Author's Notes: Written last summer. Jack gets caught smoking; but he was only trying to forget. A few weeks, maybe a month or two after the first chapter. Disclaimer.

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Smoke poured out of the slightly open window. A young boy with astonishingly bright red hair sat, blissfully stoned, blowing the noxious fumes into the cool morning air. His mind drifted lazily, circling like the smoke on soft breezes. He was too high to connect the sound of the front door slamming to the fact that, for some reason or other, his mother had returned from work far too early.

And she had noticed the smoke.

"Jack, what are you doing in there?" The sharp call penetrated his murky mind, and he surfaced with growing hatred for the pounding footsteps on the stairs. Tossing the joint out the window — what a waste — he opened it wide and impatiently encouraged the wind to come in and blow out the smell. But he knew it was too late anyway.

"Jack?"

He watched the locked doorknob rattle through slitted eyes.

The questioning tone became demanding, harsh. "Jack, open the door this instant!"

"Fuck off!" he responded, throwing a shoe at the door. It missed.

His mother audibly gasped. "Jack! Never use that kind of language! I don't know where —"

"Shut up, you noisy bitch!" he shouted over her. "Leave me alone!" His head was beginning to pound, and his ears were ringing. She was ruining his high.

"Oh, you bet I will, you little shit!"

He was surprised to hear the thumping of her feet as she ran back down the stairs. His mind was too foggy to make any attempt at guessing what she was doing. He stomped over to his closet, flinging open the doors and rummaging around on the floor. Finally, he found what he was looking for. "Damn, last one in the package," he muttered, tossing the empty cigarette box aside as he lit one up.

He returned to his chair by the window and took a big draw of a thousand toxins. As he cooled down, he absentmindedly stroked the raised slashes on his wrists. Yeah, he knew he was deep in a pile of shit. But he couldn't care less. All that mattered was finding the quickest way to forget.

He mused on suicide again. Maybe that was the easiest. It certainly seemed so, the longer the days dragged on. Besides, he didn't care much about living anymore. Why did everyone make such a big fuss about it?

Suddenly his mother was outside the door again, her voice gentler. "I called a rehab center. You'll be going there every night starting tomorrow."

"Yeah, whatever," he muttered, too out of it to get worked up again. Not like I'll go.

"Jack…" His mother sighed. "Look, you're going to have to come out of there sometime, and then we can have a nice, long chat. And maybe we can see about you getting together with one of your friends. You haven't seen them since you came back…"

"Not friends anymore," he said shortly. Go away already.

"All right…" She pressed on. "Well then, what about one of those nice boys you got stranded with on that island? You must have made some friends there."

A thousand images flashed through his mind at once. Bloodsandpigsdirtspearspaintmasktribefirespecsbrainssavagebeast

"No. No, I didn't," he said tightly, closing the subject for the thousandth time.

"Well…" She sighed in defeat. "I'll see you at supper, then."

"I doubt it," he muttered under his breath, listening to her retreating footsteps. Dammit… she had made the memories surface again. Not like they stayed away for long, anyway. He pressed his fingernails into his forehead, trying to draw blood, concentrating on the ticking of the clock, trying to forget.