Cause for Concern ✓

seventeen

SATURDAY. 09. OCTOBER. (unedited)

A WEIGHT had been lifted from his chest and it didn't feel like there was a dagger growing inside his heart anymore, poking, pushing, prodding, stabbing. When he sat down on a park bench down the street from the coffee shop, he wasn't really sure what he was doing. All he knew was that he didn't want to think because thinking would bring the dagger back.

Instead, he decided he would give in to his impulses and impulses told him to take his phone out of his pocket and call Cole so that's exactly what he did.

The phone rang a few times before he picked up and he sounded a little surprised when he answered. "Hey," he said, his voice a little higher than normal. "You okay?"

"Yeah," Max said, huddling into his coat as he sat on the bench. He could probably find somewhere inside to go and sit but he wasn't sure he wanted to. The cold felt like something he could enjoy right now, no matter how much his body wasn't built to handle it. "Yeah, I'm fine. Are you?"

There was a pause. "Yeah," he replied. "I'm good. What's up?"

"You busy?" Max asked.

"I won't be in half an hour," he said, sounding a little distracted. "Why?"

"You wanna hang out?"

"Just us?"

"Just us," he replied, praying that it wouldn't scare him off or make him come up with some kind of excuse. He'd agreed to a makeup date but Max wasn't sure how much he'd really meant it and they hadn't spoken since Cole had dropped him off last night.

"Alright," he said finally. "You want me to come and pick you up?"

"I'm out already," Max said. "I'll send you my location. Call me when you're on your way."

"Okay," Cole said. "You're sure you don't mind waiting?"

"Nah," Max said, his hand snaking inside the sleeves of his coat. "I can wait. No rush."

"Okay," he repeated. "I'll see you soon."

When he put down the phone and sent his location, he was welcomed by an oddly comforting isolation. He wasn't sure of the last time everything had felt so real, of the last time that he had felt so real.

The air was frozen and his cheeks were flushed red with cold and his hands were hidden inside of his sleeves. He watched the world go by, watched scenes unfolding before him, feeling much more like a witness than a participant, but he felt good about it. It was kind of nice to sit on the sidelines for once, to think about what the rest of humanity might be up to rather than focusing on whatever would be happening inside his head otherwise.

He watched parents either side of their child swinging her gently into the air between them as she giggled and thought of his brother. He saw a grinning boy shrug his jacket off and wrap it around the girl he was walking with and thought of Cole. He saw a group of boys shouting over each other and shoving each other down the street, heads thrown back when one made a biting remark about one of the others. It was a dancing portrait, a darkening image splashed with neon reds and greens and blues from the traffic lights and store names.

It had been so long since he'd taken a backseat in his own life, since he'd surrendered control to his instincts and let them take over him. It felt like the emotional equivalent of a deep breath and when he closed his eyes he imagined every thought seeping out of him, sinking down through his bones and muscles until they all disappeared into the earth.