenty minutes late, I was finally done eating and threw out the remainder of my trash in the garbage before washing my hands and heading back towards my seat.

I was still as shock about finding out that Riley’s murderer was living comfortably in this house but taking my frustration out on Adrian, who wasn’t solely to blame, wasn’t the best thing either since he had his own problems to worry about. Yes, he shouldn’t have acted like he didn’t know what I was talking about when I spoke about Riley, but I guess in his twisted mind, he believed it wasn’t his business to tell. No matter how angry or sadden I might get about the truth of the matter, it wasn’t like I could do anything. Riley is already gone. I would have just liked to know what the purpose of killing him was for. Too bad I can’t ask Adrian.

“I would’ve never thought you’d be in here,” Adrian grumbled, resting his snapback on his left kneecap. I bit my bottom lip and refrained from asking why. “But thank God for cameras, huh?” he chuckled lightly, rubbing his chin.

“I guess,” I shrugged. He eyed me through tiny slits before chuckling.

“And I guess you still mad,” he said. “That’s fine by me. I am too. But question, why you not talking as much?” I chuckled lightly, shaking my head.

“So, I won’t agitate you but I did call my father,” I said, shifting a bit on the couch so that I was looking at him.

“Oh yeah? How’d that go?” he asked.

“Better than expected. He still wants your head on a platter though,” I sighed. “He wants me to potentially work with this detective and you know the rest,”

“Why does it sound like you won’t?” he questioned.

“’Cause I know what will come with ratting you out. Although you have asshole tendencies, you actually are a great person and I don’t think this is the right time for me to purposely take you away from your family, especially Austin,” It seemed backwards in the way I was working but it made complete sense in my head. Being taken away from my family is different from Adrian being taken away from a seven-year old. In some aspects, I could hold my own without needing my family. How would a seven-year old be able to do that if his uncle is in jail? It’s obvious that they’re close and probably the only male in Austin life and I’m not going to get in the way of something like that, especially since I have my own issues to handle.

“I’m not going to take your word for it, but we’ll see,” I rolled my eyes dramatically.

“And that’s fine. No pressure,” I mumbled. “So, what’s the plan for me?”

“You got your bags packed?” he asked instead of answering my question.

“Yes,” I had it all finished before he rudely told me August killed Riley.

“Alright, in the morning we’ll leave. It’s too late right now,”

“You have a plan in mind that quickly?” I questioned with a raised eyebrow.

“Not a plan, just actions,” he murmured, licking his lips. “Come inside. You not sleeping here,” he said, getting up and waiting for me to do the same.

“And why not?” I asked.

“What I say? Get yo ass up,” he gritted.

“You’re so bitchy. Good thing you ain’t a female,” I scoffed, grabbing the wool blanket along with me and wrapping it around my body.

“Yeah, I would end up like you,” he said back in the same manner, just to get under my skin but I let him have it.

__

We weren’t supposed to end up in this predicament, but we did, and I can’t say that I’m upset for falling for his suave words. Pulling away from his chest, I turned on my back and attempted to calm my breathing down a bit. It was no surprise that we got into another heated argument which started with subtle jabs until things got taken out of context and Adrian’s pride got in the way. I ended up reaping the consequences, benefits,and getting fucked into oblivion on the wall that soon transitioned towards the bed. Staring up at the ceiling, I felt the bed shift and I turned my head slightly to see Adrian getting up. “Are you going to take a shower?” I asked, my voice slightly hoarse.

“Yeah,” he mumbled.

“Wait! Come get me. You not ‘bout to let me lay here like this, nigga,” I grumbled. He kissed his teeth and came back for me, picking me up and carrying me into the bathroom. It took us a good forty-five minutes for us to get cleaned up because we were doing more fooling around than focusing on the task at hand. Slipping the large t-shirt over my head, I sat down on the edge of Adrian’s bed and began to apply a layer of lotion on my skin.

“Stop staring at me like that. I know you want to ask me a question so go ahead,” Adrian stated, snapping me out of my daze of him. He was too perfect.

“Don’t be so sure of yourself,” I mumbled, throwing the lotion bottle to the side and crawling towards the top of the bed. “Were you here all day?”

“Naw,” he answered, sitting down and cutting the T.V. on. It was weird seeing him function after learning such a thing. But then again, Adrian and I handle our situations differently so I shouldn’t be too surprised. “I had an eventful day though,”

“Care to tell me?” I asked after he settled on a random station.

“I went to visit my brother’s gravesite,” he said. “It’s weird. It’s one of them places I could go to and would feel at peace somewhat, you know? I seriously think if he hadn’t passed away so quickly, things wouldn’t have taken a turn for the worse, especially with Justine’s ass. I don’t think I could ever forgive her for the type of shit she pulled, and I have to accept that,”

“What really happened? You just told me she was disloyal,” I murmured, grasping his hand in mine.

“A nigga had to repeat this story about two times too many. But I’ll tell you,” he sighed. “You know what, let me save myself the worry of repeating it. Let me give you the letter,” He reached into one of the drawers and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper I assumed was the letter. Handing it over to me, I quickly scanned the letter before starting to read it from the top to bottom slowly. In five minutes flat, I had read the letter twice and it was as if I had read this letter for the first time the second time, since I was still left speechless and flabbergasted. When Adrian talked of his sister being disloyal, I didn’t know it was to this magnitude and the fact that Justine knew Lonnie wasn’t in the right mindset, yet she allowed Austin to be in his possession had my mind spinning. “Wow,” I was really left dumbstruck. A part of me felt bad for asking too many questions when it was obvious he was going through way more than I had anticipated and a part of me felt like Justine even pulled the wool over my own damn eyes.

“Her behavior makes sense now, right?” I nod my head, handing him back his letter. “I should have given her the same treatment I was giving all these extra niggas,”

“Adrian, don’t do that,” I found myself saying. “It happened and it’s over,” It sounded insensitive, but I didn’t mean any harm by phrasing my words like that. “It’s just sad to hear that it was one of your own blood that did you wrong,” I mumbled.

“I know but it doesn’t make it hurt any less,” he expressed. It was clear as day he was bothered by his sister’s actions as he should be.

“Damn, you’re really hurt by this. But I know that your gut instinct is to cut her off, isn’t it?”

“Hell yeah,” he responded quickly which automatically had me shaking my head.

“I think you should talk to her first,”

“Fuck all that talking bullshit. It don’t work. If anyone should be talking, it should be her and she hasn’t said shit to me since this happened. Shit, she could have told me this while I was behind bars. But naw, she played like she was a victim as well,”

“Says who?” I challenged.

“I do,” he retorted. “I don’t want to talk to her and since she’s a grown ass woman who can handle shit on her own, she can get the fuck up out of my crib and move in with Lonnie for all I care. The only one who I’m worried about is Austin,”

“Wait, you’re not going to confront Lonnie?” I questioned.

“I got another target on my eyes and that’s your nigga Ryan,”

“He is not my nigga, not after what I just read,” I was disgustedby Ryan. Who harms an innocent kid? Who decides to take part in something like this and allows for it to happen? Now that these pieces are slowly coming together and connecting, that whole week he was gone a few months ago now makes sense. When he was M.I.A., I couldn’t reach him for shit and had be left in the care of Riley, he was out harming an innocent kid and participating in something so fucking evil. Then to think that he’s about to have a kid of his own; funny how life works. “I just need you to think rational before you do something that will put Austin in jeopardy, alright? You are doing this all for Austin so don’t forget that,” I said seriously.

“I know,” he mumbled. “I just feel like ending this nigga life right now,”

“Right now, right now?” I said, making a face.

“Yeah but I can’t,” he uttered.

“Why not?” I asked.

“I gotta apologize for my behavior towards you yesterday,” My eyebrows rose instantly. There is only one other time I can ever recall Adrian apologizing for his behavior and I felt like every time he did so, it was like he was speaking something sacred. It was just something so rare that you had no choice but to be appreciative that he took the time out to apologize for his wrongdoings. And we all know he does a lot of those. He grabbed a hold of my arm and stared at the fresh cuts I received yesterday from when I was pushed onto Justine’s floor with broken glass beneath me. I had done my best to clean them off but my skin was still reddish and the bandage that I found around the house irritated me so I kept it off. “I was wrong for manhandling you yesterday and I gotta learn how to keep my hands to myself when I’m angry. I ain’t mean for you to fall either nor did I mean to make it seem like I was throwing what August did to Riley in your face out of spite,” he rambled. “Basic niggas be like… but you get my point,” he chuckled.

I was pulled on top of his lap to ensure that I heard everything he had said and that what he said was sincere. But the last thing I expected was for him to apologize about the one thing he seemed so nonchalant about. “And I apologize for kidnapping you,” I could feel my eyes glossing over and as of lately, I’ve been on this emotional track and I hadn’t really cried as much as some people would expect. A few tears here and there are nothing compared to what I could do in an hour. It was obvious that I was missing out with not being home but the fact that he took his time to apologize for that meant a lot whether he realized it or not.

Without even thinking twice, I found my lips on his as we engaged in a passionate kiss. His fingers trailed under the flaccid shirt I was wearing and brought me closer towards him while I wrapped my arms around his neck. “Does that mean you accept my apology?” he questioned against my lips, biting down on my bottom lip afterwards. I nodded slowly and although I didn’t verbalize that, I made sure that I was looking him in his beautiful eyes, so he knew I was being truthful. I leaned back over and pecked his lips a few times before resting my head in the corner of his neck. “Alright,”

“Are you going to miss me when I leave?” I asked suddenly, titling my face so I could look at the fake annoyed expression on his face.

“You want the truth, or you want me to lie to appease you?”

“Surprise me,” I chuckled.

“A part of me will. I think we balance each other out and shit. Like you influence me in some areas, and I do the same,”

“You influence me? Yeah, right,” I chuckled.

“Example one, you was helping to plot against your ex nigga,”

“That doesn’t count,” I giggled. “He actually deserves it,”

“I agree,” he nodded.

“What else did you do today? You seem rather chill,”

“I went and spoke to my step pops for most of the afternoon and no, I didn’t go see my mom. I just needed space to myself. I ain’t do no extreme shit today like I wish I did. I had to get my mind together first,”

“I’m glad you did,” I murmured. “I can’t believe this is my last night here,”

“Thank God,” he murmured, thinking I wouldn’t hear. I punched him in his chest and before I could retaliate and hit him again, he grabbed a hold of both my arms and pinned me down against the bed. “Why you gotta be so violent, baby girl?” he grinned. “You gon’ hit me again?” he questioned. I grinned playfully. Thinking that my smile fooled him for a second, he instead ducked down and bit my neck causing a loud yelp to surpass my lips. And he says I’m rough. Pushing him roughly, we tossed over on the bed until we ended up on the carpet floors, Adrian breaking my fall. “Damn, this is no exaggeration, your ass is too fat to be on a nigga,”

“I could say the same for you,” I smirked, pinching his face.

“The fuck?” he hollered, slamming me on the floor, softly though. “You can’t be doing that shit. I’ll crush your body,” he threatened, hovering over me and making sure that my legs and arms were immobile. A few giggles erupted from my mouth as he tickled my exposed skin before I surrendered and rolled away from, trying to regulate my breathing. “I thoughts so,” Adrian said, standing up and fixing his clothes.

“You lucky I’m not ruthless and didn’t knee you,”

“Naw, you love my dick too much,” he boasted. He grabbed my body off the floor and pulled me back into the bed with him. I sighed and allowed for Adrian to make himself comfortable on me.

“The Fast and the Furious is on. Don’t change it yet,” I mumbled, halting Adrian’s actions. “I love this movie, especially Vin Diesels fine self,”

“I’m not about to sit here and watch this if you about to feign over this Incredible Hulk ass nigga,” he retorted.

“Okay, okay. You know you’re cute. You don’t need me telling you that shit,”

“It’s handsome, alright?” he said seriously although he was smiling. Even though it wasn’t intentional in the beginning, this slight distraction that we caused was something we both needed because we were both going through something demanding. Even if I didn’t know where Adrian mind was exactly, I knew that in this very moment, the last thing occupying his mind was the shit that would unfold in the future. Everyone needs a distraction, and this was his and if I could, I would prolong it for however long. However, I had this gut feeling in the pit of my stomach telling me it would be a while before the dust cleared.

[actingdeep]

Jean & Cat

Give me your hand. Only give 'yes' or 'no' answers for now. We will go back later at the end. Close your eyes. I'm going to start by saying the Lord's Prayer.        "Okay."        That was all Lorraine could say these days. She would eat oatmeal when we set a bowl for her and she would smile. We put a red cigarette in her fingers and told her to inhale. She would cough twice in an elderly way, with sunken eyes staring straight forward, and she would smile.        We shifted our intimate yet quaint and twisted car songs and dialogues to the back porch around 6 a.m., after tiptoeing past conked couple Jean and Ryan crashing on their living room floorbed, making coffee, using the restroom and watering the silly-looking dog. There is a very alien type of relaxation that comes with being the last ones alive from a late night civil war on your own good health, with everyone else defenseless and asleep like regrettable casualties.        The horizon stretched and yawned. Past our feet, in the dew-covered grass, layed the sheepdoglike Lily, with her green bone flinging around her teeth. Cat had abilities within her revealing dormant truths and hidden pasts in others. I had amphetamines within me releasing all boring skepticism and reason. By the end of the night, she had given me a personal palm reading. The accuracy was daunting at first (and still is). It was a superstitious and almost laughable act, yes; but it was pinnacle altruism--and at that moment, after all these years, it was finally clear to me that she was my friend.        I was feeling a little effete as a hidden star burnished the scale of an overripe and infirm world. Cat and I had inadvertently stayed up all night. We were either still drunk, or low-key tweaking, or probably both. Our eager spirits were about to be given another boost out of their usual pockets of time and space. We lounged with sleepless energy in squat gray outdoor chairs on the small back porch, with blowing trees and birds singing in the early summer morning. Jean had already long fallen asleep on her living room floorbed, and now that I finally had Cat out of the car, I could let my blood cool between easy nature and cheap science.        The dome of the pipe we were smoking Annie from caught some outside debris from the wind that was blowing and made a slight brownish blemish on the inside, which made the taste of the rolling smoke a little less clean than the previous hits. Many a time when Jean and I were gulping down cherry-flavored vodka around this time six or seven years ago, in the bedroom right behind Cat's, when they still had their old house, I had never fathomed a table could turn so drastically: the table being my relationship with these two women--mother and daughter--over time frames scattered and separated by intermittent spaces of buildup and decay. The days when talking to Cat filled me with dread seemed like false memories when I looked at her now. I almost liked her more than Jean these days--a funny thought, indeed.        "Are you still hungry?"        "Okay."        At 4 a.m. we were back from the bar, and pulled in the driveway of Jean's grandparent's house. She struggled to shut her car door and sauntered inside. I followed, but before I made it in the house, I heard my name called back from behind me from the driveway. I turned to see Cat gesturing for me under the dim car light. She was looking around in the car for something I don't remember what. I got back in to help her search for something likely of the highest unimportance. As we began to talk more, we ended up being in the car for at least an hour. When Cat begins to chatter with you, an angel should come down from Headache Heaven to give you a Valium and a bucket of popcorn. We hadn't talked very much all night, only because once she dropped off Jean and I at the bar, she didn't come in to join us finally until around the last half hour we were there, where I would eventually start a scene that would close the entire bar for the night.        We laughed about that, and caught up with one another in general about the changes and differences in our respective current lives. Her overall pleasantness caught me off-guard, somewhat. As conversations in parked vehicles usually go, especially with our current bodily chemical states, we eventually graduated from serious discussion, to banter, to no words--just full duet performances to bands like The Violent Femmes and Fleetwood Mac, stridulate and true.        This is nothing like using Tarot cards. Those things are complete bull shit. I am going to try to knock something loose here.        They're screaming again: this time, passively-aggressively around the edges of the room, little hash symbols and asterisks and ampersands tunneling in the air and in and out of Lorraine's smiling ears. At first, the day was calm: quiet snores, with the T.V. playing The Price is Right, as some were still laid out on the floor asleep, some in chairs with coffee and paper, awake. The small house seemed much more open than it should have been. I watched the game show and sat on the couch next to Brenda, Cat's girlfriend, as she was scrolling her finger on a phone screen and grimacing a little. Jean's disheveled head was zzzing right next to my left foot. I put back large gulps of the coffee Brenda made me to put off my ineludible crash, and had cigarettes on the bright, thin clean carpet.        Brenda started it; it was around 11:30 a.m. Grunting, she staggered over to Cat's floorbed to lean down, and WHUP!, smack her on her overturned body, making her yelp in a terrible way, like a little, running dog that pivoted wrong and twisted it's paw. Some moments you don't want to ever remember--that is--until you really can't. She had only been asleep for about twenty minutes, and immediately:        "Fuck! What is...what is wrong with you?" cried Cat, still stridulate.        "Who's all these motherfuckers in yer phone messagin' ya? Always fuckin' around on me, ain't ya? Don't give a rat's ass about me."        "I don't talk to anyone, Brenda. I don't know what the fuck you're talking about!"        "Ah, bull shit," waved Brenda, turning away like a troll.        "Fuck you!"        "Fuck you right back, bitch."        "I haven't gotten any sleep all night, Brenda. I was up talking to Derek all night, and I just fucking fell asleep."        "Well, good morning bitch!"        And so on. This match lasted hours; piercing echoes branching off into littler sub-arguments (but just as loud) over other things they thought would be good also brought up, neither showing mercy, except to make a jeer and cackle at the other's expense. Dan had already taken Ryan to his morning college class and hadn't gotten back yet, so between sleeping Jean, contented Lorraine, and highly tired I, no one was attempting to dampen the vicious quarrel in any way. I was sitting quietly, looking down at my feet and Jean's stirring hair ball, not from lack of sleep, but from the plain child greenness of these two women.        I knew Cat as a married woman to a husband, once. But no surprise came to me when I met her current girlfriend (womanfriend). I knew this was more of an emotionally-hinged relationship and sexually less so; only the emotions in use were nothing but petulant combativeness, desperation, and cold resentment; they were fools together. After a while, crash impending, I would simply walk outside, away from it all, until the screams muffled themselves in the distance.        "Okay."        Dan was the man of the house, and also Cat's dad. He was a few years shy of sixty years. Although I had never met him before, having stayed the night at his house, he was quite jolly and approachable. He smoked cigarettes with the front door open. His wife Lorraine sat by him in a low-back rocking chair, onlooking. The rooms of the house were typical in the grandparently sense: white-gold ceiling fan, porcelain figurines behind glass cases, mini fish tank, placemats on multiple kitchen tables, a smiling woman sitting in a smiling rocking chair, big television. The only thing out of place was the smoking; it was a subtle invasion of a seemingly innocent atmosphere, akin to squeezing your girlfriend's ass at church service. I couldn't believe I was smoking a square on a davenport.        Did you know the dead see the future?        Back in school, when Jean and I dated as teenagers, her mother Cat was in a seriously disobliging state--dependent on drugs like Xanax and methadone. She would stay in her room twenty-four seven and roar at us to turn the music down. She only left the house when absolutely necessary, and had a round, evil scorn forever in her floating eyes. She was ponderous, choleric and painstakingly contrary, instigating daily screaming matches with her husband, or daughter, or both. She was always in carping pain, and loved to spite her old pasts to herself in drugged, futile insanity. When she would bring her mom her dinner trays, Jean usually took accusation and insult as gratuity. On the occasions she was in good spirits (which usually implied she was unusually zapped), she would talk to you for what seemed like long hours about things like ghosts or glory days if you weren't careful to sneak past her bedroom door, which was permanently ajar, with a low, rambling sound leaking out of it always. I loved being in Jean's room more than anywhere in those days. I remember a pink sheet covering an overhead window making every movement and shadow a cotton candy daydream, sitting on a stack of two single mattresses, with us both leaning against a wall with blanketed legs and her kitten, soft and white between us, with secret, window eyes.        And there would be Jean: beautiful and youthful in blonde and black and pink and brown eyes. She was in the school's color guard and I would watch her practice double and triple rifle spins in her backyard for hours, smoking dirt weed to her music playlists. We were underage drinkers; but she always had a guy to buy alcohol for us (to them, just her), and once he would drop it off, she would cutely thank him and send him away, bringing it into her room where I waited, and we would drink from the bottle, giggling; or, we would just stay in her room for hours to avoid Cat by playing music, taking pictures, or just making each other laugh hysterically in various ways. I hope I never forget that laugh.        "Okay, honey."        We carried our drinks over to a rounded booth in the corner and talked for a while, saying hello to the barkeep Stephen as we walked in, and to all the other puffy, smiling faces we recognized, but didn't know. It was just Jean and I right now, talking like we always could, no matter where or when we ever were. Apparently, Cat was sticking around the parking lot for a while to connect to the internet on her phone for something rather (or was she?), and selling soupcons of various pills here and there to her bar regular buddies, amiably, with wrinkled eye corners.        Something is coming through. A man with a flattop military haircut. I also see an older man sitting in an easy chair. How well do you remember your childhood? Does the name Tom mean anything to you?        Jean and I sat near the DJ booth, which wasn't really a booth inasmuch as it was a large man sitting in a folding chair with a laptop. We laughed, but were loving what he was playing. Her and I have always been able to listen to music together comfortably for long periods of time, often with naps and cool silences. In the moment, I felt that we were actually a good couple when we were seventeen, even though it only lasted a couple weeks, tops; but being friends was barely different, and easy to do. She had many boyfriends, one at a time, in constant replicating sequences--one, and another, and another. I never minded that--it is a task for most people to be alone. Ryan was her current boyfriend, but she didn't bring him to the bar--and not just because he was underage. She used men like a body pillow or an aspirin; leave them at the house and use them for comfort as needed (and they were always young). She was dull now. I had to entertain her because she was dull, and I loved her; but of course, in loving her, I was dull, also. After some rounds, we would smile more easily.        I asked when her mom was going to join us, because, to this point, I really had no clue as to what Cat was even doing, us having sat there drinking, unjoined for an hour or two now.        "She's in the car, smoking speed. That's her drug of choice now." After I gave off a questioning look, she continued: "I really don't mind it. I mean, at least she can function."        Hmmm.        I rounded my eyes, and curled my wet lips. I excused myself, and bolted outside towards the car. I knew Cat would share; greed a moral hit-man. The dim car light was on across the street.        After twenty minutes or so, I sat back down in the booth and readjusted my eyes, feeling fresh. Jean was standing by the DJ booth.        "Do you take requests?"        "I take donations."        An older woman with a strained gait and a proud, pauper air waddled up to our booth and gave a friendly hello-how-are-you to Jean, but not to me. Jean had a subtle knack for being pleasurable and forebearing to humdrum dishwater persons, the subjective soul inside me under a spell of well whiskey, and also Cat's treat, slowly making my thoughts increasingly insubordinate here.        "Aye! A Jeanie in a bottle!"        "Hi, it's good to see you."        (No it isn't. She's foul!)        "Been missin' ya round this place. Where ya been, girly?"        "Just working, and taking care of grandma."        "Oh, bless your heart! How is she?        (She's okay.)        "Y'know--good days and bad days."        (Too bad this Jeanie can't grant wishes; she'd make it no days.)        At one point, I reached over and took a sip out of Jean's beer bottle. The woman slowly straightened her mouth and furrowed her brow, glaring at me.        "You're disrespectful."        "I bought this. I've bought all her drinks." A cheap maneuver. She turned to Jean:        "You should find better friends."        I saw Jean's mouth twitch a little, then turn up again. "This is my oldest friend," she defended me cooly, with an undertone of hate only I could detect. I smiled at the woman as if to say, "How about that?" She had a countenance that was one part protectiveness for Jean, another part antipathy for me, and a third part, something I couldn't place, but that was definitely for herself.        "It's okay, honey, he's really okay," said Jean sedatively. Jean looked more allayed than I was once the woman had eventually returned to her table.        The front door was slowly staving off tottering bodies as the night bloomed into day. As she passed by them, coming back in from a cigarette, Jean looked up and noticed an old school friend of hers, who was talking to a man that happened to be sitting right next to me, at the far end of the bar. This made her face light right up, I noticed, which contented me quite well, as Jean in general wasn't particularly boisterous. She skipped up to the old friend and gave a kind and delighted hello. But this girl was obviously completely disinterested in her, and gave her a lowbred, patronizing sneer.        "Okay."        Freshly cold-shouldered, Jean rubbed her arms, and became specially downcast, then: this was not okay. Seeing her so depreciated so abruptly sparked a most tender agony within me that would prod my heart, even under the many obtunding whiskeys I had imbibed over the night. I called the insipid girl's attention, and seconds later, she looked up at me, and when she looked up at me, I vengefully, and without restriction, said:        "What kind of rude, phony, fucking bitch are you?" Her body didn't move, but her fingers and face started to contort as she glared at me. She dropped her jaw a little, and then clenched it, and widened her thick, black eyes as a fire rose in them. Jean stood back a little, and the girl began to defend herself in belligerent fury, while I held my own ground in the meantime. Every sentence she spoke bumbled over the next; she was clearly plastered, and in rage. I continued to fuel that rage as I rebounded spurring insults like "Fuck you!" and "What do you know?" with gibes like "I can't! I'm outta cash!" and "Fish swim, birds fly, and you're a cunt!"        This soon started a mini-uproar on that end of the bar, and very quickly had all the remaining bar-goers perking up from their glasses. Some people began to hover nearby us gingerly, in case of the possibility that things could get physical, as her and I continued to altercate, teams now forming behind us.        After about three more minutes of her drunkenly calling me names and I relentlessly making fun of her for being fake and angry, the bartender Stephen kicked her out. He was good friends with Jean (a regular there), and had saw us together all night, and must have been partial. He told the friends of the girl I accosted, now a tornado of nails and hair and fury, body still unmoved, to take her outside, and so they did. He locked the doors, then turned to give me a face of exhausted vitriol. I still sat there at the long bar next to my friend Cat, the medium, and her deservedly defended daughter, one of my most nascent and esteemed loves from years and years ago. Because of our mutual friend Jean, he would only give me a little hell for causing such a row, and I gave him a most disingenuous apology.        We reset and regrouped, and were soon out the door. What a perfect pleasure it is to mislay all complacency and trepidation, and to actuate defiance in the face of all of our false, permeable cordialities, and to see just how easily it can all fall away. To feel what I did to be an imperative as to glorify a strayed memory of a forgotten devotion only moreover authenticates my conviction that the ways we go, and the happenings in our lives, occur for no reason at all but for our own attempts at nullifying an unavoidable and steadfast state of lifelong suffering. Jean thanked me for standing up for her, and gifted me an old look and smile that, so many years ago, I would have never believed I had forgotten.        "Okay."

[aleatoryalarmalligator]

My life story -  part 31

My father became certain I was on drugs. I would sometimes at night, choose to take a walk. I didn't do this to see anyone or to do anything. I just felt like taking a walk to think and burn off nervous energy. I would feel restless, and it was a decent way to spend time between bedtime and dinner, or between coming home from school and dinner. I would come home from these walks, and he would ask me in all seriousness if I had done drugs. I would look at him confused. 'No.... I mean no.. I don't do drugs.' and he would glare at me like I was lying. He would ask me why I wanted to take a walk if I wasn't doing drugs. The leap of logic in this was always baffling to me. So, with that same logic, everyone who's out walking is probably on drugs. I wondered what the world must look like from his perspective. He would then sniff me to see if I smoked. One time telling me he could smell cigarettes. I had to open my pockets to show him that there were no cigarettes on me at all.

I had already decided I just didn't want to smoke. I loved the smell of cigarette smoke almost too much to actually be a smoker. If I smoked, then I felt like I would ruin the smell of the smoke itself or the second hand affect that seemed a lot more pleasing than actually smoking. And I didn't think I could handle inhalation. When I smoked as an eight year old, it was very hard for my weak little lungs to deal with it and it sort of made me sick. Why ruin a good thing? I remember the smell of smoke on cold nights, and it was always a trail that led to Zack, and I associated that smell with all the madness of being in love. But I also remember the comfort of the cigarettes of my grandma Betty which gave me comfort and a sense of childhood warmth. But they were a lot of money, and I didn't know any older kids who I could bum smokes off of. And to a degree, with my sisters who smoked, and with Zack who smoked, it almost seemed 50% more rebellious not to smoke, and more romantic if Zack smoked and I didn't.

My father saw my drug use as such a serious thing, that he decided to have a meeting with my friend's parents. I begged him not to. He gave up on Carol. He told me he already saw her as a corrupting force in my life and she would not take him serious at all. And I really wouldn't blame her. Here would be this guy she dated thirty years ago, who probably did all manner of wild drugs, was in a rock band and ended up cheating on her and ruining her life talking about me like he was Mr. Reagan War Against Drugs himself. I don't put the ludicrous behavior past him one bit, but if he had any sense at all, he could certainly appreciate how stupid he must look.

He hated Sam's dad already who was a drunk and had been my mom's divorce lawyer when the two split, so he had too much animosity towards Steve to sit down with him and talk. Plus, I rarely ever saw Sam anymore since she had found the magic of boyfriends. He then demanded to talk to Katie's family. I had to try to explain to him that we probably weren't friends anymore. So then he moved onto Ava's family. I was talking on the phone to Ava, and my father demanded that I tell Ava to tell her parents that he wanted to have a meeting with them in person to get some things straight about me and my 'tendencies'. I relayed the message to Ava, apologizing, and Ava I could hear over the phone telling her mom. Her mom was in one of her moods, and she told Ava to fuck off. Ava explained to me that it wasn't a good time, and I then tried to explain this to my father, who began yelling at me, accusing me of lying. He told me I would be grounded till Christmas if I didn't set this meeting up, so I tried again. After three times, with both my father and Ava's mother screaming at both of us on either end of the phone, Ava finally got her mom to agree to meet my dad.

I don't know exactly how the meeting went. All I know is that my father seemed rather confused like he couldn't tell if it had been good or bad. He said they seemed compliant enough, but didn't really get where they were coming from. I think he felt outclassed. He hadn't realized he was talking to people involved with universities, who had traveled the world and had degrees. He didn't tell me what he had said. From Ava's point of view, her parents had seen my father as belligerent and absurd. He had warned them that I was going to be after any of the alcohol I could find in the house, and that I might corrupt Ava, which was laughable even to them. He told them I was doing drugs. They knew full well the devil child they had raised would be the corrupter forever and always, not I. I was really frustrated and confused. I could not imagine why he thought I wanted to drink ever. I couldn't stand the taste of alcohol. Where would I even be getting an alcohol supply? Furthermore, Ava's mom, though being an American born and raised, had a lot of European ideas about child rearing. She wasn't opposed to Ava having sex in a year or two, as long as she knew who it was and it was in a safe place. She wasn't against weed at all. She wasn't really worried about us getting our hands on cocaine or heroin, especially not in Kendrick Idaho. Her assessment was that the entire meeting was an enormous waste of time. The whole meeting went nowhere.  

Fall was traveling on into winter yet again, though there were still hot days. It wasn't yet Halloween. I wasn't going to go trick or treating this year. Instead I stayed home and passed out candy for the first time. I remember all the kids looking small to me as I opened the door. Had I really been that small? I went to football games, we talked to Zack who was always waiting for us, and always wanted to turn the conversation towards me now. Now that my friends all knew, they seemed to be  kind of strange about it. They wanted to help me, but they wanted me to not take away too much of the attention at the same time. I didn't know what to make of it.

I didn't feel like doing detention anymore. For two years I had been filling out those same awful pamphlets and I was completely done with it. I stopped showing up. I knew this would eventually lead to a suspension, but it was hard to fathom that really in the moment. Eventually the principal would be looking for me. He would stand at a place where there were two doorways. So, in order to get away from him, I had to run. He eventually saw me and chased after me, but I ran and I got away. I knew I was in for some trouble. Oh, but the joys of running from the principal – I cannot even begin to describe. It gave me that thrill I would get when watching The Breakfast Club. He had that classic demeanor as well, the 'You Get Back Here You Rebellious Youth!' vibe to it.

This of course made the school mad. I wasn't going to get away with doing this. I ran twice and so they mailed my grades to my father, I think as a way of getting revenge – or to scare me a bit. I had learned long ago to check the mail before my father did, and he wasn't the type to look at his mail even when he did get to it, giving me time to slip the school envelops out of his pile of mail, but sometimes he did get to it and those were the times I would be screwed. He would yell at me, call me names and ruin my night – but then I would continue on, knowing that I generally speaking could be more diligent with checking my mail. Probably in hoping to get me on something as he was looking to find the dirt on me, he got to my grades first. He looked them over, and of course I had horrible grades. I am sure the principal put in a nice little word about me as well.

This mail could not have come at a worse time for me. I don't actually remember half of the freak outs my father had at me throughout the course of my life, though I am able to sort of remember some of them. Most of them are mixed together with a general feel of anxiety and helplessness associated with them and they all blur together into a soup. On average, he yelled at me once every three weeks, regardless if I deserved it or not. In good times, a month and a half could go by before it happened – just when my trust was reforming and I was feeling safe again, but during this time, it could be twice a week. He had been after me this one particular night and I don't remember the details at all, probably because he was accusing me of doing drugs. I was genuinely afraid to go home. Honestly, I just couldn't bring myself to do it. All day during class, I would feel this nervous sense that something bad was awaiting me when I got home.

I didn't know what I was going to do, or where I would go though. So after school, Sarah stayed behind with me, and Jason sat with me in front of the school where we liked to play hackey sack during football games. We were just sitting there for an hour and a half. I was abuzz with worry, and almost exhausted by it to the point I couldn't think. Jason didn't understand why I didn't just tell him to fuck off. I tried to explain to him that it wouldn't work. He told us about all the times he had had to run away. Sarah wanted to go home, but I was afraid he would find me at her house.

Then my father's car rolled into the front of the school. My heart dropped in my chest. This was it. He opened the window and screamed 'GET IN THE CAR.' Jason and Sarah looked at me alarmed. 'NOW,' he ordered. I felt distant from my own body, and felt in horror as I did what I was told. I got up, wobbling, holding my scattered books. I was in a sea of fear to the point of senselessness. I got in the front seat, and shut the door. I tried to say something and he told me to SHUT UP. He didn't say anything else for the short ride to the house. When I got out, he said GET IN THE HOUSE! I felt powerless and sick to my stomach.

As soon as we were in the house, he grabbed me by my arm and threw me into my room – which was on the other side through another door off the living room. He slammed the door behind me, and threw me on the bed. He began screaming at me that I was a loser but I was so afraid I could not understand what he was saying at all. I started stammering and choking and crying. His eyes looked black and cold. I didn't know this person at all, and I had no idea what was going to happen next. It crossed my mind that he might kill me, and I was afraid for my life. But I couldn't move. He took my bookshelf and he threw it at me. All my Babysitter's Club books flew all over the room. The wooden bookshelf flew apart in splintered wood about the room. He then took my small television and threw it at me. It missed my head and created a gaping dent in the door – a hole that didn't get patched up for another decade. A healthy reminder of who has the power I guess.

He grabbed me by my hair, and slapped me in the face over and over leaning over me on the ground. My face stung, my lip was bleeding, and I felt something inside of me, some sense of certainty about the world I lived in disappear completely. I don't remember what he was even saying to me. He was shaking me then, digging his nails into my arms. I separated. Everything went quiet inside my head, and this sense of clarity hit me. It was this ugly knowledge about power. He had all the power in this physical moment, and when it comes down to it, they always do. But the thing he was trying to kill in me, was a me, within a me, within a me. I could see it in his eyes, which were looking down at me completely cruel. I had this knowledge at that moment that I had to grow bigger than he was. I could never overpower him, and I didn't want to be anything like him. I would live in and create a world greater than his was, and in that world, he would never find me. As soon as I turned eighteen, I was set on running away. Karma was coming for him.

He then left me in the room. Allison and David hadn't seen what he had done. He had shut the door so they wouldn't, but they heard the noises. In order to get to the laundry room, they had to shuffle past my room, and they looked at me with teary sorry eyes. I sat in the corner in shock. I could have ran through the back door, but it wouldn't have done any good. The power was greater than just him. If I ran, there would be police, and law. The power was in the interactions with everything and everyone I knew. Pinned against me. I hoped against hope that maybe someday I would find that power, the source of that power, and I could destroy it, but all I could see was the interactions between the school, the teachers, the students, my parents. I lived in a society that was rigged on making sure that I was broken. But if I could keep the light within me safe, if I could never be found, always be a step ahead of authority that was there to break me, then they would never be able to.

I didn't eat dinner that night. And my light bulb went out that night as well, so I was left sitting in the dark huddled. I didn't want to leave my room. I could hear my dad carrying on, after all that. He listened to his conservative talk radio as it blasted throughout the house. He even gave a good hearty laugh. He fried up some chicken, my brother and sister ate, relieved to be in his good graces and not in the same boat as me. They eventually all went to bed. And my father never acknowledged the incident at all, which made me feel this sense of hostility towards him that I never really released. If I released it, would there even be an end to that? And that was the end of my childhood I think. Life could never be as innocent. There would be pain associated with everything I perceived.

The beating made me realize how unsafe I was, and how unsafe the world was. There were no such things as rules, and nobody was there to protect you. You only ever had yourself. There were no rules of right and wrong. Only power. To think otherwise was a joke. I was able to do my make up and take care of my clothes without being seen by him, and I could go to school using the back door. When I got to school, I explained to my friends what happened. 'Oh my god, your dad is such a dick, man', was mostly the response. And then they moved onto something else. I couldn't really explain to them what was happening to me. My arms hurt, and there were welts and bruises on them. One of my eyes was blackened slightly, and I had a small bruise on my cheek and a fat lip with a cut on the side. II wasn't going to die, but anyone who saw me in the hall would have known I had been beaten. Teachers must have known. But the teachers who noticed looked away. A few of the ones who didn't like me even smiled. To them, this is what people like me deserved.

My dad had decided to take a trip to Florida and that was coming that next week. He felt plagued by trying to 'handle' me, and he was still upset about his relationship with Jodi not working out. So he was going to visit his brother/my uncle Bob for three weeks. He was paying Roxanne to come to the house and watch over things. This came as a enormous relief to me. This meant that I wouldn't have to be scared of him for three weeks, and I was hoping he would cool down when he got back. He had grounded me and he had taken away my cd collection and my cd player, but he wouldn't be able to keep those things from me, or keep me from going places while he was away.

Zack was sitting by me now in FFA. We had started to draw things back and forth on my paper. He wrote 'I LOVE YOU' on my notebook. I was extremely shy for all of these encounters. He told me that he thought I should watch Benny and Joon. And a Clockwork Orange. I couldn't believe this was happening. I would have been able to navigate and conduct myself better now, if I were to be interested in someone who took interest in me then, but I didn't have the skills then. Nothing like this had quite ever happened. I felt so connected to him. I didn't feel comfortable talking to him, but when he was around, I felt this electrical feeling. And unlike Kyle, I could remember his face when he wasn't around. It might have been all I could remember. Kyle didn't ever approach me quite like this. He was still flirting with me in a way that was a bit silly, but there was a level of seriousness to it as well. I didn't feel quite so dehumanized. Zack didn't seem to care what the class thought of him at all. He seemed a million miles away from seeing any of that as mattering. I admired that. I grew addicted to the smell of his cigarette smoke mixed with his cologne and the smell of the laundry detergent his mother must have used when doing his laundry.

While Roxanne was watching the place, I was able to sneak out and go to football games. Roxanne didn't want to enforce any of this, and didn't have a problem with me at all anymore. She seemed heavily distracted with her own problems, and if anything, felt a bit of sympathy for my situation concerning my father. One night, there was a band performance – the fall concert, or something like that, where the classes played their instruments and put on a concert to commemorate the fall. Samantha, Sarah and Ava were all still in band. I didn't really like these kinds of things. Elderly people in town gathered in to see the teens play some songs. It would last an hour, the benches were uncomfortable, and the audience dull. But I decided to go anyway. I was late though. It had started a half an hour earlier than I had thought.

I looked in the gym and saw that all the spaces were filled. It was going to be difficult to find a place to sit, and if I did, it would be in the middle of a performance. I might have to sit by someone I didn't care for, or squeeze closely to people in a way that would have made us both uncomfortable. I resigned myself to sitting on a bench in the school hallway. The hallway lights were half turned off. I just sat and listened in the  half darkness. The school  had an entirely different aura. The music played in the distance. There was the sound of distant clapping at the end of the performances. I felt this peaceful and unsettling vibe of aloneness as I sat back and looked down the dark halls, my thoughts became less words and more intuitive feeling.

Then, there was a stir at the front door, and Jason and Zack walked in. They were laughing, falling into one another. I got the impression that they were drunk. And they were both gleeful to see me sitting there on the bench. They came over and one sat on one side, the other sat on the other side. Both of them drunkenly put their arms around me. I was of course ecstatic to have Zack's arm around me, but I was also a little alarmed. I wondered if any of this meant anything, because I mean, they were drunk. Jason was clearly just being Jason. We did this at football games. But Zack wasn't typically like this. I tried to scoot away a little bit, but Jason pushed me towards Zack. They were asking me questions, but I don't remember what they were saying. I was of course trying to be defensive and indifferent to the point of ridiculous.

Zack whispered 'I Love You' in my ear. I blushed and tried to act disturbed, but I probably was looking just as fuzzy headed and pleased as I felt inside. He did smell a little too strongly of alcohol for my liking though. Jason was laughing, his Adam's apple classically doing it's dance. Zack started saying I was pretty. He laughed when I argued against him, for the sake of defending myself against the compliment more than I had any thoughts towards what I looked like at the moment. Then he tried to kiss me. I ducked and avoided it, and he tried again, which I ducked again. In the end, he did not kiss me. He laid his head on my shoulder. I was dying, and doing everything in my power not to show it. Jason got up. I think he said he had some weed. Zack eventually got up with him and they ran out to go smoke it somewhere excitedly. And again, I was alone in the hallway. Some imperfect orchestra music playing in the background that I couldn't even be aware of anymore. I couldn't believe that had just happened. My head was swimming.

When Sarah and Ava got out of their performance, I tried to explain to them what had just happened. But they were in another world. They had just done a show after all and were in a bit of a different mindset. They didn't really think much of what had happened, or at least they didn't seem to show it. I got a passive 'wow Renee', and that was mostly it. Ava thought I was dumb for not kissing him back, but I didn't think it was fair to kiss a drunk person. What if it backfired? Plus, I didn't know how. Ava's mom came and picked her up. Sarah and I headed back up the hill together. We passed the bridge in front of the high school. Under that bridge, as one would suspect, is a place that had been used by the rebellious teens for decades to smoke weed, have sex or whatever. Zack jumped out from the trail. He was really out of it now. He was almost falling over. I think in an attempt to be funny he said ' Give me....your....money'. I laughed with Sarah and we walked on.

As much as I had sometimes wished that I had taken the opportunity to reciprocate his behavior towards me, as much as some part of me might have even been fond of the idea that maybe I could have gone with them and gotten high for the first time, I just didn't think it was right to take advantage of Zack while he was drunk. I also didn't want to get high. It would have been a moment in time where I could have done it and gotten away with it. My father would never have known. But what I really wanted was to be loved back, more than anything. It seemed base to take advantage of a drunk person. Plus, admittedly, he was smelling thick of booze. I wasn't into that really.

A new guy had moved to town. This guy had taken Ava's eye. His name was Tyeson. Ava was completely obsessed with him. He was two grades above us. He had shaggy long brown hair. He dressed similarly to Zack. He was quiet, and he rarely showed up to school. I don't remember his face very well. He drove this van, and Ava would always look in the van like the obsessed freak that she was. And Tyeson rarely ever showed up to school, and he dated this girl named Marie. Marie kept going back and forth between a guy named Rory, and back to Tyeson. Ava was so freaking obsessed. And it was harder to get close to him, because he was two years ahead, and he had been held back. I think he was three years older than us.

Ava could only put off as many vibes as possible. She had to desperately start conversations from nothing. She had to give him as many looks as possible to let him know she was interested. And it barely worked. She said that he would look her over, and for a day she would be excited about that, but then he would not show up for three days straight. In fact, his tardiness became a huge deal, and I think he managed to go to the high school for three or four months, tops. In that time, Ava did everything she could. I felt badly for her, but I was relieved. I really felt that with her charisma, she could have taken Zack away from me. If she wasn't interested in him at all, then there was nothing for me to be worried about.

I came home from school one day. And I decided to tear down the wall collage with all the teenager magazine cut outs. I was passed that now. I didn't have any feelings for Ashton Kutcher, or dare I say it, I had no feelings left for Benji. I was a new person. It felt like just as soon as I had grown comfortable being one person, I had shed that and become another. The collage no longer reflected who I was. When my father came in one morning to wake me up for school, he saw that the wall above me was white, and that I had replaced the pictures with one poster of Kurt Cobain sitting in a chair, looking sickly and all Nirvana'y. He laughed and laughed.

PART 30 - http://tinyurl.com/ybht9aul

PART 29 - http://tinyurl.com/ybfcr9j2

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PART 2 - http://tinyurl.com/lbt6xq2

PART 1 - http://tinyurl.com/l8xbvg8