Tweaker

iii. pompeii

iii. pompeii

     SEE, FINN ISN'T always like this; he isn't always happy and carefree; he isn't always at peace with himself and calm.  He's rarely ever like that, to be honest.  He's only ever truly himself when it's just me and him, on that bridge or in my basement, smoking cigarettes and drinking booze, pulling some crazy stunt because we're drunk or high and don't give a fuck about anything.

     Finn and I don't have much to worry about; not family, not school, not grades, not futures, not love interests, not sex, not drugs, not alcohol, not cigarettes, not money, not food, not necessities -- we don't worry about a damn thing . . . and why is that?

     The Triple F's. 

     It's the only thing that ever seems to hold us together on nights like this, when we're thinking about everything and nothing at the same time.  We feel overwhelmed; we feel lost; we feel hopeless and useless and pathetic.  We're pitiful, to say the least . . . but when we're together, we can do anything; we can be anything -- and the beautiful part about that? 

     We both know it. 

     "I want to die," he said slowly, letting his sentence hang. 

     I finished it for him, "But not yet."

     "No," he whispered, "Not yet." 

     It broke my heart to hear Finn at such a weak point.  It broke my heart to know I couldn't help him all the time, because I never wanted to do anything else but than to take his pain away and make him happy.  That's all I've ever wanted for him; all I ever needed for him.  He says he doesn't understand that -- how I could ever want for him to be happy -- because no one else has . . . and every time he says that, I tell him the same thing. 

     "I'm not everyone else." 

     He always just smiles at that and says he knows before the subject is dropped.  I guess I can't blame him, though; I understand where he's coming from.  I know what it's like to feel like no one should care about you; to feel like you should be hated; to feel like you should feel nothing but sadness and anger; to feel like you should only be lost.  I know what he meant when he told me his family hated him, not because my family hated me, too, but because I understood what he meant by "family". 

     Who did he have, other than me? 

     No one . . . and secretly, that both killed me and brought me to life. 

     I didn't want him to have to rely on me and he didn't want me to have to rely on him . . . but we were all one another had.  We had to; there was a part of us that just couldn't do it without one another.  If we lost each other, all we would have left of the other would be lighters and sweatshirts, pictures and videos, memories and dreams that one day, we would've went further and not have been stuck in this poisonous town . . . but that would never equal up to the part of us that died with the other, the part of us that got lost when the other disappeared.  

     I didn't want to lose Finn anymore than he wanted to lose me . . . but part of me knew that if anyone was going to lose the other, it would have to be me, because Finn simply wouldn't live his life without me in it.

     "Do you believe in God, Greyson?"  He asked suddenly as we reached his house.  I didn't say anything for a moment, allowing him to sneak inside and grab what he needed.  When he came back out five minutes later, I looked at him and shook my head slowly. 

     "I don't." 

     "Why not?"

     Even though he already knew my reason, he asked me anyway.  He usually did this; Finn had a particularly interesting way of reliving the past, of remembering what we'd done and been through together.  He didn't do it in his head; he didn't do it over text or by bringing it up subtly.  He asked the same questions; he said the same things . . . and just like that, it felt like we were saying it for the first time.