WP EXCLUSIVE | old/unedited | #1 in freetheboy, traumacore, boyscrytoo, and cynicism | Genre(s): realistic, psychological, new adult fiction.
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Eighteen-year-old Tyler Petrit is tired. He's tired of his drug-addicted father always blaming him f...
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I go out one night when the house is empty and meet Alaska somewhere in a cluster of apple trees. The stars melt and drip down the indigo sky like streaks of almond milk. They glow against the night, giving an angelic aura to her sundress and an extra layer to her plum lipstick.
But all I can think about is how she's going away to college soon. I'm already scared of losing her and this is just another reminder that I probably will.
I hold her without saying anything, but she tells me I reek of cigarettes. I don't see it that way. I smell like the nighttime.
The only things I've eaten today are my words. My heart is drenched in black oil. I am frozen on the outside, shivering when it's almost summer, yet burning on the inside. I scrape my arm against the rough tree bark. One cut reopens and some of the demons fly out. It's still the same, though.
It still hurts.
Alaska is right here, in my goddamn arms, kissing my neck, but I still feel alone. Her lips are cold enough to make my skin burst into flames, sending out little sparks after she stops.
She is what home should be. Safe and warm and balanced, feet on the ground. She talks like a Shel Silverstein poem, soft and sleepy.
I'm as empty as my house, almost floating with a foggy mind and saggy skin sack, bones and organs weighing me down. There's a tornado brewing inside me and I am going to rip her apart if I don't run.
I lightly push her back and start walking. I don't know where, just away.
She follows, of course. I love her and I can only hope she loves me, but I also hope she really doesn't. It'll hurt less for both of us when I break her after I leave.
She catches up to me because of course, she does, and I made myself dizzy for nothing. I give up and fall knees-first into the dirt.
"Talk to me," she says.
"Just look at the stars." Maybe she can find what I want to tell her within them.
"My mom's telling me to break up with you again."
"Fuck her."
"That's not what I meant."
I roll onto my side so I won't have to see her being mad at me. I lick my lips. "I know where she's coming from, okay? I'm not the most responsible guy you could be dating and I wasn't raised by the best people."
"It's because you're white."
"That's really it?"
"Yeah, everything else, like your crack addict dad, is just extra shit."
"If I had money, would she like me?"
"No, then you'd be a rich white boy. She'd hate you even more."
