Get Out If You Can

Matt | A Friendly Visit

I've wondered a lot in my life, but I've never been able to deduce why people insist that someone didn't kill themselves when that's exactly what they did.

I mean, okay. I get it. When a person you're close to kicks the bucket, some stupid part of your brain refuses to believe the fact that that's happened. They still — look, I really don't know what the general population does in this kind of situation, because I don't have someone I'm close to. Don't feel sorry for me. Friends are more trouble than help — though they have their benefits at times. Wink wink. Nudge nudge.

I'm completely burned out. I've been trying for ages to get the red paint someone's very kindly sprayed on my wall, and I've been getting nowhere with it. I know the cops said not to touch it, and that sort of thing, but you know what? Fuck it. I'm no art connoisseur, but I don't have to be one to tell that what's on my wall is no Mona Lisa.

Besides, who said I care for what the cops say? They can only hope I do. I lift the wet cloth up and proceed to kill the freaking wall, one more time.

Well shit. Nothing's happening. I should go buy some primer or something — but before that, I've gotta find some money. No chance there. Business hasn't been good lately, which is weird, to be honest. Maybe it's because I've been on probation before and they don't trust me anymore.

I fling the cloth somewhere on the floor, and fling myself on my bed soon after. Better catch up on the news. There's a lot of it lately — and none of it is nice. I'm functioning in a red area, to put it plainly. Callenfield's always been your prim, proper, law-abiding little getaway town, and that's what makes it so easy to let go of everything you've ever suspected about it. Basically, it's my playground. Nobody ever suspected that I was the local goods carrier. Until some bitch tipped them off.

There's a clatter as I struggle to push my charging adapter in the socket beside my bed. It fits in with a sort of click. I lean against the collapsing headboard and scroll through Instagram — using my fake account, of course. The beauty of taking the time to make one is everybody thinks you're nobody. It's surprising, you know, once you realize the kinds of advantages that 'I'm nobody' thing carries with it.

I pick a half-empty Jack Daniels from my bedside table, and sip through my scrolling. There's nothing new, apart from vandal-conspiracy theories. Half of them are about how I might be the one behind this. I mean, come on, how fucking dumb is that? Why do you think I would waste my energy scrawling notes related to a dead girl on some kids' walls, including my own? Jesus, get a new hobby. And a life.

I take a long sip of the whiskey-cola. 'Mysterious note found outside Torrez's mansion on Ashley Court.' I bet the big media kids didn't see anything 'mysterious' about what's happened to the rest of us. Everything else on every other platform, social media or the news, is frankly — dumb. I'd hoped someone actually got ahead to figuring things out, because that's what the damn internet is for, but evidently it's lost its purpose. All anyone wants to do is spread the dirt and spill the tea.

I hear something downstairs. Something that sounds like — pounding? Oh, if it's pounding, then Dad's drunk again. I wish his mom had taught him how to ease on the shots. Every evening he proves to me that he's hardly been parented, and is proud of it.

We've sorta got that in common, but I'm doing my job pretty well. I know a whole lot of faces. I know a whole lot of looks. I know how to trick the depths of your conscious mind subtly into believing that—

Jesus Christ, can't he fucking wait?

I get up from the bed and out of my room, and run carefully down the stairs. Involuntarily, I skip the second-last one; the one that's falling apart and is simply a plank on the staircase. The pounding on my door gets louder.