Craig's phone buzzed. He picked it up and read the first message from Token he had received in six months. "Yaaaas, we need to hang out. My summer has been great! Yours?" Token's necessity to hang out was just empty excitement. He was probably on some beach in California, or possibly in Belize. He probably had forgotten about Craig until he texted.
Craig tossed his phone. He didn't even want to talk to him right now; nostalgia and loneliness had settled in when Clyde had reached out to him last night. That was a mess. He was on house arrest after going on a high speed chase which ended up with his car flipping into a ditch; somehow he ended up unharmed. Luckily. He had dreams but the drugs had made them all fuzzy. Craig didn't want to talk to him right now either.
Tweek never talked to him anymore.
The twenty-one-year-old sighed heavily on what seemed like an abnormally plush couch in his sister's apartment- he was only there because his failure of an ass could not afford internet- and stared up at the stucco ceiling. He made shapes in the perfect ceiling, much like he did with the water stains in his. Her couch didn't poke springs into his back, it was plush. At least Ruby was doing well.
The shades were drawn and he heard what he knew was a basketball game on the court outside of Ruby's apartment building. He tried to block it out and focused on his breathing; the nostalgia had caused him to nearly be hit with an existential and quarter life crisis.
They had all had ambitions and dreams after high school. Life was going to be easy. He wasn't supposed to deal with a sick mother and have to drop out of college. Clyde wasn't supposed to become a junkie. They were supposed to all take and stay close and be successful…
But high school is not real life. High school does not prepare you for those kind of things; the news of neurological disorders and your best friends turning into people you hardly recognize, right before your very eyes. Or are you the one that has changed? It's hard to tell anymore.
Craig hit himself on his temple; his breathing was uneven again. High school was so long ago; he can't be stuck in the past. Ruby told him to try meeting new people and her sentiment was appreciated but it took him ten years to make friends with the people he was stuck in a classroom with every single day. He was not a very sociable person. In fact, sitting at home seemed like a much better option.
Or, her home. Because he needed internet.
Honestly he didn't remember the last time he left the house. It was borderline frightening.
The stucco patterns offer more company and comfort than anything. The rivets are calming and he wraps his arms around himself and stares up, in hours of silence, following their tiny streams branch together. All the while he ignored the ache of desolation that clawed at his very core.
Because the branches in the stucco trail merge together. They form as one, only to separate once more. Craig could pretend they were all together and things were still just like three years ago; but that's all it is… pretending. And deep down he knew that.
Panic attacks about nostalgia would not solve anything. And neither would sitting on his ass and mooching off his sister.
Being alone was always his biggest fear; he just would never admit it. But here he was.
He just wanted to talk to someone.
Craig picked up his phone and replied back to Token, "I've been busy. Maybe we can get drinks sometime." Drinks at a bar that would have two seats forever waiting. But the thought was there. At least in Craig's mind; Token probably wouldn't even consider it.
Token never responded; there he had it.
Tears burned his eyes but he rubbed them away. He caressed his leather phone case as he gazed up at the ceiling once more. Token was just busy. He'll respond. At least he could pretend.