Tweaker

nulla. prologue

prologue 

     "YOU'RE . . .  YOU'RE DYING?"

     I could barely get the words out.  They were like a lump and strangled me with their weight; they burned my tongue as they floated from between my lips, drying them out almost instantly.  I could taste them; bitter and salty, dry and sort of rough.  They were cold and hot at the same time, cooling my entire body because of how shocked I was to hear the news. 

     He was dying?  No.  He couldn't be. 

     "Well, sort of," he muttered, looking down as we walked down the street.  Looking over at him, I didn't know what to say.  I didn't know what to think or do.  How could I?  My best friend of two years, my rock, my shoulder to cry on, dying?  I couldn't put two and two together; I couldn't connect the dots and suddenly, I stopped.  I stopped walking and talking and seeing and breathing.  Everything just ceased for three seconds before he spoke, again. 

     "Look, Greyson," he said, coughing a little into the arm of his sweatshirt.  After he finished coughing, he stuffed his hand back into his jeans pocket and looked back up at me.  I could feel it, then; my eyes were watering, my throat was tight, my entire body was numb . . . and before I knew it, the tears cascaded down my face and he sighed, shaking his head as he walked up to me, wrapping his arms around me and holding me close. 

     "Greyson, you know I wouldn't have told you if I wasn't serious.  That's a pretty sick joke to play.  I guess . . .  I guess what I'm trying to say is that it really isn't that big of a deal," he muttered, trying to soothe me as he rubbed my back in little circles with his hand like he always did when I was stressed out or tired and couldn't sleep. 

     "Not a big deal?"  I asked, my voice weak and cracking with my words.

     It wasn't a big deal?  Oh, no.  Of course it wasn't.  My best friend just told me he was dying but no, it isn't a big deal at all.  It's perfectly fine; everything will be okay, right?  Everything will end fine, like in the movies, right? 

     Wrong . . . because this is life.  This is what I'm living right now; I'm standing in my dying best friend's arms, trying to make sense of all of this, listening to him tell me that it's no big deal if he cashes out before the end of the year. 

     "How long?"  I hear myself asking, causing him to swallow hard.  Pulling back to see his face, I look into his blue green eyes and feel my lips moving, again, "God damnit, Finn; answer me.  How fucking long?"

     "Five months . . . maybe six," he looked down between us, then.  Just as I was about to say something else, it started to rain.  As if the day wasn't cliche enough?  My best friend telling me that he's dying, but not what's killing him as he lights up a cigarette and smokes it in front of me, passing it over to where I am.  Not even thinking, I take a long drag from it and we continue walking.

     Then it hit me; my best friend is dying and I'm smoking a cigarette with him.  It didn't take me long to drop it and stomp it out.  He just frowned, nodding.  He understood.  He knew. 

     "Five months," I quietly repeated, looking up dreamily at the sky. 

     "Maybe six," he added. 

     Nodding, I didn't say anything else.  I let his presence comfort me, not only because I knew it would, but because I knew I would only have around one hundred eighty more days to spend with him and that was being generous with the time.  He could keel over any day, right in front of me, and I would lose him forever. 

     It was then that my body began to shake and a scream tore through my throat.  I feel to the ground, my knees slamming painfully against the sidewalk as I cried out in pain.  Pain for losing my best friend, pain for not being able to stop it, pain for the shock and horror and immediate depression that was setting in, pain for everything we planned to do, pain for everything that we wanted, everything in the past that was only ever going to be a distant memory to me. 

     He sighed loudly, not out of annoyance, but out of worry as he sat down and pulled me into his lap against the building behind where we had been standing.  Rubbing my arm with one of his hands, he wrapped the other around me and buried his face into the nap of my neck.  I could feel his heart beating through his chest -- that thump, thump, thumping that was going to cease to exist in a mere half year. 

     It was then that he whispered one of foulest, most terrible things he could ever say to me in that moment, making me realize that he was right when he said it wasn't a big deal . . . but also making me realize that it still wasn't okay, that I could lose him at any point today or tomorrow or the day after and still never be prepared for it. 

     He said, "It'll be okay, Greyson . . .  People die everyday.  I'm never going to be the exception."