SWIM Book 1 (Complete three-hundred pages)

Day 31 Tuesday, December 19, 2017

Jack's hand only left my neck when Brett made a stomp with his foot, and I peered over to find him standing on his two feet in front of the couch. Jack turned and without any hint of embarrassment pointed a finger at Brett and shouted, "Sit the hell back down, Brett."

But Brett pressed forward and came to the middle of the room beside Travis and said, "You're drunk. Deal with this drama later and it might actually get resolved." (The first thing that came to my mind was the oddity that Jack was drunk. He was rarely ever drunk. He thought alcohol was bad for the writing process, and indeed, even Hemingway whom was rumored to be a drunk writer but in fact was not, said along with Stephen King that writing drunk is like shooting yourself in the foot.)

But Jack pulled forward and said, "You touch me and one of us is going to die, Brett—just saying."

Brett frowned. "Dude, we're all going to die anyway, so what are you trying to preserve by being possessive over Zara?"

Jack raised his hands up. "Dude, Brett—Zara's my girlfriend!" But Jack quickly turned around and said to me with a snarl-- "Was my girlfriend. . ."

George suddenly stepped forward. "Wait. . ." He dropped his eyes on me, and I instantly felt uncomfortable, like now George was the big bad wolf and I was little red riding hood. ". . . So Zara's not your girlfriend anymore?"

Travis turned to George and put his face in his palms. "Don't even think about it you idiot."

I crossed my arms after rubbing my sore neck. "I wouldn't let him even if he did think about it."

George merely laughed. "I'd like to hear you say that when I become the president."

But Brett turned to George and repeated, "We're all going to die George, you're not going to be the president. The only light of the end of the tunnel for us is that we'll probably die a gay and joyous death full of drunken joviality and by the looks of all our libidos we're probably going to have a raging orgy--"

Jack suddenly lunged at Brett and they fell backward in a tussle on the couch, and the force led the couch flying backward-- "AN ORGY WITH MY GIRLFRIEND?!" Jack cursed and a lamp on the bookstand knocked onto the floor and broke.

George scratched his head and said, "I thought she wasn't your girlfriend anymore."

Travis looked over to me and said, "Maybe you should lay low for a while, maybe go to your room."

But Jack shouted in a loud cry while he wrestled with Brett in an impressive competition-- "She's not sleeping with me! Not in my room! Not ever!"

But Travis merely rolled his eyes and said, "We'll see how you really feel when the booze wears off." Travis turned to me and said, "I'll bring your food down later. Just go downstairs, don't talk to any boys for a while--" (which basically meant talk to no one) "--and we'll get all this sorted out later before this gets out of hand."

But suddenly there was a loud thump and the book stand fell over and a crash of glass erupted into a curse and cry from Brett-- "You punched me in the mouth you cuckold!"

"You were trying to hook up with my girlfriend on the floor, backstabber! I know because George told me!" George instantly turned red when Travis and I looked at him. He made an awkward face and made a motion that he would be leaving to the roof to hide himself.

I looked to Travis glumly, felt the pain in my neck my ex-lover branded on me, and thought about how Craig would look in a fight if he came into contact with Jack. I left to go to my room, and hoped I wouldn't be exiled from the only people I had in this world.