(2009 by Mac Miller)

| 8. | high lights and bold boy

After deciding that it was, quite frankly, stupid to avoid the one place that I got a free fix, I'd found myself stumbling back into Inked one day after school.

I had plans with Pricilla to go over her newest chapter, she was getting ahead of the class because she hadn't wanted to fall behind again while making up for all her other classes and honestly, her dedication to her schoolwork was admirable. Amidst those plans, I also had plans with a cheerleader who wanted some xans and apparently, I looked like I knew a guy.

And I mean, I did but why would I tell her that? Especially when she was willing to do backflips on my dick just for the hell of it? As far as she was concerned, she could suck me off and I'd find her someway off school grounds to bring what she would give me money for, I wasn't fucking stupid.

With a brief text, I'd told her maybe tomorrow and instead of getting into her car with promise and I'd taken the walk to Inked, my body ready to collapse with exhaustion due to the heat of the day. It was weird, acting as if I didn't care what Logan would say, I did but the difference was: as much as I cared that he cared so much about how this would affect my mother, I still wasn't a fucking pussy and I wasn't going to let him threaten me into staying away.

He could tell my mother, with no evidence and the preconceived idea parents all had that drugs affected your schoolwork, she wouldn't believe him. I was acing all my classes, I was fine and her truly believing otherwise would break her heart too much for her to actually let the information sink in.

Or, at least, I hoped so.

Making my way past Skid at the front desk, I ignored the greeting, I hadn't even stopped to ask Bobby why the fuck she was in my business enough to tell my brother. There wasn't any money in my pockets so with a hand over my rib, I pretended as if there was something wrong, a resting place was what that backroom was to me -not a trap room. I didn't have the energy to stop and pretend when Logan called me or even let him in before I was closing the door, locking it, and grabbing whatever I could before the people in charge would notice the commotion.

Quickly, I ripped open drawers, memorized from the many times before Oliver would find me fucked up after a fight -before he came back from juvie and nothing really mattered after my mom's boyfriend made a punching bag of my face. I would leave the house, my mother out for work and I wouldn't really return home until my bruises had healed.

I'd gotten pretty good at hiding things from her then, gotten really good at concealing a broken nose with I was at Ian's and he accidentally hit me with his controller or I fell off Colin's skateboard, this is why I don't skate. I'd laugh as she inspected the injuries, Seth staring me down with a mix of fright and slight remorse at the idea that he'd get caught. I had a big mouth, I did, and I would have told her but I didn't have the heart to break hers when half the men in her life were incarcerated and the one she loved hated me.

I sucked that shit up, let her believe that he was a great guy as long as he didn't put a hand on her. It was always me, I'd catch a beating and then pick a fight once my excuses got a bit too repetitive. Hearing that her son had a temper was better than hearing that the man that slept in her house, in her bed, and made her so happy was a closeted drunk who took his frustrations out on her 15-year-old son.

It was when Oliver had moved back that things got complicated, he'd witnessed Seth on a rampage one night and his temper got the best of him before he could control it. That was the second person he'd nearly killed and mom hadn't been the same since. He was always the one who could figure me out and it almost always caused her pain, I had everything under control but that just wasn't enough for him.

The hidden after-dinner conversations finally ended but the fights didn't stop, if Oliver wanted to bail me out so fucking bad, he could jump in and get his pretty face fucked up trying to help. It didn't help that the months after he'd rejoined civilization, I had met a few people that had come and gone but we'd almost always sit in this very backroom. I'd memorized the order Lopez had maintained: every month on the seventh -and only on the seventh- they'd do a count of stock. That meant free-game was anytime between the seventh of that month and the fifteenth when drugs were switched out and so were runners, he'd never keep the same runners for too long.

Each runner lasted approximately three months, only the good ones really stayed and I wasn't quite sure what happened to the rest but it didn't matter much. The fact that they were amateur left room for error and one or two $20 bags going missing during this time wasn't a huge deal.

I'd heard Logan's knuckles rapping on the door, his voice a mix of anger and confusion and once I'd pulled a baggie from the second drawer left corner, bottom drawer middle, one of the seven on the table in the middle of the room, I'd carefully put everything back. He wouldn't notice and hopefully the way I swung the door open, claiming it probably got stuck and asked him what the fuck he wanted before sprawling out on the bed and wincing, gripping my stomach as if there was something there. Acting as if I didn't have three little baggies of cocaine in my sock and I'd just gotten into a quick fight before coming here.

"You good?" Were his first words to me and with a grimace, I nodded. Normally, when I wasn't keen on talking to him, especially after fights, I would give in to whatever he was saying and behave 'civilized' as Oliver would call it. My acting must've been great because Logan offered a water and when I'd declined, he started asking about details of what happened.

I'd made up some story in my head, only later transferring it to small details: lying was tricky when it came to Logan and Oliver, they knew me. "Some guy I picked a fight with a while back caught me in the skatepark."

"Alone?" He'd asked, stepping a bit closer and looking over me to see what damage I had acquired. He'd seen me too much after fights... knowing that he knew if I was fighting on my own, I'd have a few visible bruises, maybe a busted lip, I shook my head.

"At first but Colin and Ian were there," I'd let out a cynical laugh, just small enough to wince at how it 'hurt my ribs'. "Three kinda scared him off."

I'd lounged around there for an hour, making up some excuse for leaving and I was home by five, just enough time to get high and spend the rest of my night the way I wanted.

That was until I was high out of my mind and Pricilla had knocked on my door, my brother having let her in. Maybe it was my high but for some reason, I'd felt confident in my ability to judge her book and I'd opened the door for her, that was the mistake.

• • •

Within the short time knowing her, I'd developed an infatuation with the way she looked with her hair cascading down her back. Or the way she looked with it tucked behind her ear. Her hair had been middle-parted that day, half of it behind her shoulder and slightly tucked behind her ear, gold studs gleaming in my incandescent bulbs -our house was pretty modern but things like that still remained as a reminder that this house had existed long before us. Thankful to our landlord and his lack of care, I watched as her skin glowed and the gold on her rings made her look ethereal in a tight white t-shirt that cropped right above her waist.

Her camo pants were hanging off her hips in a way that made my heart pound harder and a silver chain was tied around her waist only emphasizing how small she really was in that area, hips curved only slightly. She wasn't very curvy but she did have more body than she hid in big shirts and cargos, I could tell you that.

My attraction to her was only emphasized when she'd pushed past me, probably realizing I'd been staring at her too long. I didn't know why she was so comfortable with me but honestly, I didn't mind it. She'd slung her black Jansport onto my bed, rummaging through it after greeting me with a pretty smile; for some reason, I could feel my lips twitching upwards as I stood in place.

She'd quickly kicked off her shoes, folding her legs up and went flipping through her notebook.

"Hi." I'd spoken and it felt foreign on my tongue. My heart almost felt like it would jump out of my chest just with how hard it was beating, a euphoric smile taking over my face. Of all the highs I'd experienced, coke had to be my favorite, that was mostly because of how it affected my confidence.

At the moment, I could take on anything, I could've probably went back to Inked and lit the stash on fire like I'd wanted. I could've ruined it and stuck around to gloat as the place burned to the ground, be out of there even while they still had my blood on their minds, my name on their tongues. I could've made a deal, possibly set up a steady cash flow after that, disappear for a while and send my mom money.

Anything, I could've done anything and I was standing there contemplating the possibilities of running away from this Hell-hole, with Pricilla in my room.

She was a distraction, if she wasn't there, who knows what insane shit I would've done?

"You already said that." Briefly, my heart had stopped, had I said some crazy shit out loud? Had I let her know what hell was going on in my brain? Looking up, I'd sighed in relief at the confusion on her face, instead of disgust. I'd thought back to what I'd said before but it didn't make much sense when she was standing in front of me and for the thirteen-year-old boy inside me jacking off to sports illustrated models, I committed her to memory. "You okay, Pyro?"

"God, you're so hot." Her long legs that were previously tucked underneath her were dangling off my bed, she'd sat up from the way she'd been laying previously. Pulling her hair into a ponytail, her top rid up just slightly to expose more of her toned stomach. She didn't have much chest but she made up for it in big brown eyes and full lips. It'd be so easy with her already in my bed, "You know that?"

Letting out an awkward chuckle, she'd pushed some hair behind her ear. Her eyes had looked up at mine slightly before looking back down at her book with a small smile and that was enough to fuck with my teenage libido. "You've said that too." And her voice, fuck, I could imagine her yelling my name. Laying back on my bed again, she'd lifted her notebook up, staring up at it with her bottom lip in her mouth. I was antsy by the door, wondering how I hadn't offered it before but knowing it'd be too risky. Pricilla wasn't like every other girl, but I could tell from the last conversation we'd had that she was attracted to me as well. "So I-I started writing the second-"

My mouth was moving before I could figure out what I was saying but cocaine often put a wall block between my brain and most of the time, I'd liked that. I didn't care about anything that wasn't self-serving, I didn't care about how my words and actions affected other people, I had enough confidence for three of me and it felt good. It felt so fucking good to not care about my circumstances or where that put me in the world.

So I said things that were out of line, my worst fight happened when I was high, Oliver had found me behind a grocery store with a kid looming over me, pocket knife in his hand. I'd been bad but he ended up worse, the kid had friends, the kid had a knife. And he hadn't been able to use it on Oliver but I could've died, sometimes without the high, I'd find myself up at night feeling more resentment for myself than for Oliver.

Maybe self-resentment ran in my family too, my mother fucking hated herself, my brother wanted to kill himself but I liked to think it wasn't that bad for me. I saw how they lived with the hate looming over them, I heard how she cried herself to sleep most nights and maybe, knowing how hard it was to live like that had me doing everything in my power to not let it get that far. Before I'd stopped therapy, my therapist had said that I told myself all of that was Oliver's fault, told myself that everything I was was because of him and he ruined any chances of normalcy in my life- I didn't blame myself as much as I should have.

That didn't make much sense to me because before Oliver, I wasn't as different as I was now, nothing had been going wrong before he'd left. I mean, Dad went to jail but I was too young to really care much about that and I was a fairly happy kid until hgih school hit. Yeah, my family had problems but I hadn't been aware of them, I didn't take Oliver's therapy seriously, I didn't know much about my mom's personal life... Oliver, however, Oliver was always a mess, even if I didn't realize it until after it was already too late.

I was so fucked up. "You know how bad I wanna fuck you?" I was focusing on Cilla, hoping that we could bypass my pain when the self-resentment would start coming in later on when I was coming down. "Like, I really wanna fuck you. I really, really wanna fuck you." And even if my words weren't intentional... they were true. I did think about her, especially when I'd try to push away those other thoughts, nights had come with irrational thinking but somehow she'd end up on my mind even if just for a second.

I hadn't slept with anyone in weeks.

"Elliot?" And there was that voice again. "I don-I don't know wh-what... what?" She was flustered, her lips were pursed and all I honestly I wasn't thinking. If I was, I wouldn't have been as vulgar as I was being.

I didn't notice she moved, I didn't notice she was standing in front of me until her hand was on my chin, pulling me closer and she was looking into my eyes, hers wide. I misinterpreted what she was doing then, biting my lip and hoping it would encourage her, even in that state, I wanted her to initiate a kiss. I wanted to kiss her so bad.

"Are you high?" She sounded worried now as I closed my eyes, sinking into the doorframe, for some reason her lack of enthusism had upset me more than I thought it would. "You're so high."

"Yeah, shit feels great." Laughing, I pretended like I didn't expect more out of her touch.

She's looked around as if she suddenly felt uncomfortable in my room and in a few seconds, she'd frozen. "Seriously?" Rolling her eyes when she'd caught my eyes again, she let go of my chin, backing up before grabbing all her shit off my bed and pushing it into her backpack haphazardly. I looked over to where she'd been looking previously, onto my bedside table and I screwed my eyes shut at the realization of what she'd seen.

There wasn't much time to clean up before she'd knocked on my door so I didn't, there were remnants of the drug crushed and spread across the table, the bag it had came out of still there and a card beside it and she knew exactly what I was on. "Next time you're gonna be tripping balls, tell me so I can stay home."

And maybe "I didn't ask you to come," wasn't the best response considering we did have plans but maybe the rejection was what pushed it.

"I was supposed to be fucking Sierra. You know Sierra, that cheerleader? The black one with the, like, huge tits?" She looked grossed out, her brows scrunching as she tried to keep up and really, I was trying to keep up myself. If I didn't talk about that though, if I stopped myself now, I'd have dug into more personal shit, I would've told her why he fuck I was like this.

My incessant high rambling was how Ian found out about my shitty life and I wasn't trying to let any more unnecessary people in... even if she was hot. "Honestly, I'd probably fuck them before I fuck her, you could asphyxiate in- You probably don't know her. I was gonna fuck her after school, a whole plan; I'd get her some narcos and she'd put her pussy in my face."

Pricilla probably wasn't into this conversation and talking about other girls always made the ones I was with feel inferior so I backtracked, "You're way hotter than her."

"You're disgusting." Her bag was slung over her shoulder now and I wasn't sure when she'd slipped her shoes on but everything I said seemed to repulse her and I was ruining every chance of a friendship or even fucking her at that point.

"Don't be such a fuckin priss."

That sealed the deal, "Whatever, man." And she'd mumbled under her breath, shoving her way past me, my mom wasn't home and honestly, I didn't care about what Oliver had to say about it. Pricilla was heading out my room down the hall and to my front door when I'd caught her arm.

"Get off me, Elliot."

But I didn't, my hand was curled around her wrist and I was looking into her eyes, subconsciously, maybe I just wanted to get rid of her. "I don't know what the fuck your problem is-"

Shaking my hand off of her wrist, she crossed them over her chest and I tried to keep my eyes on hers. "You don't get to talk to me like that." Finger pointed out at me, she stood up for herself and God, did that only make her more attractive. "I don't know who you think you are and quite frankly, I don't care."

Laughing, she backed up a little bit more, passing my staircase fully and she had her fingers curled around my doorknob. "I don't care about that or how many people are scared of you but I'm not letting some random junkie with a superiority complex talk to me however he wants."

And that stung, it did, even if I didn't want to admit it. Everyone judged me, that's exactly why I didn't talk much, exactly why no one set foot in my house unless they were blood. Pricilla didn't fucking know me.

Maybe that was for the best. "Don't act like you don't want me."

Scoffing, she smiled falsely, ripping the door open and she was through it in a second. I'd caught it before she could slam it and settled for watching her jog down my steps quickly. Her ponytail was bobbing with every movement and her voice was solid as she threw back a, "Get ass fucked, you ass."

A/N:
I'm watch Dynasty and Steven and Sammy Jo are so wholesome, I love them.

In the past two months, I've binged Sabrina the Teenage Witch (which they're reviving), Chewing Gum, Atypical, Nikita, and now I'm on Dynasty and Once Upon a Time.

Updated: Thurs, September 20th

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