We Can Do Anything ♪ kickthestickz

VIII

“And that’s a wrap!”

PJ hadn’t realised quite how depressing it would be to revisit all the locations he and Chris had been together, but on his own. He thought they would look different, or that he’d have got used to them, but he hadn’t. In the location of the party, he’d started crying, and Jamie had asked him if he wanted to stop, but he’d refused.

Now, back in his bedroom that Monday night, he began to assemble the pieces of the puzzle. It began with short clips of him and Chris, flashing through them so quickly there was barely time to register whose laugh was playing before it moved on.

Then, a jump cut to CCTV footage of their argument. The sound quality was poor, and PJ was tempted to add comic sans captions to make Chris laugh, but he knew it wasn’t the time.

Next came the footage he and Jamie had just filmed. It showed him heading home, running across roads and completely ignoring all traffic. He unlocked the door, fumbling with the key, and bursting in. “James?” he called, dropping his bag on the floor.

His brother came running down the stairs, and flung his arms around PJ. It had been easy to convince him to be in the video, and PJ was glad – it looked so much better.

There were then a few shots of him and his brother – eating dinner, ironing, then PJ tucking his brother into bed and kissing him on the forehead.

Next, he’d turned the entire video on its head. He played the clips of him and his brother backwards, and then added the rest of the footage they’d made – shots of him, alone, in the same places that he and Chris had been before.

Finally, a screenshot of PJ’s message to Chris, sent a few days after their argument. ‘God, I miss you.’

He cut it all together, his characteristic editing style coming into play. Clips jumped from one to another with a strange, dream-like quality that PJ was sometimes told was hypnotising. He hoped it would hypnotise Chris – if not into forgiving him, then at least into understanding.

His eyes flickered to his phone as he saved the clip, and he groaned when he saw the time. 1:37am glinted at him through the dark of his room, and he yawned suddenly, realising how exhausted he was. He took a sip of cold coffee, shuddering, and plugged his phone into his computer, transferring the file so it was in the right place for him to show to Chris tomorrow.

PJ was roused by the blaring tones of his alarm. Rubbing his eyes, he shut it off and sat up groggily, trying to get his bearings. He’d fallen asleep at his desk, still fully clothed. His phone screen showed him that he’d barely had six hours sleep, and he wanted to melt into the floor and die, but he forced himself to get up and drag his towel into the bathroom.

He woke James once he was ready for the day, telling him that he had four minutes before breakfast was ready. He liked to have his brother ready for school before he left the house – although it meant they both had to wake up half an hour earlier, it was better than sending James to school with the wrong schoolbooks and a missing PE kit.

PJ was distracted, burning his toast and not noticing until the smoke alarm started to beep quietly, and pouring milk on his foot. He handed James three different utensils until he finally sourced a butter knife, and even then he forgot the butter, and his brother had to fetch it from the oven, where he’d accidentally left it.

“Peej, what’s wrong with you?” James eventually asked as PJ tried to eat cereal with a skewer.

“Wrong with me? What do you mean?”

James indicated the skewer. “You seem a bit... Preoccupied.”

“No, no, I’m fine, absolutely fine. Never been better.” PJ put a pan away in the freezer, standing up and brushing his hands off. “I’m completely not stressed or anything like that.”

James took the pan out from where it lay nestled among the frozen peas, and held it out to his brother. “What’s stressing you out?”

“This,” PJ said distractedly, waving his hands around to indicate everything around him. “Us being alone, having to care for us and hide it from everyone else, ruining my friendship with Chris, knowing we’re going to run out of money for the bills soon but there’s nothing I can do because they won’t employ me...  Everything’s quite stressful at the moment.”

James looked at the floor. “I stress you out?”

“That’s not what I mea- James, you know I’m not blaming you for anything, so will you please not add another layer of drama to my life?”

His brother nodded slowly. “Okay. Yeah. Fine. You need to get to school, Peej. You’ll be late.”

PJ was torn between sprinting for school – he should have left ten minutes ago – and staying to sort things out with James. He opted for the former, telling himself James would still be there when he got back, and he had a best friend to make things up to.

Still, he almost regretted that choice when he narrowly missed being run over – twice – because he was so blinded by his own tears that he couldn’t see the cars. The situation was only made worse when he sprinted onto the pavement, cars furiously honking horns behind him, only to wipe the tears from his eyes and see Chris standing by the gate, watching him with something that could have been an expression of either cold humour or worry.

 
ooh we can get to some actual good stuff soon! ((it's a shame nobody reads this to see the actual good stuff but hey, that's chill))