'Perhaps death exists to keep life afloat', Mitnick thought as he roamed the Earth.

And roam he did.

Steps became miles. Miles became years. Years became centuries.

And one day, as he walked some more, Mitnick turned to see a new species now walked the Earth alongside him. Unlike animals, these new creatures resembled Mitnick himself. They too walked in two legs; they too held with two arms; they two spoke in words and communicated with each other.

Mitnick's heart leaped with joy as his steps finally reached a destination he did not know he was looking for.

He ran towards them, seeing them living together, working, helping each other.

'This must be it', the entity thought as his wandering eyes looked for that special someone.

He finally found him. Across the settlement, working on the wood that came off the trees, a redheaded boy called to him.

'Here you are', Mitnick said, as he approached the boy.

'Here I am', the boy said as Mitnick approached him.

'My name is Mitnick', the entity said, reaching out.

'Hello Mitnick. My name is Noah', the boy replied, welcoming him.

Mitnick felt the words coming out of his mouth, even before he meant them. 'Can I relate to you?'

Noah grinned and said Yes. Finally, Mitnick was home.

********

"Teddy? Teddy? Teddy!"

He jumped and nearly fell off his chair. He heard laughter coming from every corner of the room, but hardly cared. Turning to find Tripp's frowning face in front of him, he struggled to come back to the moment, despite having no desire to participate in it.

"Yes?" He asked, faking indifference and failing.

"Are you okay?" Tripp asked too, his concern melting Teddy's icy exterior.

"I'm fine," he replied, shaking his head and quickly drawing a smile meant to conceal the turmoil that rocked his head. "Is something the matter?"

"We're discussing the arrangements for the Fall Colours Party," Bianca Garrick said, giving him a soft and perhaps encouraging nod. "You're required to bring a date with you."

"Sure." Teddy shrugged, his face unable, or maybe unwilling to hide his contempt towards those words.

"It can't be any date, though," Bianca added, straightening in her chair, her hands joining and resting in her lap.

This time, it was Teddy who frowned. "What is that supposed to mean?" He asked through tight teeth, his jaw clenching automatically.

Anthony Fawcett intervened, answering the question. "You're a Stag, Santoyo, you have to keep the right company."

"We have a list of all the girls on campus who'll make a suitable date," Randall Astor chimed in, handing him a piece of paper with about ten names written on it.

Teddy felt his stomach turning and he knew this wouldn't end well. Tripp must've known it too, because his hand quickly went to Teddy's shoulder, as if trying to hold him back from going off, literally. His eyes met his friend's and the look he found in that pool of hazel made him reconsider his next step. And so, breathing in and out, like a woman in labour, his eyes left Tripp's and went into the piece of paper.

"All those girls have been put on notice," Bianca went on. "They know they might receive an invitation from you in the coming days."

"Put on notice?" He asked, his blood boiling, his hands wrinkling the paper. Tripp's hand squeezed his shoulder and he once again turned to face the boy, finding yet another look of silent plea. Sighing in defeat, he scratched his chin with all the delicacy of a razor and nodded along. "What do I do if she says no? Is there a protocol to handle rejections? Am I to beat her in the head with a red hot poker?"

"She won't say no," Renata said, her eyes fixed on her black fingernails. "You may be the lowest of the Stags, but you're a Stag nonetheless."

Teddy rolled his eyes but chose not to say anything else. "Fine. Whatever. I'll ask one."

Bianca clapped her hands together, like a proud mother at a wedding. "I'm sure whichever you choose will be delighted, Teddy."

"Perfect, Then we can leave?" Laetitia Irvine stood up at once, probably as eager as Teddy was to have this meeting adjourned. "I have a date."

"You're not going anywhere," Anthony scolded, pointing at her with an accusatory finger. "We have a funeral to attend."

Teddy's chest compressed at the sound of those words. As if waking up from a long slumber, his skin screamed, feeling everything around it with increased intensity. His clothes grew heavy, the fabric burning every inch of flesh it was meant to cover.

Suddenly he felt out of himself. A viewer watching a Greek tragedy without any real meaning. His breathing accelerated, the air inside him plotting an escape from the fiery confinements that were his insides. The moment turned to a small eternity. And this room, with its antlers and its cravings, proved too much for him to handle, a prison of solitude that demanded from him much more than he felt capable of giving.

All of a sudden, it became hard to breathe. The air grew heavy. The words spoken made it thick, dense. Massive. Firm. Memories came back to his head and tears fought their way up his face, rivers waiting to flow.

"Do we have to go?" Laetitia asked, not bothering to hide the defiance in her voice and Teddy felt like he might punch her.

"Yes," Anthony replied, firmly. "He used to be one of us. He deserves some respect."

"I still can't believe he killed himself," Emilia Cushing spoke for the first time, her hands hugging herself, probably trying to fight the chill that travelled her body. "I spoke to him only days ago. He didn't seem sad or anything. He seemed fine."

"You never really know what someone else is going through," Violet said, her voice low, her eyes on the fireplace.

"He always was a weakling," Scott Whitney declared, a disgusting smirk on his face.

Teddy actually felt his self-control slipping through his fingers. He could've grabbed it before it completely abandoned him, but he didn't. He allowed it to leave. He wanted to be free of it. He wanted to lose control.

He heard himself speak. "What the fuck would a cunt like you know about him?"

The entire room sank in a deep, uncomfortable silence that no one dared break. In this profound, impenetrable quiet, Teddy found the comfort he usually lacked among this cruel band of gluttons. This lull proved an appropriate coating for the scene that unfolded before his eyes. Wide, unblinking eyes shot at him, arrows aiming to kill. He could take it, though. This battle was just beginning, and it wouldn't be him who wound up on the floor.

Beside him, Tripp's face almost made him break. His friend's eyebrows furrowed, the line between them more pronounced than ever. That face threw him off. He tried but couldn't identify what those features tried to convey. Was it anger that he saw in Tripp's face? Concern? Disappointment? All of them?

He had no time to ponder further. Scott's voice broke the peace, the horn that blows before the battle.

"Certainly more than you," the guy said, his voice straining, his hands turned into fists. "We were actually his friends."

Teddy let out a dry, unforgiving laugh that shook the entire house. "Friends?"

"He was one of us," Arnold Pruitt intervened, putting special emphasis on the verb.

"And then?" Teddy asked, his fingernails sticking into his palms. "He left this house and you forgot about him?"

"He left the Dominion," Renata said, unbothered, unmovable. "Being a Stag is a full-time responsibility, a commitment which you still don't fully understand. We can't afford to give our time selflessly."

"You have a shitty grasp on the concept of friendship if sharing a roof is a conditional for your affection," Teddy fought back, his teeth so clenched, they were starting to hurt. "He liked you, for some reason. Missed you, even. But you didn't know, and if your did, you simply didn't care. Maybe you never did."

"How would you know?" Emilia asked, her open hand stroking her own chest, as if trying to loosen the nod that threatened to break her voice.

Teddy knew if he spoke, there'd be no turning back. He'd be out there, at the mercy of the pack, and they'd have no qualms about going straight for the kill. After all, vultures circle the dying. Still, he thought as his blood turned to vile, what did he have to lose? They'd find out, sooner or later.

"He told me," he said, his fingernails so deep in his skin, he actually felt the burn. "I was with him, two nights before his..."

He stopped himself, a lump in his throat preventing the exit of more words. His eyes turned back to Tripp, whose face slowly came to the realization after his mind connected the dots.

"You were with him?" Renata asked as she too understood the meaning behind the vague sentence. "Oh sweet Jesus, please don't tell me that you're gay, on top of everything. Why don't you just wear a sign that says Beat the shit out of me and get it over with?"

"You don't need a sign with those come-fuck-me heels," Teddy shot back. Not his best clapback, but it was something.

"Okay, let's take it easy," Tripp said, grabbing Teddy's shoulder again and raising his other hand, as if trying to separate Teddy and Renata. They both ignored him.

"So you were with him, huh?" She asked, uncrossing her legs and leaning forward, towards Teddy. "Did you help him? Did you listen to him and gave him the comfort he needed? Since you're such a swell, understanding, morally superior guy? Or did you use him? Did you fuck him then threw him out like yesterday's trash?" Her icy eyes pierced his being and his silence was her triumph. She smiled, the red in her lips flooding his eyesight. "I guess you're not better than any of us, then. Maybe you are a true Stag. Maybe you're just an asshole. Or maybe you're the final push Stuart needed to finally get the deed done. One night with you and he jumped out the window. That bad, huh?"

Red was all he saw.

He burned inside, his heart beating so fast, it might've actually stopped from overdrive. He jumped out of his chair, mind empty, body stiffened. Rage guided him, a familiar hand that led him down the blackest paths, one he treaded one too many times before. Rage. The darkest of teachers in the most inconvenient of times.

It all happened very quickly. Anthony Fawcett raised from his chair, ready to jump at him. But no fist touched Teddy's face, no blood spilled from his mouth.

Instead, all he saw was Tripp's frame standing in front of him, almost towering him, separating him from Anthony's wrath. Protecting him. He heard voices, indistinctive echoes that meant as little to him as any whisper in the street where one waits for a bus that will never come.

A pair of hands grabbed him by the arms and almost carried him out of the room, dragging him away from the cradle of pride and antlers, leaving behind nothing but unspoken words and heart wrenching truths.

********

The cold night air hit him like a blizzard. His body started shaking at once, the fire inside him dying, rendering him a shaky, unstable mess.

Teddy could hardly breathe. He walked out of the house, heading towards the Dark Hedges. Tripp followed closely behind, his steps bringing a new chill down Teddy's back. Neither spoke. They just kept walking, deeper into the Hedges, both doing their best to ignore the words they dragged behind them.

He knew he'd have to stop and face Tripp eventually. That much was true. Even so, he could not bring himself to do it just yet. Why was Tripp even there? Would their relationship change now that Tripp had seen him at his darkest?

Teddy was terrified of the answer.

"You need to stop."

He heard Tripp's voice and his first instinct was to run towards the darkness, out of that school and into a place he could call his own. Unfortunately, there was no such place.

So he complied with Tripp's wishes and halted his steps. Stopping in the middle of the Hedges, breathing still uneven, hands still fists, heart still racing, he did his best to keep the tears from streaming, but his best was barely enough. And he knew Tripp's eyes would break the shaky grasp he had on his unstable nerves.

"Are you okay?" Tripp asked, hesitation dripping from every letter he pronounced. "You kind of lost your temper back there." He went quiet, as if waiting for a reaction from Teddy. When he got nothing, he went on, carefully, like a dear stepping on a frozen lake. "Do you need something? Can I do anything?"

Teddy finally turned to face Tripp and he regretted it as soon as he did. That face. That stupid, ridiculous, handsome, understanding face that did him more harm than good. Those pleading, alluring eyes, calling out to him with the glow of understanding, like a puppy watching his owner leave for work. Those lips, that he had dreamt of kissing ever since first laying eyes on them.

Why was he like that? Why was he so nice? Why did he care so much? Standing there, in front of Tripp, Teddy felt the desire to walk up to him, grab him by the arms and shake him, demand an explanation.

Why do you do this?

Why do you treat me like this?

If you know you can't love me, why do you act like you could?

Why do you give me hope?

"Teddy? Do you want to talk about it?"

Tripp gave a step forward, shortening the distance between them. Teddy felt weak. This closeness would be too much for him to handle. He used all his self-control in the Dominion and now, none remained. But something told him not everything was lost. After all, Tripp was still there, beside him. Teddy released the breath he had been holding ever since he turned to face the raven-haired boy and fell into his arms, incapable, or perhaps unwilling to stand alone.

And Tripp welcomed him into the embrace, allowing Teddy's head to rest on his shoulder. He said nothing. He stopped questioning, finally understanding what Teddy needed and wanted. The two stayed in the middle of the Hedges, locked in a tight embrace that made Teddy feel complete while still harbouring an all-consuming void inside.

Because Teddy knew better. This hug, this moment was a flaw in the story. This was no more than a small twist in a common tale. It was just an instant. A fleeting while, a flash of time. And even though it meant the world to Teddy, he knew that, to Tripp, it was just an act of kindness. A simple favour.

But Teddy didn't care. And if this was all he would get, he'd take every last second of it. He pressed his body tighter into Tripp's, holding on to him as if his life depended on it. And Tripp didn't push him away. Instead, he did the worst thing he could've possibly done. He welcomed the proximity.

Chest to chest, almost heart to heart, Teddy felt closer to Tripp than ever before.

Why must good things end quickly? Why must they end at all?

"Tripp?" He asked, slowly, quietly.

"Yes, Teddy?"

"Why do people kill themselves?"

Silence.

It wasn't a question a seventeen-year-old could possibly answer. But like every single thing he had done ever since meeting Tripp, Teddy went against his better judgement and acted anyway.

"I don't know," Tripp finally answered, his gentle words killing him, a warm knife on an open wound. "Perhaps they feel like they have no other choice."

"Perhaps they don't", he whispered.

They stood there for a while. Teddy wasn't sure how long. Not that it mattered, though. Time became a suggestion. And even after they left the dark road, even after they retraced their steps and got back to the Dominion, going their separate ways and into their rooms to try and chase after that elusive sleep, Teddy made the conscious decision to stay on the Hedges.

From that day on, he would stand at the entrance of the Hedges and wait for a coach that might never arrive. But he would wait nonetheless. And if it arrived, then perhaps he'd board it. Or perhaps he'd let it pass. And if he boarded it, then maybe he might like where it took him. Yet, if he let it go, if he refused the journey, he'd forever wonder. He would stay behind. And he'd wait some more.