[its never too late to start adding pictures to the chapters, is it?]
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Whiskey.
His eyes were the color of whiskey.
I'd realized it 66 days after I'd met him, I should've noticed it earlier considering the first time I'd seen him his eyes were the part that got me hooked in and wouldn't let me go.
Of course, the color of his eyes was coincidentally the shade of the alcohol he chugged daily. And that was not a happy sight that I saw way too often.
"Didja hear about the fox that got its head stuck in the front gate this morning?" Pete groaned from his lawn chair, still half asleep. He'd pulled an all nighter to finish an essay for zoology only to find out it wasn't due until Tuesday, which meant he still had 2 days to do it. He threw a pillow across the room in frustration when he found out, almost knocking the single glass decoration we owned to the floor.
"Nah." I told him and he sighed, still too tired to process anything. He seemed to perk up when footsteps down the hall shook the room, and the door swung open to reveal Brendon in a stained tank top and ripped high school gym shorts. He held a huge recycling bag and the scent of alcohol practically dripped from his lips.
"Surprise inspection day," he huffed, out of breath "it's my turn."
I guess the surprise inspection wasn't so much of a surprise any longer.
"What's the big deal? The inspector is like your best friend, they'd never rat you out." Pete mumbled and raised his forearms so they covered his eyes from the sun peeking through the tiny window next to us.
"H-he got replaced." Brendon cried with his chest heaving, and kept glancing frantically back down the hall "please, I need help there's too many and I can't carry them all and-"
Pete stood up abruptly and I sank deeper into my seat. The weight of the situation hadn't hit me yet, but I was being pulled to my feet and down into Brendon's room against my will.
"Please don't be mad, just help me get rid of them." He sniffed, piling empty bottles into his arms and dropping them into his recycling bag.
I wish the color of his eyes wasn't whiskey brown, because I'd seen enough of that hue just by looking through the door. Empty glasses balanced on top of one another filled the entire corner of Brendon's room, enough to create a couple dozen 6 packs of alcohol. Some of them looked like they hadn't been touched in a while, but most appeared to have been opened pretty recently. Pete ran a hand down his face and crouched down to the floor, unsure how to react. I wasn't sure either; I wanted so badly to have him caught and be pushed into breaking the drinking habit for good, but I knew he wouldn't be able to stop no matter how much he wanted to. Because 56 heartbreaks don't leave the heartbroken one completely sane.
Eventually, we'd packed the last couple bottles into the recycling bag, and carefully placed it into the bins out behind the building where the garbage guys would take it away, hopefully never to be seen again. We hadn't received an answer as to how he required all of those when alcohol wasn't even allowed on campus and how he kept them all hidden even after we had checked every inch of his rooms for any left behind.
Brendon was sprawled out across his couch, face down into the arm rest furthest from the window, while Pete and I both played Go Fish at the kitchen table.
"Got any 9's?" He asked with a hopeful grin for the 3rd time in a row.
"Go fish."
"Son of a bitch."
He slammed his hand down on the deck piled on the table and dragged a card across the surface to the countless others he'd acquired throughout the past few rounds.
Patrick burst through the door, startling Brendon off the couch and Pete off he chair and on to the floor. He glared daggers at Brendon and stormed over to tower over him. If looks could kill, Patrick would be charged with 3 accounts of manslaughter.
"I can't believe you! I thought you were stopping with the alcohol!" He fumed, only growing angrier when he didn't get a response. "What do you have to say for yourself?"
Brendon mumbled an apology so quietly it was barely heard. Patrick tapped his foot impatiently on the floor for a second before giving in and wrapping his arms around his friend. After a minute, they were both sobbing into each other's arms.
It took me a second to realize someone was hoarsely yelling too, and it took another second to figure out Brendon was screaming "I'm sorry" into Patrick's shoulder.
But the kicker was that I knew he was sorry, but he wouldn't stop drinking.
..:..::..:::..::..:..
For some reason, middle school had been the most stressful time in my life, much more terrifying than Seacoast could ever be. I remember sitting at the crowded desk in my room doing homework until I fell asleep and returning to classes the next day with partially completed work and a desolate plain of knowledge for the test that day. It was 3 years of nightmares that made me hate school with a burning passion that would never fully die out.
My favorite place quickly became the forest a couple miles away from anyone, where you could yell at the top of your lungs and remain unheard. I visited regularly to pour my thoughts into the tree filled void of animals that were forced to listen to my suffering against their own free will.
Pete and Patrick were literally sleeping in each other's arms as close as they could possibly be, and Brendon was hanging his torso and up off of the couch, testing how far he could reach with the poorly repaired table as measurement. Each time, his fingers just barely brushed against the duct taped edges before his stomach lurched in a hiccup and he was forced to drop back to the ground.
I reached over and grabbed him under his armpits and hoisted him to his feet, accidentally pulling up his shirt so far the hem of it reached his mid stomach.
"We're going out, grab your jacket." I told him and he was so tired he didn't even question it as I basically carried him out to Patrick's car. I hope he wouldn't mind once he realized I took it; after all it was for a good reason.
"The much anticipated shotgun is finally mine." Brendon sighed happily, breathing in the warm strawberry and vanilla scent of the front seat. I'd expected it to smell worse, considering Pete probably lived there before I met him and he was forced to go on walks to the coffee shop instead of sitting in the passenger seat for 4 minutes.
I felt like I was starring in a movie that's far from an action genre but not even close to a romantic comedy, although I wish it was. Those movies always turn out happy, and just by looking at Brendon you could tell he would not be the one to go out with a smile on his face and a story to pass on through generations.
"Where are we going?" He shouted over the roar of the engine as I yanked the steering wheel to the left and off the campus, towards the nearest gathering of trees. I'd looked it up online; it was only a 20 minute long drive, nothing compared to the bus ride Id taken to get to Seacoast.
Somehow I'd learned to associate trees with everything that held some sort of meaning, mainly because at some point I'd shouted about how much they meant to me. And I hoped Brendon would be added to the mix.
"Somewhere nice."
"Your type of nice or my type of nice, because those are two very different things."
"Both."
He bit his lip and shrugged, watching the buildings mold into trees as we strayed further away from home. It felt like a movie scene. Yknow, that one part where they're driving and the protagonist glances over at the more attractive and mysterious other protagonist and realizes how much they mean to them and that they never want to forget that particular moment no matter how simple it is? Yeah, that's what this felt like. And I loved it.
The car traced along the edge of a cliff for a while, and even though we were only 10 minutes out the landscape had entirely transformed into the wilderness I'd grown accustomed to.
I pulled the car over near the edge of the road where's small portion of dirt jutted out from the side of a cliff, raised above the treetops too look above the forest. Mountains surrounded the area, and the road continued swirling around the base until it disappeared around the furthest one.
"Get out of the car."
Brendon turned to me with a smile on his face but fear in his eyes, unbuckling the seat belt apprehensively.
"Are you gonna murder me?"
"Just get out of the car."
As soon as I opened the door, the fresh air brought me back to middle school and yelling "I wish I wasn't alone" into the canyon full of trees I lived near. The wind whipped through my hair and threatened to push me over the cliff, and I almost wished it would.
"Go stand at the edge of the barrier," I told him and he carefully walked over on the verge of falling and hung on to the railing for dear life. "And just scream"
"I knew it, you're going to murder me and dump my body in the woods. This is for making you smuggle Pesto in your pocket isn't it?" He laughed and hung further over the side. I joined him and looked down at the ground below us, littered with trees and bushes galore.
"Trust me. Just scream whatever's on your mind."
"Scream because you're about to stab me or-"
"Just do it."
He glanced up at me and pouted, utterly confused but still engrossed in my words.
"You're sounding fuckin' crazy, but I'm gonna trust you on this one," Brendon laughed, lips curling up into a slight smile. He held on to the railing tighter and leaned forwards a little more so his feet just barely lifted off the ground, and yelled at the top of his lungs.
"I can't wait for the day that somebody tells me I'm the best thing that's ever happened to them and they mean it!" His voice echoed off the mountains and bounced around in the air like the universe wanted to hang on to them for a little longer.
I could've told him that he meant the world to me. That he became the sun and the stars and without him nothing would ever be the same. But I couldn't, because he'd been hurt so many times he couldn't take the chance to get hurt again, even if I would never do that to him. But I wouldn't even trust myself to take care of someone like him because I would mess up somehow and he'd get lost and die without anyone to constantly watch over him.
But I didn't scream that as loud as I could, because Brendon was still howling words into the trees like a wolf that had gotten left behind and had nothing to gain but everything to lose.
I watched him collapse to the floor and press his face to the palm of his hands, eyes scanning the canyon for an answer he'd never receive.
It sounded really really weird to even think about let alone have it linger in the back of my mind, but he reminded me of a cigarette; destructive with the potential to kill, but used and crushed on the ground so many times that it wouldn't light that one final time that you needed it.
Because man, was he really something.
[2053 words, 9/1/16, I keep forgetting the word count and date kms]