Toxic Us.

:C:

Despite that three men currently lived inside of the residents I knew like that back of my hand, we still sat at the dining table – which was lined with plastic plates and cutlery – and ate. Mike coughed, weezing as he had done over the last few weeks he'd stayed here recovering. With each breath he sounded as if he smoke thirty packs a day. Maybe one pack if he was lucky and had my help, but we all ignored the illness looming.

“How’s your mother Mike?” Father asked, sipping on the first water he’d subsisted for alcohol in weeks. He grew tired of the taste after awhile it became stale.

“Sad I think, I saw her yesterday in the parking lot at school” He murmured but didn’t elaborate to how he almost climbed inside the vehicle and kissed his mother on the cheek, he wanted things to be normal. But he didn’t, he just let her watch him walk with Curtis.

“Pass the butter” I muttered to my father who placed it at my side without a word. We had both come accustomed to the silence between each other in Mike’s presence, it wasn’t that we had drifted but more so that the other boy who breathed our oxygen that swirled like a cloud of misery was more important.

I sat at the table an empty soul as the other two men talked about trivial things; I often thought they continued talking since they were afraid of what would unravel in the silence in their brief pauses between words. I watched and waited until they stopped talking. Both of them stared hard at me, before looking back to each other.

“He’s thinking about it isn’t he?”

“When is he not really?” Mike countered his eyes still observing.

“Does it make me selfish that I won’t let him leave?” His father sighed, dropping his cutlery and sliding his plate forward, despite the remnants of food that lay upon it still.

“No”

“Then what does it make?”

“It makes me selfish, for wanting to leave so fucking bad” I said, standing up and throwing my plate in the trash before leaving.

I saw a glimpse of them in the mirror by the front door; both of their faces drained. As I left the warmth of inside, the winter chill struck my cheeks and bare arms, which only were covered by a shirt. I bent my head downward toward the pavement, shoving my hands in my pockets; my fingertips already stared to tingle in the icy wind.

I didn’t run, it wasn’t dramatic the way I walked. In fact it may of appeared to a passerby that someone had forgotten something from the grocers and I was sent to collect the misplaced item, accept I wasn’t.

I walked and kept it up until the scent of salt invaded my lungs, ripping the air from my chest. I looked out at the dock where I thought early that month I was going to take my last steps on and turned back, scurrying inside the bar where I’d become somewhat of a regular since spending almost the entire afternoon nursing a hot chocolate there every Thursday night.

“Curtis” The middle aged man from behind the bar nodded, he wore an apron that was never tied and had muscles in his arms from lifting case of beer so often.

“Henry, the usual” I said throwing down a bill which he accepted, placing a few coins of change on the bar before fiddling with the kettle behind the counter, pulling out two mugs since he often joined me in the mopping around that often occurred.

“It’s been a slow night” He shrugged, itching at the five o’clock shadow lining his cheeks.

“It’s been a quiet night at home too” I lied.

“You always say that” He replied placing the mug on the bar which had questionable stains from different shots over the years of aging.

“You always choose to believe it” I shrugged, sipping at the mug.