See what lovely little shadows emaciated, beautiful hands make. Fingernails cut and cut and cutcutcut the paper, roll in the weed, man.
"Wait a second. Just wait," a thin voice came, carrying an angelic tremble, a waver that at first surprised each and every one of them. Though a skinny thing, they had expected a tough sound, and often he had been made fun of. But now, they were… friends. His friends.
Friends? He did care for each and every one of them, and each and every one of them cared for him in some way. In some ways, as the child or pet of the group; the fun, the laughter. And there were times when his eyes would roll back into his head and he would slump against the mattress and then awake with his hands at his temples, half-screaming and gasping and flexing his fingers to curl to fists and then extend thumbs and pinkies, slamming them down on the torn pillows.
And he would laugh and laugh and cry and choke and once it was so bad that Matt had to kick Mike and threaten him in order to get help lifting the skinny thing, who by then was silent, into the bathroom.
"Wait, wait," he would moan and put his hands up, confused.
Matt would frown. "Sit up. Drink this."
"No."
"You're gonna fuckin' kill yourself if you keep doing this shit, Layne."
"I know. I iknow /ithat. Who're you, my fucking father?"
And his own closed fists came to his clear blue eyes, which looked odd because the whites were so bloodshot. A thing that was maybe half-whine, half-sob and in essence a gasp left his throat, only once. But Matt always remembered.
Especially on days when school was inescapable, he seemed as normal as if he didn't mishandle drugs to the point of nearly biting his tongue off and choking to death, only until he would say something, laugh and then bring his thumb to his mouth in a manner that resembled a child sucking his thumb, except he would bite the nail and turn his paranoid eyes to the left or right and look at nothing, inothing /ibut there was always isomething/i.
And when he would see her, pale and blue and frozen, stoned, big eyes staring and staring and uncaring, there was a part of him that became stuck in his esophagus at first and then he swallowed, pushing down bile as well and his own eyes would become big and staring but definitely not iun/icaring but icaring/i because he had always been taken care of in some way and each and every one of them stared.
"Kay, listen up!"
Layne, Layne, Layne was gone, lost, bye-bye, and Matt iknew/i it. He knew it the moment he'd caught those eyes when John showed off Jamie's body. Knew it when the tremble of Layne's voice became even and he slammed his gloved hands on the steering wheel.
It was only when Layne ran off and came across John's dead body and howled, bile rising again, "they fucking killed him," that he thought he'd seen a part of his old friend again.
Layne, Layne, Layne.
Was alone.
Each and every one of them that had cared, in some way, that were his—ifriends/i—had turned their backs on him.
"Wait a second. Just wait."