Baby Fat

thirty-five

Humans are creatures of habit. Humans sit in the same place in the cafeteria, and they eat the same foods for dinner every week. They find some sort of security in it.

This isn't some deranged, foreign concept to Corrie, at all. He's watched it time and time again with his mom, his dad, Bradley. So, after all of that, Corrie doesn't understand why he's always surprised to find himself arguing with Devon day in and day out. Not the petty, easy to make up afterwards fights. It's those fights that leave him shaking with anger, wanting to pull his hair out, and making him desire the cocaine so much more.

"God, Devon," Corrie croaks. His voice is depleted, gone from his previous yelling. He pants, hardly able to catch his breath.

Tilting his head upward, Devon's brown hair flops back onto the top of his head. He closes his eyes, praying that he won't lose his temper, again. "What, Corrie? What in this whole goddamn universe are we going to have our second fight in ten minutes over?"

Corrie's surprised that no nurse has come in to check on them yet. His rehab room isn't soundproof.

"Why the hell do you think you always know what's best for me?" Corrie doesn't have the energy to fight anymore. Nowadays, he doesn't have much energy for anything.

"I don't think that." Devon radiates with anger, vibrates with it. Corrie can see it in his eyes, can feel the waves coming off of it.

Corrie deflates, falling onto his bed. He's just so goddamn tired, but he can't sleep at night. There are very rare nights where he can find himself sleeping, but on the nights where he can catch a wink of sleep he has these nightmares. They're so bad he sweats, and shakes, and sobs.

"Yes you do. You think the basketball guys coming to see me is some brilliant plan to magically cure me."

"What the living fuck?" Devon shakes his head, laughing. "You've got to be fucking kidding me." Not sure what to do anymore, Devon takes a seat next to Corrie on his bed.

"You think I crave some sort of redemption for my wrong doings, the people I've fucked over. I don't. I just need to get through rehab," Corrie replies with a glimmer in his eyes.

"You keep doing this. It's the same thing over and over," Devon responds sadly. He doesn't care about the basketball guys coming to see Corrie--okay, lie. He does care about that. Being an athlete he knows what being apart of team is like. He knows that sometimes your team is the only thing you anchor yourself to.

"What? What the fuck do I keep doing?" Corrie sighs. In. Out. He feels like giving up, on everything.

Devon plays with his fingers, taps his foot, closes his eyes. Anything to distract him. "You keep trying to sabotage yourself."

"How?" Corrie jumps up off his bed. He starts to pace, biting his finger nails.

Devon stays put, holding onto Corrie's bed with all his might. He doesn't want to fight again. "You pick these fights, find a reason to villainize yourself so you have a reason to push people away. Every goddamn time."

"I don't do that," Corrie denies. He crosses his arms over his chest, still pacing.

"You're making me queasy," Devon says instead of what was really on his mind. Corrie stops mid pace.

Where the hell is Bradley, Devon thinks bitterly. The past week Bradley's been MIA and his social media's were cleared. Not deleted, all his posts were just deleted. Devon actually misses him.

"I don't 'villainize' myself," Corrie groans, "I don't even know what the fuck that means."

"Liar."