I wished there was more of a concrete explanation of why I was the way I was. I could use the excuse that my dad wasn't really around, but that didn't really matter, because when he was around, he was...pretty damn normal.

When my parents realized I had sort of a knack for the whole art and painting and drawing thing, my dad gutted the shed in our backyard so I could use it for a makeshift studio. I've had to paint and repaint the walls over the years just from getting splattered with colors, or being sketched on, or any kind of mess that my moods created. I went through phases of just filling buckets with paint and throwing them at canvases the size of my body, or phases of trying to mix and create every color that my eyes could physically process.

I guess in a weird, twisted way, everything I did with my art reflected me - a hot fucking mess.

That was also the reason why I paced around my room, ripping open every dresser drawer and tearing through my closet, unable to find a single clean shirt to wear. Everything was either wrinkled from being just balled up and thrown around, smelled like cigarettes, or both.

"Man, can you just chill the hell out." Hunter droned on in his usual bored tone as he sat on the edge of my bed and watched me flutter around my room like a moth trapped behind glass. "I have never seen you this wound up about something in the almost 10 years I've known you. You're literally going to get coffee with this chick."

"Should I get a haircut?" I was too focused on my haggard reflection in the mirror to even register half of what Hunter was saying. "I feel like I look like a dirty hippie."

"I'm quite sure it's too late for that, unless you've somehow invented a time machine without my knowledge and plan to go back in time to this morning to buy yourself time to get a haircut," Hunter brushed me off with his usual nerd candor. "Besides, you are a dirty hippie."

I let out a groan and pulled at my hair again. "You're useless."

"Kai, I'm serious though," Hunter sighed out. "Are you sure about this?"

I finally looked over at him, and he eyed me with an expression he never wore - confusion.

"What?" I scoffed, tugging another shirt off and throwing it to the floor. Vaguely aware of how much resemblance I bore to a skeleton that belonged to Fight Club, I found myself wrapping my arms around my torso until I could find another shirt.

"You know what I mean." The puzzled expression he wore was gone as quickly as it came, but he continued to glance sideways at me with his dark eyes, like I was a dog that just got caught pissing on the carpet.

"No, I don't," I groaned, finally settling on a gray hoodie that smelled less like cigarettes than my other clothes did.

He exhaled sharply through his nose. "Look, I just want to make sure you're going through with all this for the right reasons. Not just so you can get close to her and finger her in the backseat of her car."

"Man, you're such a little shit Hunter." I threw my comb at him after unsuccessfully trying to sort my mad mop of hair out. "That's juvenile, we're not in high school anymore."

Hunter just continued to side eye me.

"Okay, I mean I wouldn't mind if it did happen," I shrugged. "But that's not like my goal or anything."

"What is your goal, then?"

"Well..."

I was interrupted by the shrill ringing of my cell phone, which sat beside Hunter on my unmade bed. I saw Sage's name pop up on my caller ID, but before I could grab the phone, Hunter snatched it up.

"No, absolutely not," he snapped at me. "I'm not letting you do this."

"Come on, she'll get worried if I don't answer the phone." I swiped at him, but he rolled backwards and off the bed.

"See!" He jumped to his feet, and my phone stopped ringing. "Why do you think that's okay? You're trying to take a step forward here, but if she sinks her claws in you she'll drag you 10 steps back."

"Well I guess it's a good thing I've already packed my suitcases to Hell," I rolled my eyes at him. "And stop sticking your nose in my relationship...thing. Despite what you and everybody else thinks, Sage likes me." My tone has reached peak brat level, but I didn't really care. "Like...what if nobody else ever does?"

"But this is what I don't understand about you. Why do you think in absolutes? Like you only have this one option or nothing."

Because that was the way my life was. If I hadn't adapted to it, I would be in an even bigger hole than I already was.

✗✗✗

With my skateboard out of commission, I walked the two miles from my house to the tiny little center of town, trying to smoke only two cigarettes instead of my usual four on a walk that distance. Our only coffee spot in town sat on a corner next to the surf shop. After two miles, I was achy and miserable, and I contemplated going in there and buying a new skateboard, so my ride home was slightly more pleasant, but any money my mom gave me for working at the Ordinary went to other necessities.

I probably could have asked AJ for a ride, but I didn't want to seem any more helpless than I already was. At this point I already owed her my left foot. A summer Saturday afternoon in Folly Beach meant everyone congregated in the center of town somehow, either at one of the too many lunch spots we had in such a small place, or trekking to and from the beach, surfboards in hand and sand everywhere. Generally people left me alone, but occasionally I'd get the look. When I saw her though, it all washed away with the tide.

AJ sat at one of the wrought iron metal tables outside of Southern Brews, and watching the way the sun hit her as she smiled chatted with the guy who took her order made my heart jump into my throat. Part of me had hoped her extension of kindness was only for me, but I was kidding myself into thinking I was something special. An angel is always an angel.

"Ah, he lives," she greeted me with that same self-assured smile she always wore. "Sit, young grasshopper."

I gave her a wry smile as I pulled the chair out, and the sound of metal scraping on concrete sent a shiver through me. "Well, I'm here."

"I got you the same cappuccino I brought you before, so I hope you didn't totally hate it the first time." She slid the cup over to me, steam still coming up in ribbons from the lid. It made me want another cigarette, but I dug my fingernails into my thigh instead.

"Oh you didn't have to uh..." I paused and swallowed down all my nerves and self-doubt. "I mean, thanks. I did like it, yeah."

I clutched the cup in my hands, desperate for warmth as the afternoon sun dipped behind the hotel, bathing us in shade.

"So..." she twirled around the straw in her iced coffee. "I need to ask you something."

People brushed by us on the street, probably wondering what the fuck someone like her was doing with someone like me. I scooted my chair in closer.

"Yeah, okay," I nodded. "Shoot."

"Are you ready for this?"

She nearly gave me whiplash the way she could turn herself on a dime like that, from a perfect summer afternoon into a thunderstorm.

"What? Well, yeah I'm..." Another knot made its home in my throat.

"This is not going to work unless you're actually willing to get better. To be better."

I ran my tongue over my bottom lip. "Well...did you have a moment where you just sort of woke up one day and decided you were done feeling like shit?"

She gave me a half smile and shook her head. "More or less, yeah."

"I think I had that moment." I picked at a scab on the back of my hand, another gross reminder of how shit I could feel.

My moment of vulnerability was interrupted by the barista from before, who brought over a chocolate croissant on a napkin and placed it in front of AJ.

"On the house sweetheart, alright?" he said before patting her shoulder and walking back inside.

"Oh you're the best Craig, thank you!" she called after him. She would know his name, but thankfully her attention was back on me. "I've been coming here most mornings, these croissants are unreal, they remind me of the kind I used to get at this corner deli in the city. Do you want some?"

Food and I had a bad relationship. It wasn't that I didn't like to eat, but the way I could feel my ribs through my shirt was another shit reminder - drugs ate my appetite.

"Nah, I'm okay," I shrugged her off. "I ate at home before I got here."

She actually laughed, and even though I knew it was because she didn't believe me at all, I had to smile. Her energy was too infectious.

"You don't have to lie to me, you know," she quipped at me with the faintest grin. "You can't bullshit a master bullshitter."

"Right..." I hissed out. She saw through me as if I was made of glass, but at the same time, she saw all of me. "Is it obvious?" I forced a chuckle.

"Is what obvious?"

"Well..." I shrugged. "Everything, I guess."

AJ cut the croissant in half and slid it over to me, another smile pulling at her perfect lips. "Yeah, but so what? Isn't that the whole point of this?"

I hesitated at first, but the way she smiled at me made the whole world I knew unravel. And fuck, I wanted that croissant.

"It's actually really good," I accidentally spit crumbs all over the table as I talked, but she laughed and smiled as if I had just given her the sun.

"See, I told you!" she said between laughs. "You gotta trust me."

I trusted her so much I probably would have let her fling me to the moon if she told me there'd be oxygen there. We only hung around for another 15 minutes or so, mostly just spent bullshitting about what restaurants AJ had tried and how her eucalyptus was in fact still alive.

"Are you sure I can't give you a ride?" She asked as she gathered her belongings from the table. The sun was beginning to set, and AJ gave a whole new meaning to golden hour.

"Yeah, I uh...I actually have to go pick up a new skateboard." I jerked my thumb over my shoulder to Lost Jack's. "And then I need to break it in so..."

I threw in an awkward chuckle and itched at my neck.

"Okay." She began to back away towards her car, and my body ached watching her leave. "I guess I'll see you next week."

"Yeah," I breathed out. "You will."

I could have sunk myself deeper into a lie, but instead, I actually walked across the street to the surf shop and bought a new god damn skateboard. Eat shit, drug money.