graffiti (completed)

Twenty-Five.

He was leaning on the doorframe, hands in his pockets, looking everywhere he possibly could except for directly in my eyes.

"Your Highness visits my house?" I smiled, "I am truly honored."

He gave a glare, the kind where he wasn't really trying. "You should be."

I took out my phone from my pocket, unlocking and pretending to scroll down some imaginary social network.

"What can I offer you today, o great one?"

"Shut up," he retorted, "I'm not here for a favor."

I hummed in interest, still looking at the phone. In my periphal vision, I saw him put a hand behind his neck.

"Can we talk?"

It was a week after I'd returned to school, and the buzz had died down the way most school buzzes eventually do. Teachers pulled me out in a concerned "what happened" lt a stern "you have to get yourself together", and kids knew me like I've never been known before. I guessed that, if I succeeded with my running, I'd just be the buzz again. I guess I did want to change some things. Melodie woumd open my door every night, around modnight, when she assumed I was sleeping. I could see the light from the door through my eyelids, and she would quickly check, then quietly shut the door and leave.

Derek and I, however, had avoided each other like the plague. He was his a own person and i was my own person by now.

"You want?" He asked once we were outside, opening a box of American Spirits and pointing it towards me. There were only two left, one flipped upwards, "The lucky one is mine, though."

"Not my thing."

He nodded, fiddling with the box before he fetched the non-lucky one and pulled out his lighter."You sure?"

I nodded.

He passive aggressively raised his eyebrows, lighting his cigarette and blowing out smoke with a sigh.

There was a pause as he took a few more hits, walking down roads without sidewalk, houses hidden by trees, street signs fancy. The houses weren't as close together as usual suburbs, and during a pause like this, we only passed two or three of them.

"I went through a lot in the past few days," he finally spoke when his hands weren't shaking as much. I tried not to scrunch my nose at the smell, even though it wasn't as bad as usual cigarettes.

"Same."

He chuckled as the smoke billowed out od his mouth.

"Melodie called me. Got my number from my uncle."

"Mm."

You could tell that part of him was somewhere else, lost in the wind that carrued the smoke away. It's strange when you knew something about someone that they didn't think you knew. It made the conversation feel like an odd game.

"She asked me if anything happened between us, like a fight or something. I didn't say anything at first, until she told me you left."

When I said nothing, staring at pollen gathered from trees, Derek huffed.

"Are you listening at all?"

"Yeah."

"Respond, then."

"I dont know what to say."

He sighed quietly as he sucked in his cigarette. "So I told her about the party," smoke, clear and pungent, "what I could remember, anyway." Another chuckle.

"I wanted to beat you up." I kicked a discarded rock.

"You've wanted to beat me up like, three times," he spoke quickly before inhaling once more, ready to evade a hit or a kick.

He was used to things like that.

"She thought it might've been what I said that made you run away, and if she found you again, she wanted me to say sorry."

"What would that even do?"

Derek shrugged , cigarette glowing orange. He tapped away the ash, which blew in the spring breeze.

"But I wanted to say it. I'm sorry about stuff I said to you. I mean, I'm still a dick,"

"You're still a dick," I agreed.

He smiled, "I'm still a dick, but I think I get you now. Crap's been happening to me for a long time. It made me do not care. I still don't, but I realize some stuff. So I'm sorry."

I looked at him directly, watched the wind speed through his brown hair, anticipation flash through his light brown eyes. I hummed, trying not to smile when he shook hid head in frustration.

"Are we cool, or not?" He blew smoke out of his nostrils like an irritated dragon, which is the perfect way to describe him.

I took the cigarette out of his mouth, took a mocking puff, and flicked it onto the ground, stomping it into the dirt.

I blew it out with a cough. "Now we are."

He was ready to pop off, to say something he couldn't back up, as it always was. He took a moment before tilting his head and smiling, giving a long laugh, and pulled out the lucky cigarette, sticking it in his mouth.

"You're really something, Casey."