He!

is God,

again

This town is a disease. Sitting and slowly dying we all just wither and melt away because there is nothing else to do.

I can't get over how beautiful he is and how much I want to run away with him. If I were given the opportunity there would be no hesitation, no retaliation. We would run and run and cry and run and be together.

Forget everything in that last paragraph; It's all a lie.

Withering in the frozen mountains of Colorado, standing and waiting for the bus to arrive in the morning to take me to school. I cough lightly and the heat makes smoke unfurling from my chapped lips and dissipating into the ice air. The smoke of my heat matches that of the cigarette hanging limply from his lips as he lies bloody and dying.

That too, about the dying. Forget that lie too.

He stands casually on the snow, as if he's spent his life practicing so he can look amazing right now, just standing. Everything about him is what I want to be, casual and calm and cool. We are polar opposites and it's only polarity causing my dire want of him. I just want a change.

Where I am a whisper he is a scream.

Forget that last sentence, I'm not that poetic.

His blonde hair spills from his hood and spikes across his forehead. I love everything about his hair. He coughs lightly and I watch frozen as the cigarette falls from his lips, its precarious existence hanging from his lips ended in one motion. It lies, smoking on the ground as he swears loudly to the sunrise.

"That was my last one." He says, shaking his hooded head. Deep, sea blue eyes stare longingly down at the Last Cigarette and all I can think is how much I want those deep sea eyes to stare longingly at me.

But then I realize what I'm thinking and remember who he is.

Where I am an ember he is a wildfire, and how I wish for fire to burn this place to the ground. The ultimate contrast, from alive and frozen to destroyed and burning. Only all of this is a lie and you can't trust me.

My pale skin buries itself away behind my jacket. Hair of flaming wood hides under my hat. Only it isn't that cool of a color, just auburn.

Why does it hurt me every time I think of loving him. The truth, I think, is beyond a liar like me. A professional liar whose very poison is the truth.

Once again I cough and finally he takes notice of me.

Except that's a lie, because he only gazes through me and behind, to someone else.

"Hello." He says.

I open my chapped lips to answer but hear a reply from behind me.

"Hm."

I turn to look and it's my best friend. My best friend.

Only that's a lie because he hasn't spoken to me all year. None of them have.

This other boy, his black hair is ugly and his bright blue eyes are a horrible contrast and everything about him is disgusting.

Only that's a lie because I hate him and you can't trust me.

My love smiles and his teeth are yellowed and one is missing, the fourth from the left. I already knew this tooth was missing, only ignore that because it's creepy.

This other boy smiles with his hideous straight white teeth and his disgusting pink lips and he says "Bus is late."

My love nods in reply and poses a question that's purely rhetorical because he knows the answer is no. "Do you have a cigarette?"

As if by miracle this other boy says no. I hope you sensed the sarcasm. I nod my head yes and reach into my pocket, throwing my love a whole pack because I have four more at home. He smiles warmly and thanks me, before staring into my green eyes and kissing me passionately for 4.37 seconds.

Only none of that happens after Stan answers and I'm really just lying.

"You know I don't smoke dude." What a tool. Stan keeps talking and I don't listen, because the bus arrives and I count the number of people to pay attention to me as I walk slowly past them.

I sit all alone and silently wait for the bus to end this journey.

The whole time we're moving I feel myself wilting. I cough lightly and after 20 minutes we're there. I count the number of people who pay attention to me as I walk off the bus.

It's an easy number to count to both times. Zero.

School oozes by and I see him repeatedly, and though he smiles it's never to me. I am so invisible that I'm not even bullied, just silently ignored. I almost wish I were bullied.

Once home I do all my homework and then have dinner with my family. We eat in silence at the table and then afterwards I do the dishes. It's so quiet eating dinner my ears are ringing, my brain trying to create something to listen to. After I finish the dishes I head back up to my room, get ready, and go to bed.

It's only eight o'clock.

You can't imagine my surprise when I awake to the sound of a rock on my window. I gaze down lovingly at my dearest and quickly dress, run down to him and hold him tightly. "Oh, I knew you would come to save me!" I whisper into the night, and with my ear on his chest he replies, "I knew you would be waiting."

Only none of that happens and I wake up to my alarm clock at six forty-five.

I wait at the bus stop and he stands five feet away from me and restless. He needs a cigarette and oh how I wish I could give him one. Force him to speak to me. Mutter thanks, at least. Stan arrives and mumbles, "I stole one of my dad's for you." Before handing him a cigarette.

The joy is evident in my love's face and in his posture.

How I hate Stan how I hate him how I hate him.

How he needed this, and how gladly he smokes. I note both of these things silently, before closing my eyes and wishing myself struck by a car. Wishes, you know, don't come true very often.

The next day is Friday and for some reason my love is not at the bus stop. I panic for a second, but then see him arriving from the horizon, coming to take me from this horrible place of ice and silence. Only that never happened, and he never came at all.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

Home. I'm home again and it's a weekend and there's nothing for me to do. I can hear my family talking, or maybe it's the TV. The point being, they're downstairs and it's Friday night at 8:00 and I'm lying on my bed.

How I hate them. I don't even exist.

I walk down the stairs and walk right past my entire family, out the door, and they never even take their eyes off the screen of the TV. And then I run. I just run and run and this time I'm not lying, all I do is run. And eventually I'm out of breath and I'm not exactly sure where I am.

And then I close my eyes and start spinning around wildly in the middle of the street. The blaring of a car horn wakes me up. I watch as a car passes quickly, inches from my pale skin. I smile and the man driving flips me off and mouths obscenities and speeds away.

And then I glance across the street, and there- walking idly at 9:00 on a Friday night with his hands in his pockets and a cigarette hanging from his lips- is my love. He glances over, by chance, as another car passes and waves me over, out of the street center, to his side. I spin once more, searching for whoever is behind me. But there's no one, my love actually sees me. And no, this time I'm not lying. Trust me.

I walk slowly towards him, and we meet up on the sidewalk.

"Where are you headed?" I offer weakly after a minute of strained silence.

"Party." Is his grumbled reply, the word slipping out around the carcinogen in his mouth and drifting away with the smoke. He coughs lightly and stands through another minute of frozen, lulled silence.

"Oh." I mutter.

And then he said I could go with him if I wanted. And I said ok. And no, I'm not lying. We arrived at 9:45, fashionably late as my love called it, and he immediately introduced me to the host, as if I hadn't known Craig for years. The black-haired host simply started a conversation with my love, and ignored me.

By 10:30 my love was fairly drunk, and I hadn't had a single thing to drink- not even water. "Ky," he slurred, "I think you need to get drunk." I smiled and shook my head, but my love wasn't having it. He dragged me by hand to the large kitchen and made me some sort of something. Practically forcing the drinks down my throat, one after another- sometimes briefly interrupted by us having to take a shot- it wasn't long before I too, was drunk.

I wake up to the sound of my phone vibrating in my pocket. I can't seem to move my legs or arms too much, and my blankets feel very heavy, but they're so warm and for some reason I feel like I definitely shouldn't leave. But then my eyes open, and I see the familiar face of my love, asleep, on top of me. And beyond that I see an unfamiliar ceiling. And then the memories flood back into me. Craig's house- his party- the drinks- the shots. And nothing after that.

That's about when I realize that I'm wearing only my boxers, and we're in Craig's bedroom- his bed even- and my love is wearing…

Nothing.

And then I panic and throw myself from the bed, my love falling and waking rudely on the floor. I search desperately for my pants, but they seem to be hiding, and I turn to come face-to-face with a very angry love. His deep sea eyes glower at me, and he never even notices that he's standing in the middle of Craig's bedroom naked. In front of me.

And then he smiles, and says "I need a cigarette, come on." And then he pulls on his boxers and his jeans. And then we go out Craig's second story window and onto a ledge of roofing. And he sits there. Shirtless in the frozen air of this hellish town, pink nipples stiff from the frigid touch of nature. His hairless chest rises and falls with his even breathing, exaggerated when he inhales the sickness or exhales the smoke. His deep sea eyes roam my still boxer-clad body, shivering in the cold, searching for a reason of our close encounter this morning. I smile and blush and shake my head.

"I don't remember anything after my fifth shot of, what did you call it- SoCo?" I say, grinning. He laughs lightly, airily, and says "Not all first timers can make it to five. You're a natural."

I feel special, and most of all, I feel noticed. There's a slight pang of guilt when I recognize the illegality of my actions, but then I awaken to this new feeling of absolute joy in having gone against every expectation and not failing- quite the opposite as I not only partied, but partied hard and woke up to my love pinning me to a bed with his oppressive sleeping weight.

That moment when I discovered rebellion was Fate laughing and introducing me to Tragedy.

It's a week later and he's said hi to me, not anyone behind me but me, every time he's seen me. And I say hello and then he sees Stan and has a conversation, but that's ok.

And we go to parties every weekend. My love always knows where to find a party and sometimes we even party-hop from one to another, once or twice we even hit three in one night. And every time we party we find ourselves awkwardly in some state of undress the next, increasingly hung-over, morning. And each time I return home and everything smells of soil and dust because nothing can compare to the scent of him.

It always shocks me, that crushing weight that silence has. That obnoxiously loud ringing in your ears you get- trying to find noise when there is none because we can't handle being that alone. I always feel this shock, stemming from the dramatic silence around me, when I wake up alone in my bed. Every weekday, when Kenny doesn't party and so I have nowhere to go.

These are the worst days.

On those weekends, when every night is a new party and every morning is Kenny and I snuggled in a new bed, I wake up to sound- sometimes a party still going on, a fight breaking out, but usually just his even breaths as he gently sleeps next to me. He's so different, between the parties and sleeping. At the parties he's bright and a complete plexus, the rest of the guests in orbit around him. But here, when he's asleep next to me, he's still a star, but one that is stationary and just shining, dimly, from a distance.

So close, and yet so far.

It's hard, very hard, to not reach out and touch him on those mornings. I don't want to disturb him any more than I will when I untangle myself from him-much gentler than that first time- and gently rouse him once it's noon so he can smoke and I can get home.

Not that I'd prefer to be there. Maybe I just want to walk through the front door and have my mom and dad there, waiting, angry. "Where have you been all night?" they'd ask, and I just sit quietly and they'd yell and then ground me.

Or maybe even if they just took notice at all.

But it's all right because the more and more time goes by the less and less time I spend at home. My cell phone vibrates against my thigh on Friday during Calculus and I inconspicuously remove it from my pocket and read the text.

'Party tonight at Stan's house. Coming?'

It's from Kenny. I love the fact that he doesn't shorten his words in texts, because neither do I and I like having things in common with him. I text back to him after glancing quickly around the room. 'For sure. Nothing better to do.'

The vibration awakens me from the mundane static of my teacher's voice once again.

'Are you sure? Stan and you used to be close, what happened?'

I cough lightly but no one looks up.

'He chose you.'

Kenny soon replies again, 'Are you sure you're OK with partying with him? I can find something else tomorrow…'

'No. Let's do it.'

That moment, when I went against my better judgment as well as the feeling in the pit of my stomach, that was Fate laughing and me shaking Tragedy's hand.

And then it's after school and I don't even bother going home, don't even bother calling and telling them where I'll be. I go straight for Kenny's last class and wait for him. I'm not sitting outside the door long when I see his familiar jacket and he reaches into his pocket, grasping a pack of cigarettes and counting the seconds before he's off campus and can smoke.

"Ky," he begins, "are you absolutely sure about this party?" I nod gratuitously and we get up, making our way to Stan's house because his parents left for a trip this morning and the party is already starting.

We're barely through the door and all noise ceases. And I'm not lying. It's so deathly quiet for all of four seconds that I actually purposely cough to make sure I haven't gone deaf suddenly. The ringing starts up and I don't like it because it's a weekend and the ringing only comes on weekdays. All these warning signs are ignored and we enter the house, walking up the stairs and dropping our stuff off in the guest room.

By now the party has resumed and no one seems keen to comment on the preceding silence. Kenny finds Stan with me in tow and hugs him quickly, but that's ok, and then we travel to the living room where beer pong has been set up only with Vodka so I suppose it's vodka pong. Either way, I'm an expert at whatever pong and Kenny immediately calls me for his team. I'm perfect for this game. By now the Grime-a-way cleaner taste of vodka has no effect on me- thanks to Kenny and the parties- and I even volunteer to drink for Kenny, because vodka is his least favourite poison, but Stan protests because that's not how the game works and by now we're all drunk enough not to care who we're with and all of us are friends.

But no form of perfection lasts forever. Soon someone starts drama with someone else and slander is being thrown like mud and soon fists are thrown like slander. And soon Stan has to step in but he's drunk so Kenny gets in the middle and gets hit and throws the two unknowns out of Stan's house. Sporting a bleeding lip, Kenny turns to me and smiles, his lost tooth forming a black hole four from the left, and it's about 2:00 at this point and Stan just passed out at the vodka pong table.

And then Kenny and I grab a bottle of SoCo, two shot glasses, a bottle of peach schnapps, 7Up, and the last shot of vodka in the house, and ascend the stairs to our guest room.

Our. guest room.

We're up until 4 drinking and then we run out and after one last bathroom run for each of us, we strip down and climb into bed.

Kenny laughs drunkenly and talks about how the booze hurt his bloody lip. And then I say I'll fix it and I lean in and kiss him gently, and he kisses back.

I wake up and it's Saturday and I'm naked, tangled with Kenny. I go back to sleep, though it's already noon, and before I nod off I hear that the party has started again.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

I open my eyes and it's suddenly 4:00 in the afternoon, or evening, and I finally climb out of the guest bed and out of Kenny's arms, put on some pajama pants, and make my way back to the bathroom. The mirror shows me with auburn hair a mess, and blood smeared on my lips and neck. I touch my hand gently to the red smear and feel the heat of Kenny's kisses and I smile. I remember all of this party, surprisingly.

I travel downstairs and see Craig and Stan doing some gentle cleaning.

I cough lightly after helping them by picking up numerous bottles and then Craig says he made coffee so I grab a mug and head back upstairs to the guest room. Our guest room.

The way he sleeps is perfect but I have to wake him and let him smoke. Let him make the call on if we stay for another night with a smaller group and considerably less liquor or if we find another party.

So I climb back into the bed and gently shake him by the shoulder.

He wakes up slowly and by the time he's fully awake he's already smoked a cigarette out in the backyard. He stands barefoot in the snow. He smiles up at me and I'm captivated. He smiles up at the sky, the snow gently falling all the while, and he never shivers.

And I walk to him and wrap my arms around him.

And he looks to me with love, only that's a lie because he's confused.

And I say, "I thought you looked cold".

And he looks to me confused and then shrugs his shoulders with my arms resting on them and enjoys the heat, sinking back into me by nature. And I realize or remember that he was obviously drunk. What happened was drunk and a mistake. And he doesn't remember.

And I go a two weeks without a party, and I have seventy-five unread text messages from him. He hasn't texted me at all today, and I delete all of the unread texts.

I took this too far, I though it was so perfect. I don't even know why. It doesn't matter what he does when he's drunk, he could never love me.

I'm disgusting.

And he's just so perfect. I was fooling myself.

Now it's spring. I'm so close to summer it hurts, being home and smelling the dust all the time. My nose still tries to draw in his scent every now and then but by now I don't even remember. He got the message contained in my lack of replies- hasn't tried to talk to me.

By chance I run into him, literally, and instantly my stomach explodes into butterflies, my cheeks betraying me in a blush. All my careful time taken avoiding this is broken.

"Hey" I stutter, and he smiles so genuinely the butterflies all wither and die in my gut.

"Glad we're finally talking again. I didn' wanna bug ya, figgerd ya needed time-" and that's a lie because he texted me 75 times in two weeks- "So, how ya been?"

And I cough lightly and smile, only mine is a lot less genuine than his.

"Around" inhaling dust "not doing much, really" laying in bed alone "getting my grades back up after they fell last semester" but I loved when they fell because I felt rebellious and it was because of you "and yourself?"

He looks around a bit, and turns back to me, "I been alright. Been better, but been worse."

And he is a prophet. He is a genius, a poet. His words spark with intelligence hidden under a humble façade. I need him.

"Going to party this weekend?" I offer weakly, hope- and butterflies- flaring.

"Yeah."

And he leaves it. The word slowly dissolves in the air between us as I sit in silence hoping for two words that will bring back my joy- long absent.

"Wanna come?"

And I smile so big. And it's Friday and we go to Craig's house and Kenny becomes the shining magnet that I needed so much. And other people talk to me, ask me where I've been. And I say "Around, but everything's perfect now" and I keep drinking and soon we're drunk and playing truth or dare.

"Kenny, truth or dare."

"Dare"

"I dare you to… kiss Wendy."

And Stan huffs because Wendy is long his, and Kenny laughs and pats Stan's shoulder, and Kenny leans to Wendy because he never says no to a dare, and I want to be like him and be so brave and light-hearted.

"Alrigh'. Ky, truth or dare?"

"Tr-" groans interrupt me and fill the room- "dare" And the butterflies are back so I know something is about to happen.

"I dare you to kiss the one person in the room you have a crush on."

And I cough into my beer, and continue to drink nervously, and everyone looks on excited.

And I stutter something, and then I drink some more.

And then it happens. Kenny puts his hand on my shoulder and turns me to face him. "It's alright, just go for it. It's just a game."

And so I kiss him and people laugh and the game is over because Kenny leaves the party and I lock myself in the bathroom upstairs before climbing out the window since there's a series of ledges right there. And I go home, and the dust is a welcome distraction to the despair I feel when I think of his chapped lips and how amazing they felt.

This time he doesn't text me at all. And I feel that I've thrown perfection so, so far away. And nothing is perfect anymore.

And I do a lot of crying, and though I can hear my family clearly and know they can hear me too, they never ask. I hate them because they don't even care.

And at school people notice the red around my eyes, and Stan asks if I'm ok, Wendy asks if I'm ok, Craig Clyde even Cartman, ask if I'm ok.

"Perfect." I tell them, and I have to lie through gritted teeth because I fear if I open my mouth any wider the truth will spill out.

But nothing will ever be perfect any more.