Stupid Little Blue Haired Boy (boyxboy)

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sorry for keeping you all waiting. it's been a hectic life right now, good hectic; i'm better when i'm busy. i promise i'll have another chapter up by next monday at the latest, okay?

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It feels as though no matter how many breaths I take, all the air has been vacuumed from my lungs.

Can't you drive any faster!? I want to scream at Teddy, but I know he's doing his best. His face creases at the corners as he tries to shift into fourth with his fingers still twisted with my own. We're going forty in a twenty five mile per hour zone, so it's only a matter of time before someone in this sleepy town with nothing better to do calls the cops. Only hopefully we'll be gone by then.

I watch out the window as street after street of identical houses zoom by. Behind all those doors I imagine perfect families, ones where their kids don't go into comas or lose boyfriends or smoke a pack of cigarettes on a good day. It's unrealistic, because everyone has their secrets. Most people's just are considerably easier to hide.

Teddy growls and punches at the radio. A fuzzy alternative station comes in over the speakers, volume just barely loud enough for me to catch a line from the song before he changes it.

Sometimes I wish someone up there will find me.

A whiny pop song comes in, much clearer than the last. I'm not really listening to the lyrics, but the bass makes the car vibrate. I force the lyric from previously in between the beats where I see fit. It snuggles in between the cracks like a current of icy wind under a water warped window. Bitter. Harsh. Undesired.

"Do you want me to turn it off?" my brother asks as my expression twists with displeasure. "Or I can change it at least."

My words only come out in my mind. That's alright. I can't speak. I feel like I'm choking over the words, rather than using them to describe the feeling. Just don't stop driving. Please.

"Is that a no?"

I nod. It's the best I can do.

"He's going to be okay." Teddy gives my hand a squeeze and releases it back to the safety of my lap. "That kid's got a strong heart."

What the hell does a strong heart have to do with anything? He's got machines breathing for him, no doubt.

Teddy must have seen the look on my face, because he rephrases himself. "He's strong. That's all I meant. He's not going to give up so easily."

And what makes you so sure?

"Okay." He shifts his focus between the radio and the road ahead, spending a little too much time on the former. It's probably a good thing mom asked Teddy to drive me. I wouldn't have been table to pretend everything was still getting better.

Everything was getting better. Everything was getting so much better.

"Do you um...do you mind if I have a smoke?" My voice sounds so much more vulnerable than I feel. And I didn't even think that was possible.

"Shit, yeah. Go ahead. Can I have one too?"

You smoke? I'm dying to say, but I put my energy in not dropping a smoldering cigarette into my brother's lap. He looks so natural holding it, while I'm clumsily pinching the end of mine. My fingers are too shaky to be graceful. Justin would call me out as a cannibal for it.

"You can't even hold your smoke without me getting scared you're going to drop it on your leg and decide to eat me instead." He threw back his head and laughed. The shaggy hair fell over beautiful eyes, and I brushed it back out in a fluid motion, lit cigarette in hand.