Harley

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True fear tastes like a cigarette, slowly burning away like everything you thought you'd known.

I was on a stage, illuminated by a few flickering overhead lights and the gas station windows pooling yellow beams over dirt smattered sidewalk, cold under my hands. Smoke perfumed the air around, spiraling from the small almost innocent looking cigarette held lightly, dangerously loose in my thin, quivering fingers. It tasted like shit.

I held it up to my mouth and breathed it in. Felt it fill my lungs, felt my throat constrict ever so slightly.

Breathed it out.

It was all so confusing, the hurt. It broke its promises, feeding me filthy lies that told me it would be over if I just tried another way to escape. But the ache never left my bones. It left behind addictions. It left behind tear stains carving themselves down the curves of my face like pathways they'd follow the next time around.

There was always a next time around.

A time I'd give up and leave marks in my skin because I couldn't control myself again and the voice in my head told me I deserved to bleed, that the pain I was already going through wasn't enough. I was the problem.

I stared at the gently smouldering cigarette and felt my breaths come slower.

When would it end?

The light percussion of a bell split the night, a sheaf of light pouring over the sidewalk beside me.

"So are you just gonna sit there until you rot or what,"

I didn't bother to look up. The voice belonged to Rick, a name on a glossy nametag reflecting the gas station lights, nested in a sea of green. A coarse hand on the doorway. An overused voice, crackling like a vinyl record.

I shrugged halfheartedly.

A sigh.

"Look, Harley. Uh-"

"What,"

With a heave, and the swing and rustle of the door slipping shut, he let himself drop onto the curb by me. "Shouldn't'a let you get away with that pack, huh." He examined the Marlboro box, now half empty. Exhaled, and set it down on the sidewalk once more.

"Got it bad, huh?"

"Not too bad,"

"Sure,"

I tapped the end of the cigarette on the edge of my jeans and pulled the sleeves of my sweater up, willing curious eyes off the marks of my skin.

They always pretended not to see my scars, but never very subtle about it.

"I could..."

"I don't need your help,"

I spat it out a little too hard, too curt, words like a nail gun against a hard surface, hitting with a thunk and a finalization. An eyebrow raise, and a hand on my shoulder.

"You sure?"

"I don't,"

The man had more heavy sighs than words.

"Alright then."

With a great effort he pulled himself up and knit his eyebrows at me, scratching his nose and muttering something I couldn't quite hear. I peered up at him, unconcerned, almost boredly. Tired.

"It's getting late, kid. I hope you have somewhere to go 'cause you can't hang out here forever. Don't you have friends or something?"

"No,"

"...ah," I could sense his concern fading as easy as the dim streetlights overhead. too hard to help someone who won't ask for it. At least it wasn't him that had to deal with this, until it was. The only thing he had to deal with was getting a kid out of the parking lot.

"You don't wanna be out here too late, haven't you been watching the news?"

I looked back up.

"What about it?"

"All those attacks. There was some commotion nearby like... some kid taken to the hospital 'cause of it."

I blinked. This was new to me.

"What kind of attacks?"

"I don't know. Nobody's sure, dogs or thugs or something."

"wait a second," I smashed the cigarette into cold cement like an unwanted bug, letting it sizzle out and blacken. "Youre saying I should be scared of a dog, or somebody who wants my wallet?"

"You haven't seen 'em,"

"Seen what?"

"The... victims. They're beat so bad, almost can't recognize them. bloody and slashed."

He leaned down, prying a smoke from the abandoned box, and pulling a lighter from his back-pocket gave me a sideways look. "Mind if I?"

I pulled my knees up and set my arms over them, hands dangling down over the asphalt. "Go ahead,"

"Anyways," he mumbled through the side of his mouth, cupping his hand to protect the flame. "saw it happen y'know, it was just over here. The police and shit, not the kid getting half killed," he let out an uncomfortable laugh, the kind when it's not funny in the least but you're not sure what else to do with yourself. "officer came around and asked me about it."

"who was it?"

"Who?"

"the kid,"

"Oh him, you'd probably know him. Not a very big town, huh. They said it was that Halloway kid."

I lit another cigarette.

He nodded at me and breathed out a couple rings of smoke. "You know him?"

"Halloway..."

I thought. And thought. And thought.

Trophies trapped in glass prisons marked with gold lettered names engraved, loud laughter and talk ricocheting off classroom walls and hallways. Blonde hair blinding me from the sunlight reflecting off too much gel. I never watched the games. But it was hard not to know who Leon Halloway was.

"I know of him. The football guy,"

"Right, well as for how it's looking now, won't be playing football for a while. Least that's what they said."

All I could think of to say was a quiet "hm." Leon Halloway, no longer able to play football. It seemed so unnatural, so wrong. Who would he be without it? A completely different person? His only attribute seemed to be the fact that he was good at it.

Who cares, the voice in my head seemed to whisper. It's not like it has anything to do with you.

"You friends?"

I stared, my gaze far away, trailing up to the roof of the gas station, the light and the dark, the sky, the stars, the streetlights above.

"The opposite," I replied.

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A.N. Salty.
Sometimes you just need a gas station therapist, right? Rick's there for you- like it or not.
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