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“It’s Halloween,” I somehow manage to mutter, my voice slurring.
Another short, caustic sound claws its way up from Waylon’s throat. “Yeah, and what’s your excuse for last night? Or the night before?”
“Couldn’t sleep,” I mumble, which isn’t exactly true.
It’s not so much that I can’t sleep… it’s that I don’t want to. At least when I black out, I can forget for a bit. Manage some semblance of peace. Find solace in the blinding headaches and churning nausea when I wake—a much needed balm to the agony of having to remember all over again.
Waylon is suspiciously silent. Still. His head hangs, gaze locked on his thighs.
“Look,” he says after another moment, his words uttered slowly, carefully, “I’ll try to cut back if you do, okay?”
When I say nothing to that, he lifts his gaze back to mine, and says, “We need to be strong for her. She’d hate to see us like this. See you like this.” He swallows audibly. “You…you just have to hold on, okay?”
Emotion swells my throat.
“They’ll find her, and they’ll bring her home. We just have to hold on. We can’t fall apart.”
Sniffing, I manage a short nod. “I’ll try,” I whisper, knowing that’s all I can give him.
Knowing, somehow, it won’t be enough. Not until she’s safe in my arms once more.
I just need this to get through, and then I’ll stop.
Waylon nods back. “Me too.”
Something tells me it won’t be so easy for him either.
“I’m tired,” I tell him. And it’s the truth. I’m so, so fucking tired.
The shadowed planes of his face shift as a pained expression passes over his face. “Me too, man. Me too.”
“When I wake up, I forget…makes me not wanna wake up at all.”
A small, choked noise escapes him. “Same.”
“But at least when I’m drunk?—”
“We don’t dream,” he finished in a whisper.
Our eyes connect once more, and as wrong and selfish as it is, I’m grateful I’m not alone in this. That he’s suffering too. No one else gets it, not like we do, no one but?—
“Jeremy,”
“Huh?”
I swallow thickly. “Next time…call Jeremy.”
A beat passes, and it’s only then that I notice I’ve closed my eyes, sleep tugging me back under.
“Are you… are you sure? Maybe?—”
“Need to stay together,” I mumble. “All for one…”
And with those final words trailing off into nothing, the black heavy oblivion fueled by beers and liquor I knocked back earlier, swallows me up.
And I am gone.
AGE 18, MAY
