There's so much I could be doing with my life, but I choose to do nothing, because it was with Dallon that I did it all, and now that he's gone, I'm lost in the sea of who knows what, for it could be blood, or it could be water, or it could be a mix of the two, strained and twisted into disfigurement.

I feel that I've noted too often on this subject like it's still something I should be concerned with, and some may argue that it should, but I'm indifferent, and I always have been, so why is Dallon protruding from my mind so thoroughly? It's as if he's parting a curtain for a signal to me, as if this mystery will tear my safety to shreds, as if he knows all of this and is only trying to warn me of the obliteration of my own self, which is soon to elapse without the reminder that Dallon may be attempting to provide me with.

Maybe I'm just paranoid, but maybe that also doesn't mean much, because I'm perpetually paranoid about bullies, about what I've done to deserve the agony of living while other people fight me to say that life is a gift, but they won't listen to me when I tell them they're wrong. If life is a gift, then it's a gift like clothing from your grandmother; you have to smile and thank her for it, though you would've much rather prefered an alternative such as an iTunes card or a guitar or a lit new sticker pack or anything other than that, but beside your grieving, it's still there. It's what you get, and every kindergarten teacher will preach to not throw a fit over it, but kindergarteners are never cooperative, so they hide in the corners, in the shadows with blurring paint crusted over the tile, narrating through poetry and verse how they'll seek revenge where no one else could, how they'll obtain that iTunes gift card or that guitar or that sticker pack, how they'll win.

If you still have hope for acquiring them, that is, because some of us would favor being tossed off of the highest cliff in history so they don't have to deal with that second Christmas where it's just a rerun of last year, grandma's socks and all, as a loop is boring and dull and as monotonous as it gets, and we're being reincarnated in that same fashion of a loop anyway, so we then ask ourselves when will it end? When will we break free from our shackles and embrace death and its cessation of a loop?

Most likely never, because humans aren't that strong. Humans are the ones who quiver at a sharp noise. Humans are the ones who complain without end. Humans are the ones who are caught in a loop, and that is what life feels like right now for me.

A pounding noise ruptures the window, something of nightmares, the nightmare of a person climbing into your bedroom to murder you or (though not as an alternative that's much better) kidnap you, and that's why you fold the blinds over on each other, why you never look outside at night, why you're scared of the dark, but what could be worse than my life right now? Why shouldn't I address the knocker at the window?

I don't care about what happens to me anymore, so I slice the connection between me and my comforter and trudge towards the afflicted aperture, peeling away the blinds to unearth the frazzled posture of Dallon Weekes, who hasn't been around here in a few days and has thrown me to the wolves of anxiety, elevating questions about what could've harmed him out in the wild or wherever he was (because in case you haven't noticed, I was not informed of his location, which may or may not have justified my frantic behavior throughout the school day), about what he was thinking back there, about what I did to spring this absence to life.

"Dallon!" I scream, dragging him (to hell, possibly, after what he's done, after what he's put me through) away from the window and onto the floor, where he lands with a thud rimmed by inconsolable whiplash. Before he can groan in anguish and sit up to tend to his wounds, he's shoved to the ground once more and gilded with my lips upon his.

The truth is, quite simply, that I don't give a shit about discussing why the hell it was that his decision of leaving me was so perfect in his mind, because if you ask anyone else, they'd agree with me, but they'd also probably agree that I could've easily done something about it, and maybe that's plausible, and maybe it isn't, but Dallon is back for me, back from the abyss.

And he's laughing, a joyful sound whipped in honey and baked in splendor, a joyful sound that makes it seem, at least for a split second, that he wasn't wallowing in a treacherous void intending to kill him without a logical reason, without a motive, and I hate myself for indulging in such a lie, but he's been only a memory for days, and how can I survive that if I don't allow the entire treasury of my emotions to amass for the period when Dallon returns?

I'm shaking it off, and I'm dropping it, and I'm kissing him like I've loved him my whole life, like we're contrarily kissing for the first time, sloppiness piled upon teen angst and heartbreak and swirled into tears savored against our lips, and it is only when Kara bursts into my room, frightened, that we recoil in surprise.

Electing to ignore the scene of her brother pinning a guy to the floor after said guy sneaked in from the window, Kara rushes towards our huddle, exclaiming, "Dallon!"

Though shocked, Dallon rejuvenates his composure for a smile as his arms bifurcate to envelope my sister.

Kara was almost as intimate with our prior event as I was, dashing outside when she detected the shrieking piano of my sobbing and sobbing herself when she realized what had recently occurred, and she has mourned with me just as rigorously, so to see that one of her best friends is delivered back home safely is a wondrous sight.

"Why did you ever leave us, Dallon?" Droplets of saltwater scar my sister's doe eyes, and it is within a brief moment that I catch Dallon hesitating, punishing himself for what he did to this poor girl who loved him very deeply and loved him very loyally, this poor girl who wept for days because she couldn't bear the loss of someone so important to her, this poor girl who did nothing immoral yet suffered at the hands of it, and in the awareness of this, Dallon is rendered absolutely clueless.

"I won't do it again. I promise."

"But why?" Kara's tone is more desperate now, and Dallon looks to me for advice, but I'll have to side with my sister on this one. He can't just leave his petit ami and his sibling, then expect us to be sympathetic, expect us better yet to be understanding of why he did such a terrible thing to those whose actions never warranted it.

"I was foolish, and I messed things up for all of us."

Damn right he did. I just want to clarify to Dallon that what he pushed me into was no game, no joke, no carnival ride. What he pushed me into was lamentation and all of its perverse benefits, and I hate the manner in which it scaled my spine and whispered into my ear that it wasn't out to murder me when that was a blatant lie only an idiot would defend, but I guess I am an idiot, because I was scared as hell.

"Where did you even go? Aren't your parents in France?" I inquire, granting acrimony a seat closer towards the front row yet preserving its distance for caution.

"Yeah, they're with my sister in Bordeaux, so I, um..." Dallon's focus skates over me and against the dimly sketched wall, back and forth like a crumbling metronome. "I just slept in an alley." He prepares himself for my criticism, which is definitely the next step in sorting through this incomprehensible chain of events.

How could he disrespect himself like that when he could've fled a life of scarcity to instead cherish his moments with me? He chose sleeping in an alley over his own best friend, over relinquishing his pills, over helping himself, and I hate to say it, but that's messed up, and I'm stressed beyond compare.

"You slept in a fucking alley?" Kara's mouth is suspended in confusion, more disappointed than astonished, but it's just a tactic she deploys to maintain her obnoxiously sarcastic personality while she's silently burning inside, and with her comment Dallon compresses his limbs as if a puppy accused of a crime.

Pitying this wreck, I bunch Dallon in my arms and seed an abbreviated kiss to his lips only to appease him, which Kara distastefully denounces with the gyration of her eyes, and I observe that his skin perspires a winter chill, a suitor to his subdued trembling, but Dallon's endured enough already, so I discard the thought and save it for tomorrow.

Tomorrow is the fresh start we all need.

~~~~~

A/N: THE BOYS ARE BACK (YEAH!) THE BOYS ARE BACK

honestly high school musical is the shit lmao

Queckneck: would you read a sequel to this? cause I'm making one (I originally planned on writing it first but then I realised I need to know the backstory and all its details)

Aecksweck: well I don't read my work anyway so

~Dacankle