I thump the desk in front of me. Hard.
It hurts a little but I don't care. Three years in juvie does that to you - makes you forget to feel pain. It numbs down everything.
Everything except that thing.
I sigh, resting my heavy head in my hands. Why did she have to be fucked up too? Why couldn't she just be someone else, somewhere else without me, without those understanding eyes and that sympathetic way that she looks at me and everything that makes me look stupid, that makes me look weak and vulnerable and -
And I put my hand into my pocket.
The wrinkled piece of paper sits there still, creases unchanged since she gave it to me. I haven't had the heart to rip it up yet. Something tells me that I should listen.
But she is just as fucked up as I am.
She knows that.
I know
that.
She cannot help me.
I cannot help her.
I thump the desk.
Again
again
again.
I see red in front of me but I don't know if it's in my head or if it's pouring out of my hands, seeping into the cracks of the chipped wood.
I pummel and pummel and pummel and pretend that it is Oliver Goldberg, that I am thumping this desk for the good of humanity and that I have much, much longer left, that I am not a case for an inevitable early death and that I didn't squander my youth, flush it down the toilet along with everything else that I did before juvie.
And suddenly, I want to be good - I want to be actually good, be good enough for her, be good enough to be able to stand up straight for her, to not have to slouch and hide behind the black of my jacket whenever I see her. I want to kiss her again and I have no idea why. I want to taste her salty tears and feel the crisp of her chapped lips and oh God, I just want to know her more.
But she is fucked up.
I am
so damn fucking fucked up.
And fucked up people can't save fucked up people.