“Sure”, I say and roll my eyes ever so slightly, “Absolutely amazing idea, Zayn. No, definitely not. Are you absolutely stupid? We’re not gonna start taking illegal drugs too, now. We have to, I don’t know. Become responsible or something. Whatever adults do.” I stop talking when I notice I’m talking nonsense and lean against his bed.

“Shut it, Tomlinson”, he says, babbling just a bit as he takes another sip from his beer, “Holidays started. So. Fuck everything anyways.” He shrugs, looking at me as he blinks slowly and empties the bottle.

I roll my eyes again, a motion I do more than often when spending time around my best friend. “That’s what you said last year. Look where it’s gotten us. We could be travelling through south America or who knows what, but instead, we’re doing our last year, again. Honestly. Shit.”

Zayn shrugs. “It’s not all that bad, Louis. It’s okay, at least we’re the cool oldest students. No one will be eighteen yet when we come back to school. See? We can provide everyone with alcohol and be amazing.”

He grins, hiccupping before he lets himself fall down, landing on the carpeted floor of his room the empty bottle falls down next to him and I’m certain it’ll leave a stain from the last drops of beer running out of it, but I can’t bring myself to get up to save the carpet.

“It is all that bad, fucking hell”, I say, “look at this piece of shit.” I wave my paper through the air as if he didn’t already know how catastrophic it all is. “Zayn, we messed up badly, we have to face it.” I know I’m drunk and that Zayn is very aware of how much we messed up and I don’t have to tell him, but I do anyways.

“It just was a shit year, Tommy”, he says and I’d box him into his stomach for using that nickname if I wasn’t so comfortable right now.

“Like, it’s just been shit. Hasn’t it? Shit. The thing with your parents and all. And mine too, though, that has been the case for longer than a year. So honestly, it’s not our fault. They can’t blame us. Not my goddamn fault they’re all such assholes.”

“Mum’s not”, I mumble. That’s the worst about not passing the school year. Disappointing her. The absolute worst. Mum did absolutely everything to make the divorce as okay as possible for me, most of the time.  And look where it’s gotten me. I’m turning nineteen in five months and I haven’t even managed to finish school.

“So, you’re in”, Zayn states, suddenly dropping the topic. I let out a relieved sigh. I’ve talked about failing the year with more people in the past week than I usually even talk to about normal topics. He opens the drawer to his nightstand and pulls out a joint and lighter. I’m happy to have Zayn, really, but sometimes I feel like I could use someone a bit more responsible as a best friend than him.

“Where you even got that from?”, I ask quietly, closing my eyes because my head hurts like crazy, “Didn’t know people were actually selling drugs in this shit hole. God, Zayn, do you realize we’re stuck here for another goddamn year?” My head hurts even more after saying that out loud. I wanted nothing more than to get away from my town.

“Know that, thank you for reminding me, Louis, thank you very much.” He inhales deeply, the room starting to smell like weed pretty soon. It’s not like anyone will notice. Zayn’s basically living on his own, with his parents never home, always at work or at friends. They never cared about what their son did so much.
“Got it from Liam”, he then says, “You know? That guy from the last party.”

I nod twice. “Fun.” I take the joint from him. I’ve smoked cigarettes before so it shouldn’t be that different, right? And it’s not like it matters now. I fucking failed the school year. I didn’t manage to finish school, like any normal person does. Fuck.

“Fuck”, I say out loud again. “Really, Z, we’re such fucking idiots, fucking hell.” I get up from the floor and walk over to the window, opening it wide.

It’s warm outside and there’s crickets chirping and the stars are shining light and it could be the fucking perfect start into the holidays, if only. We could be sitting in the airplane to travel to Italy, right now. We could be applying for university of search for fun jobs. We could smoke weed without the thought of going back to school at the end of summer.

“Know”, he mumbles, his eyes closing, “Fucking know.” It’s quiet then. I hand the joint back to Zayn and sit down on the window sill, letting my legs dangle over the ground that’s actually pretty far down. I shouldn’t fall down, but my balance skills hopefully still work that well.

I stare outside, into the garden. There’s still Zayn's old trampoline, old and rusty and if anyone stepped onto it besides that old cat that belongs to nobody so everyone takes turns with feeding it, it would probably fall into pieces.

“Remember when we used to throw a bunch of footballs into the trampoline and would  pretend, they're lava balls?”, I ask, hitting the wall of the house with my feet until some of the plaster crumbles off it..

“Yeah”, Zayn says, staring at his ceiling with glow in the dark dinosaur stickers stuck onto it. We did it together when we were in second grade, using an old latter we found in the basement. Zayn ended up breaking his arm. His parents drove him to the hospital and because I wasn’t allowed to stay at home alone, I came with them, waiting in the ER with Zayn’s mum until dad was done with work and could pick me up.

He was really angry, I remember. I felt really guilty but the next time I visited Zayn and saw all the little dinosaurs walking over the ceiling, I thought that even his broken arm was worth it, a little. He even got a really cool cast that I was allowed to sign first.

“You always lost. During lava balls, I mean. You were bad at it”, I tell him. It’s not true. I’m just stupidly angry at everything and I feel like being mean, in that moment.

“Fucking liar”, is all Zayn says, taking another drag from the joint before putting it out on his fucking carpet, “You fucking know that’s a lie. I was better at it.”

“No, shut the hell up.”

“Fuck you.” He throws a used ball of socks against my back, or attempts to. It flies straight out of the window.

I snort. “Loser.” Sometimes, Zayn and I fight about the most stupid things, really. Especially when we’ve drank too much.

It’s silent again. I look at the house next to Zayn’s. The lights inside are all turned off. Their garden is separated from Zayn’s family’s only by a light blue picket fence. There are two adults sitting on a bench around the corner. I can’t properly see them but they’re quietly talking and laughing. All happily.

“Do you think we’ll ever fucking be anything?”, Zayn asks, “Or are we gonna end up as fucked up as our parents?” He sits up, crossing his legs.

“My mum’s not fucked up, shut your goddamn mouth. Told you not to talk about her like that. Not my fault your parents are both shit.” I regret it the moment I say it but I never think before speaking, especially not when having drunk alcohol.

“I fucking hate you.”

“Sorry”, I mumble, looking down at my feet and nearly falling out of the window. “Maybe we should sleep.”  I get off the window sill before I really fall down, then slip out of my shorts until I’m only I’m boxers and my shirt.

“Maybe”, Zayn agrees slipping out of his shirt, “Yeah.”

We try fitting into his small bed together, backs pressed against each other, blanket kicked to the ground because it’s hot and the air is stuffy. It smells like weed and alcohol and I suddenly feel really, really disgusting.

I sit up again and take off my shirt so that the small breeze coming through the window actually cools me down a little. Our skin feels sweaty and hot against each other and if it was anyone but my best friend, I’d find this whole situation extremely disgusting.

“Goodnight”, I whisper, squeezing between Zayn and the wall, “Sleep well.”

“Don’t kick me out of the bed”, Zayn replies quietly, words softly leaving his lips, “And sorry about what I said.”

“It’s okay”, I whisper, but he’s already fallen asleep, breath heavy and regular.

I wake up feeling absolutely horrible the next morning and spend it on the cold tiles of Zayn’s bathroom, throwing up until my stomach clenches from being so empty. I have to keep myself from crying. I feel so goddamn irresponsible and stupid and bad.

The failed school year should’ve been a wakeup call but instead, I’m continuing with what I started last year. I should get my life together, not drown in misery. I get up and use the spare toothbrush Zayn keeps here for me to get the disgusting taste out of my mouth, then sink back onto the floor, my head resting against the pleasantly cool wall.

Zayn, as always, is barely hung over. He makes us some sandwiches and two cups of tea. He carries it all upstairs with two ibuprofens for me to take. We eat on the bathroom floor, Zayn leaning against the door of the shower, smiling at me pitifully before taking a big bite of his sandwich.

“You okay?”, he asks, eyebrows drawn together in concern, “You look fucking shit.
I snort, quietly, because if I didn’t, I’d probably cry. “Yeah. I’m fabulous. Never been better, really.”

He doesn’t even look up from his plate but nods in agreement. I’m so grateful to have someone to feel shit with. We’ve always been like brothers, Zayn and I. We both don’t have any real siblings but ever since we met in preschool, it felt like I had a brother. We’ve been through everything together and it shows. There’s nothing I don’t tell him.

“Mum’s gonna kill me if I come home hungover like this. I promised to do better this school year.” I rub my forehead with my thumb as if the headache would go away by doing that.

“Stay at mine until the evening. Then go home and say we studied or some shit. Okay yeah, don’t say that. Say we had a nice sleepover. Just some movies and all.” Zayn shrugs twice, raising an eyebrow as he waits for an answer to his suggestion.

I make an unconvinced sound, then let my head drop against the bathroom wall, closing my eyes. This has to get better. Everything has to get better again. “Yeah, sure. Let’s watch a movie, or something.”

We do spend the rest of the afternoon sleeping on the couch in the living room, a big blanket covering our bare chests, binge watching a new series on Netflix, playing Fifa and ordering cheesy, unhealthy pizza.

My headache gets less over the day and I feel almost normal, hanging out with Zayn, enjoying our holidays like any normal teenager would. If it wasn’t for the fact that we could be traveling to our dream countries as well right now, it’d be almost nice.

~~~

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