Dirty Thoughts (l.s.)

Part 6

The lights of the street were abusing his sight. They were too bright and gave not enough light at the same time. The world was spinning around him and for now it was a good feeling. The thing was, he didn't really want to feel. His feelings were so meaningful lately that all he wanted to do was to let it all go.

Harry was drunk. He got a call from his longtime friend Kendall, she was in town only for two nights, and he truly wanted to see her. She was a part of his good memories, she was a good friend now. So, when she said something about a party with an open bar, he took the opportunity, like he always did. It was haunting. The feeling of freedom. It brought all the wrong thoughts, the wrong reactions.

Like guys looking at him from across the bar. The Harry from a year ago would wink at them and fuck one of them or more in a toilet stall or a hotel room. Not even for money. Just for the hell of it.

To feel alive, he realized now.

He was always trying to feel something other than stagnation that was moving behind him like his shadow. His mother spent all her live working two jobs to keep her kids safe and healthy only to move to working one job when they moved out. And that was it. She never got out. And for some reason, he did. He got the opportunity to be alive and she didn't. Why was the life like that? He didn't deserve it, did he? Or did she deserve it by living all her life in a constant fear? How was he supposed to deserve it then?

He stumbled on the pavement, falling from the open road to the wall of the nearest building.

"Wow, are you okay?" he heard a voice.

His eyelids were heavy, his arms were boneless. He wasn't able to feel the pain in his shoulder. He just realized, that he was supposed to, that's it.

"Man, are you okay?"

He saw a hand on his shoulder before he felt it. Dark fingers, tight grip, short nails. Was it a man?

"No," Harry said, not answering the question, but just stating his opinion on the situation.

"I can see," there was a chuckle, the grip didn't get lighter. "Sit down."

Harry fell on the ground right next to the building. It wasn't good, the ground was chilly, the wall was cold as well, but his legs were not able to hold him upright anymore. The lights were too bright and he just needed a breather.

"Oh, okay," the guy voiced with surprise. "Yeah, bring water," he said to someone. Harry frowned. Wasn't he alone?

"No," he said again, choking on a cough. He smoked before leaving Kendal at the hotel. He shouldn't have, he knew. His asthma wasn't even the biggest of his problems now. All the drinks and shots seemed to catch up with him after the cigarette, his mind getting woozy.

"Well, you need some water, lad," the same voice answered. "You seem to be super drunk."

For some reason he remembered the night from his teenage years. He was staying with his grandmother at the village, really small house on the hill. His grandfather was dying, he knew. They didn't tell him, but he knew. He got drunk, because he didn't know what to do. He was too old to go to his grandparents for the summer, but his mother was driving Gemma around all the universities and he had no option. He was sixteen. The guys from the neighborhood got booze and they all got drunk and he was walking home through the night. He left his bike somewhere. There was something else though.

"Here." He felt something cold touching his lips and moved his head back, only to hit it against the hard brick. "Shit, careful!" the guy said. "It's water."

Harry finally got enough strength to look up. The boy in front of him was all blurry, but his face came into focus after some seconds. That's what he was. Just a boy. Not older then sixteen, his bike forgotten in someone's yard, his phone dead in his pocket, his eyes glossy, because his grandfather was dying in the bedroom next to his own. If he comes home, he'd be able to hear him cough, he'd listen to his grandmother crying through the night. He'd stay awake in constant fear that the coughing would stop. Or maybe continues.