Infinite

Prolouge

"Happy birthday to youuu!" My friends sang to me in a dimly lit booth at the back of an Applebee's in Boston, Massachusetts.

"You're really leaving tomorrow?" Sophie asked, looking down at her artificially red drink.

"Ya, I'm taking Devon out of that shit hole group house and we're gonna find my mom." I said laughing at nothing, the situation that my brother and I are in is not funny at all, but laughing is my defense system, I'm not breaking tonight.

"How long has it been?" Cara said hesitantly

I knew she only meant well so I indulged her,

"I haven't seen her since I was," I paused doing the math in my head

If I was 5 and I just turned 18 then that's

"13 years." I said aloud.

"Shit Griff." Cara said looking at where my fingers had gone instinctively.

"Did your mom give you that?" Cara asked pointing to the small silver infinity sign around my neck that I was pinching in between my pointer finger and thumb.

"Ya, She gave it to me for my birthday, the year they took us."

"Who took you?" Sophie asked, her brow furrowed in a confused look.

"Child Protective Services." I said sighing.

"Right, I knew that." Sophie said looking at me. I could feel both there eyes on me, trying to read me, but I refused to look up from the cheap birthday cake the staff had brought me. I stabbed it with my fork and finally looked up to see two pairs of eyes burning holes into me.

"take a picture, it'll last longer." I said laughing at my terribly generic joke. I looked up at the light fixture above our heads, the light bulb was yellow and stained with a grimy hood over it.

"You gonna be okay?" Sophie asked me grabbing my hand and giving it a light squeeze.

I looked at her and my vision was blurred by the puddle of tears waiting to drop.

" Yah" I weakly said letting the tears fall down my face before I wiped them with the back of my hand. I drew in a shaky breath and continued. " I better get going, I'm picking Devon up at five tomorrow morning." I pulled my hand out of Sophie's and slid out of the booth. They stood up with me and they hugged me.

"Don't die okay Griff?" Cara said into my shoulder as we hugged, it was muffled but I understood her perfectly.

" I won't Cara, I promise."

She let go and wiped her tears with her over sized jacket sleeves. Sophie pulled me into a very emotional embrace, she was sniffling on my shoulder as I wrapped my arms around her back.

I'm gonna miss you Blake." She said sniffling, her tears were splashing onto my shoulder like rain.

"I'm gonna miss you too." I said clenching my jaw holding onto the tears.

"look at you two," I said pulling away from Sophie. "you two are emotional wrecks, how are you gonna survive without me?" I said trying to shed some light onto the extremely depressing script that we were writing for ourselves. They sniffled and laughed along with me and we did a final group hug before I turned and walked away from my best friends of five years.

I parked my car outside my brothers group home. I got out of the car and closed the door as quietly as I could. I checked my phone

5:00

I looked up at the sky and watched as my breathe billowed into the air like smoke. I shoved my hands into my pockets and walked through the snow up to my brothers window, I opened it without a sound and climbed into his room. I walked over to his bed and grabbed his shoulders and shook them. "Wake up," I whispered harshly at his sleeping face. I shook him harder. "Wake up Devon!" I said not so quietly this time. His eyes shot open as he quickly squirmed out of my grip. "Fuck!" he said looking at me. "C'mon, we gotta go." I said pulling the covers off of his body. "Why is it so cold in here?" He asked rubbing his shoulders to try and force some warmth into them. He stood up from his mattress. Devon pulled old faded jeans over his boxers, and pulled on a hoodie from his school hockey team. "I thought you said you'd pick me up early." I looked at him confused.