Just A Drag No One Wants To Inhale

Who Else Is Supposed To Bring Sexy Back?

***

I could have sworn that I had fallen asleep on the floor that night, but when I woke up, I was in the armchair that Willz had been sitting in.

I looked around for any sign of him around my room: a lump on my bed where he slept, dirt on the floor from his shoes when he jumped in from outside... Any sign that he was real. That I wasn't insane.

My mother came in a minute after I woke up. I still looked around, dazed and my mother said sweetly, "Time to get up sweetie, breakfast is downstairs."

I groaned and slowly slipped out of the armchair, feeling my joints crack with every movement.

"Why'd you sleep on the armchair, silly?" She laughed, pulling me up to my feet.

"I was-" I froze when I saw Willz in the other corner of the room. He was wearing the same clothes as last night and I almost pointed him out to my mom, but he brought a finger to his lips.

"Shh..."

"Frank?" My mother repeated worriedly, looking around to where I was staring myself, her eyes completely glossing over Willz.

She couldn't see him.

I squeezed my eyes shut and opened them again, smiling up at my mom. "-Yeah, sorry, I was just listening to music and fell asleep."

"I heard..." She whispered before she kissed the top of my head, telling me that breakfast was ready downstairs for a second time.

I stayed around in my room after she left to both yell at Willz and to change out of my 2-day-old clothes. I opened my closet and decided to only change my shirt, since I didn't think anyone would pay attention to my pants...

The school, I realized, payed more attention to how the girls dressed rather than the boys. So what if I can see her shoulder or if her bra strap shows by accident? It's not her fault that guys my age, and every age, can't keep it in their fucking pants. But do they discipline the boys so that they don't grow up to be molesters and rapists? No, they oppress the girls and make them think that it's always their  fault whenever something awful happens to them.

It makes me sick to my stomach to think about, even back then.

I pulled my shirt over my head and threw it on the ground. Only when I looked down to see where my shirt landed, a pair of dirty vans stood in its way.

"You're mad at me, aren't you?"

I didn't answer him. I turned back around and pretended that I had a hard time picking out a shirt, even though I couldn't give less of a shit what I look like in school. Not anymore.

"Listen, I'm sorry you had to find out the way you did, I was going tell you-"

"-When?"  I snapped. Throwing the shirt I was going to wear on the ground. Harder than I thought I was going to. "When were you going to tell me that this," I pointed a hard finger at his chest and he stumbled back a little. "That this isn't real?"

Willz had no words to say, he stood in place and looked back at me, his eyes staring straight through my black soul.

I scoffed at him, picked up my shirt from the ground and wore it; I slammed the door shut behind me when I left my bedroom.

I went down the stairs and ate my bland breakfast and pretended that everything was fine. Even though it was everything but. I was so very far from fine.

The table was silent, which was out-of-character for both of my parents, but I needed it. I needed to silently fume pure anger until I could take it out on something in a healthy way... It didn't work the last time I tried it, I snapped a ballpoint pen in half and got ink everywhere. But I think I'll try to do that in a different way this time. Will it work? Probably not.