retrospective || riley hayes life's riddles fic

cigarette etiquette

Tw//mentions of suicide, drugs, alcohol, cigarettes/smoking, brief mention of an overdose, kind of self harm(?), use of a slur multiple times

Tuesday hate club

JAY POV????????
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Well this is depressing. I stood with my back up against the back of the church, staring out over the garden of graves. Of dead people.
It had just struck four AM, and being the failure that I am, I was behind a place of worship getting pissed on alcohol.

I swiftly lit a cigarette, the warmth of the lighter heating up my hands. The air was chilly, unforgivingly so.

It'd be atleast a little okay if it was a weekend or a Friday night, but seriously; Tuesday. A Tuesday morning. The most mundane day literally ever. Who cares about fucking Tuesdays? Yeah! Nobody! I can't use the excuse of it being a party night or a special occasion because it's a fucking Tuesday. Nothing happens on fucking Tuesdays.

So, alas, here I was. Wasting away my already remarkably low life-expectancy with cheap, quick thrills. I inhaled the unhealthy, probably cancer-enducing fumes.
Who needs functional lungs anyway? Not me!

I banged my head back against the old brick wall. My head hurt, but the pain was nice---not in a weird way; I mean it was refreshing. A refreshing taste of feeling; the kind of feeling you get when you haven't drank water all day on a super hot day when you finally get a good swig of cold, refreshing, clean water.

I'm aware of how cringely edgy it is--hanging out in a graveyard at early hours of the morning. It sounds like a set up for a ghost movie. That or a kidnapping documentary, either.

I left the empty beer cans I'd stolen from my dad next to the wall, as I walked out towards the front row of graves.

I walked along, briefly scanning each of the names. I stopped at one - why did I stop? Because it was different. Yeah, it looked pretty typical, but the difference was crucial; the flowers sitting at the bottom of the headstone were completely dead. What makes this matter? That means whoever the hell this was, isn't loved.

I sat at the bottom of the marked area where the forgotten corpse supposedly lay. I held the cigarette back up to my lips, before tossing it down infront of me. The tip burned an orange colour, right next to the dead flowers.

I wondered what "Audreena"'s life was like. It's a god awful name, but I couldn't help but feel a little bad for Audreena. Not because of her(?) name, but because of how young the year was. The year beneath her name. What had happened to her? It didn't say. Maybe she had fallen ill, or maybe she had been in an accident. I stared at my hands. Maybe she had taken her own life?

I got up, stomping on the cigarette (and at the same time the ground above her coffin).
Oh well. Doesn't matter to me. She's dead now, why should I care? Her family clearly don't.
I hesitated, rereading the words on the stone.

I quickly, in the spur-of-the-moment, grabbed the (very much alive) flowers from the neighbouring grave (which I didn't bother to read) and set them on top of the dead ones.

I stared at the new flowers, now colourful and alive. Maybe Audreena would appreciate it.

I turned on my heel, and reluctantly left her.

riley pov
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   When I say that on Tuesday, things were normal again, that wasn't exactly true. The first instance of abnormality would probably be waking up at four AM to my dormmate dry heaving into a sink.
"Andre?"

  "Ah--Riley--" I rushed over to his side. "Are you okay?" I asked.
"Y--Yeah. I'm okay."
I turned to the small, almost completely empty fridge and pulled out a water bottle. I forced it into his hands. He shakily removed the cap, before pushing it up to his mouth.