Dorian was dumped. Like a used tampon. Like a five-month-old phone pouch. Like last semester's electives. Like Vine and Facebook. Like Rihanna kicking Drake off the curb. Thoughtlessly, resolutely and without mercy.
Actually, Scarlett's emotional violation was not technically dumping because they were not, for a large reason, dating. Their situationship just got too cozy, yet toxic and wanting; thanks to the stereotypical jock.
Scarlett has actually been his best so far. She has been so sweet, caring, even lent him some cash once in a while. For a brief frame of time, they did what couples do; all this before and during the Giovanni drama. Dorian attended her club meetings and tutored her in some "allegedly" challenging subjects. Of course, she feigned having problems with math when she is almost a straight-A student. Things were rosy until she wanted more but unfortunately, his heart was flooded with a certain blonde tsunami. Dorian still kept her around for the sex though; it was good and self-gratifying and reassuring in the sense that his internalized homophobia was kept incubating.
Three days riddled with syringes and gagged by the smell of disinfectants goes by as it should have, and now Dorian is standing right in front the hell he calls school and this hell is probably going to the next stage of his dreams; as long as he survives these hurdles.
The wispy October air licks his scalp cowering beneath his lowcut and Dorian clutches the handle of his backpack tighter, wishing that will shield him from the lasers shooting out of everyone's eyes and fucking his sweat pores; as if the hospital needles hadn't been enough.
Mustering a deep inhale and even deeper footsteps, he barges into the hallways like a runway model. Not that he wants to but because he needs to. This is owing to an itch he has been dying to scratch since he got discharged on the hospital. A discomforting hunger to lay his hands on one of those delicately prepared coffin nails.
"Where the hell have you been, Bruce?" says Dorian in the most passive-aggressive sonance voice he can ever muster, as he suppresses the urge to scream his lungs out and smash the late boy's head into the wall. Street legends has it that the day you let your dealer know how down bad you have become with his goods is that day you will be paying not just your lungs and reasoning compartment but an arm and leg for just a whiff.
"Chill, I had class, okay?"
"Class, my ass. I saw you in the library's special reading room doing whatever." Dorian retorts, folding his arms and staring down the Asian jock haughtily.
They are hidden from the public eye behind the fume chamber of the old chemistry lab; an isolated part of the school's abandoned buildings. This place has actually been a convenient avenue for shady stuff and whatnot, and fortunately hasn't been casted to the staff yet. This school crawls with snitches. This is what Dorian gets for not just going to the community college in the next block; not with his mom who would sell a kidney to see him school with the white kids who she thinks are oh-so-perfect with a future as bright as their summer sunglasses.
"You mean, doing detention? What else would I be doing in the library if not to scrub the floors and serving school time as usual."
In a swift, smooth movement, their palms meet before entering their backpacks, and their transaction was complete.
"I think the million-dollar question is what detention in the library would feel like. Which of the teachers even does that?"
Bruce is still in his jerseys and sweaty as ever; and he hasn't even stepped on the field today. It is literally morning. Or does he do this intentionally? Are girls really drawn to musty, musky smelling jocks who leak from their armpits like it is a run-down sewer?
"Apparently, Mr. Drummond thinks he is helping me 'tap into my hidden potential' by sentencing me to the library and under supervised watch for weeks in a row." Bruce drags his fingers through his stygian black locks and backwards. He is leaning against some cupboard and holding Dorian with a look of...sympathy?
Dorian shrugs, rolling one and swiping a semi-wet tongue across the edge. "To be for real, I think you need it."
"Says who? The soon-to-be honors student who is struggling with a cannabis--addiction?" says Bruce, getting interrupted by a puff from Dorian towards his face.
"Who says a nerd can't have some fun?"
"I think this nerd is doing way too much fun than he is supposed to. Not my business but when did this smoking phase start? It's definitely not post-partum depression," comments Bruce before adding a dry laugh.
"Ha-ha, very funny, asshole." Dorian lightly punches the buffier boy's shoulder. "If you of all blockheads knows what post-partum sadness means, who am I not to take a little puff once in a while."
Bruce raises his hands in defense. "Hey, I don't care whatever happens to you man. Besides, it is bad for business. Look, just keep buying from me; it is fun, adventurous, addictive and will ruin your life; but you already know this."
"Yes, mom." Dorian rolls his eyes before letting out another fit of coughs.
"Just keep my money rolling in and we are good. Kapiche?"
"Ouch?" Dorian mock-gasps, clutching his heart like he fibrillated for a second.
"What now?" Bruce looks up from his phone to cast Dorian an irritated glare but the latter's eyes are just as sanguine as his mood at that moment.
Dorian pouts. He is lightheaded now and his bones feel hollow. "How cruel of you to renounce our newly found friendship all on the basis of weed money."
"Friendship, with the school's celebrated faggot? Nah, you trippin' trippin'."
"Let's face it. You only hang out with me because you are homophobic and miserable enough to kick your best and only friend out of your life 'cos of some little sextape," rambles Dorian before actually pausing to review what just came out of his damn mouth.
Bruce blinks. "Actually, you are kind of correct."
"As always." Dorian giggles before twirling on his heels and reclining against the cupboards.
"But your condition allows me to skip class without punishment. I can always say I accompanied Dorian Ayuba to the infirmary."
"I like the way you said 'my condition' like I am COVID-positive," replies Dorian absent-mindedly as he admires the fact that he has devoured half of the blunt in just minutes.
Bruce scoffs. "Aren't we all, at some point."
"Oh word?"
"Also, you have been my customer and buying shit, never breaking your six-day streak. At this point, you will be a walking chimney."
"That ain't a bad thing. Or is it?"
Bruce shrugs, as Dorian takes the last drag from his stick and stomps it on the tiles. "Depends."
"Thirdly, I don't have to worry about your nerdy ass snitching and stopping my bag because you equally have your fancy scholarships and records to uphold and you can't risk a single smudge on your portfolio," Bruce finishes, with a smug grin; while they walk out of the old laboratory side by side, looking like Sanjay and Craig.
"Well," Dorian responds, blowing raspberries. This weed thing is a long story, the Bruce thing even longer but both are necessarily not that long. All Dorian needed was an escape from everything and here it is. A stub of cannabis, rolled in carbon paper and sealed with saliva and compromise.
"Where are you heading to, anyways?"
Dorian raises his eyebrows questioningly. "I wonder why my homophobic not-my-friend-but-just-an-unattached-dealer wants to know where I might be going during club hours?"
"Ugh," Bruce groans loudly before punching Dorian on the shoulder. One thing Dorian has realized of late is how jocks communicate or express emotions with their fists, or their bodies and barely in an affectionate way, but Dorian will have to deal with the crumbs he is getting. Not that he can't do without it but Bruce has been the best distraction. Dorian is either stoning in the thickets just adjacent the town's boundaries with forest fires being the last thing on his self-righteous mind, and breaking stuff with Bruce in this car pound opposite his mom's church; or incinerating his brain in the library; when he is not working three jobs a day as usual, of course.
Bruce continues, "Sadly, you are good company but I need a bathroom break, from AP Chem, and I mean a looooong one."
"What is the point when you're graduating in like weeks?" Dorian shrugs, slurring on his semi-inebriation. That weed really hit the fucking spot; as if it knew the right amount of high he requires for school. "You really should put more effort in this school of a thing. At least make these few days count and I promise you you won't regret it, brother."
"Okay, mom. Save the epistle for your valedictorian speech." Bruce rolls his eyes as Dorian sluggishly pushes aside the sliding doors to the cubicle occupied by the Queer Representation Club, formerly known as the Queer Advocacy Club; just because Trisha was daft enough to insist that homophobia isn't popular enough to have the LGBTQ community "scrambling for advocacy".
But what does she know? Trisha is your regular blue-eyed flat-tummied Barbie who everyone will drop their life-savings to watch sausaged on the couch between five hunky black men on Pornhub like the popular meme. She clearly does not have it rough like the rest of them, but she brought ice-cream for Dorian in the hospital so she is forgiven. Even if the bran freeze and sugar rush gotten from the ice crem ruined any chance of he and Scarlett being a thing.
"Oh, trust me. I would."
"As long as you are sober to not even fuck it up, then. Clearly you can't even think straight." Dorian staggers into Bruce's arms and the latter shoves him upright. "The fuck, can't you at least hold your damn weed? You gon' get me in trouble man."
"Shut the fuck up," Dorian mouths, shoving the other boy back. "I'm perfectly fine, thank you very much." No, he isn't. Maybe. He just needs a little bit of time to chill out. Nobody knows this all started from an eerie likeness he has taken to morphine in the hospital. That is what happens when your nurse is as clueless as a starfish.
"Funny how you are but you aren't."
That, Dorian takes offence to. "And what is that supposed to mean? I buy weed from you not buy therapy sessions."
"Weed? You do weed now?"
Dorian spins on his heel so fast, his head too on his neck so hard he cracked a stiff joint. Then, his chest implodes when his eyes get clearer. That voice was almost sibilant, so close to his ear and the proximity sends curlicues of chills down his spine, and those arms...those arms he fell into were lankier than Bruce's, and longer, and paler, and riddled with cuts?
"Giovanni," Dorian gasps, his air knocked out of him. In that brief second, he tries to rememorize every vertex, every curvature on Gio's face. But will that be enough? This is his love, and his ruination, standing taut but unsure in front of him, wearing a grey sweatshirt and Dorian's heart on a spike.
"Hello, Dori—"
"What the fuck are you doing here, Giovanni?" Dorian clenches his jaw, even more annoyed as Gio composes himself and kisses his teeth, appearing to be defensive. It is just about time Dorian knocks those teeth out of his face. Smug self-satisfying ass.
"No, what are you doing with Bruce? With weed, Dory? What has gotten into you?"
Eyes blind and red with fury and cannabis vapor, Dorian won't even spare him the "oh, you think you can just waltz back into my life and tell me what to do" talk. That'd be cliché as fuck and the last thing Dorian wants at the moment is to be pissed off by anything other than Gio. He will save all this pent-up frustration by restructuring his face. If Gio has spent all this time lacerating his skin and wrist tendons, he wouldn't mind a little forceful rhinoplasty.
"I'm guessing you guys set me up for this." Dorian dry-laughs and turns to Ray, Trisha and the other freaks in the Clown Fuckery Club. "What happened to discretion, Trisha? Funding got tight and he paid you for a meet-and-greet with the pregnant nigga?"
"No, it is not like that! He wanted to join and we couldn't, you know, say no. I'm sorry you had to find out this way." Damn, she isn't the good liar she might think she is. Trisha is now fiddling the lint in her crop-top. It is yellow, striped with orange and spiraled on with magenta. It is too damn colorful. A literal technicolor vomit, and now thrown in his own face. The one place he feels maybe, just maybe might be his mental stronghold just drowned in Trisha's disgustingly bright outfit.
Fuck Hershey's. Dorian removes a sheet of paper from his pocket and in the twinkle of an eye, slams it into Gio's face and the latter's head into a tall pile of carton leaning adjacent to the whiteboard.
Only Bruce is able to keep up with Dorian and before everyone, even Gio can process what just happened, the Asian muscle pulls him back, restraining him from making any further damage.
"Not here, Dorian, you fucking asshole." Bruce is holding him away from Gio, but Dorian just keeps thrashing around, mad with anger and for a moment, Dorian slips free. He pounces on the literally star-struck Giovanni.
Three bloody punches in and Dorian still isn't ready to stop. The hurt in his fists isn't even close to what his eating his heart. And for an obvious reason because hurting Gio is killing him even slower. Dorian may not want this, this feeling of Gio scrambling and struggling under his rain of bones; but Dorian needs this. Maybe Gio will ever forgive him. Maybe he won't.
By the time Bruce has succeeded in peeling Dorian off the wheezing blonde, the latter's face is bloodied as the paper on it. That paper is the list of clubs they made months ago. Dorian has been keeping it with him every day until now.
The five others in the club stay, staring at Dorian like an Ebola patient. Trisha is holding Ray's arm for her dear life. "Out, now!" Ray threatens, their eyes resolute and their fists clenched. They lowkey deserve a good beating up too but Dorian saved the best for the last, and Gio ended that list.
Gio is struggling to get back on his feet and failing miserably at it. Dorian, his heart pounding in adrenaline and penitence, stares at the lanky boy holding his pooling nose, before walking out of the glass cage.
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happy new year yall and im back with another substandard, underquality rushed pile of sugarcoated purple prose
[UNEDITED...read at your own literate risk]
[im using the pc version rn to upload but wheres the bold and italic icon?/ helppp?/