Paper Hearts (Phan)

128 days

"Human anatomy is just really frustrating, y'know?" Chris poured his built up feelings out to the unforgiving breeze, glumly kicking his heels against the inside of the drained jacuzzi and twiddling his thumbs in his lap. He'd bombed the test from 2 days ago and was still kinda upset about it, even though we told him that 1) he still had a 96% due to months' worth of built up extra credit and 2) one test wouldn't ruin his entire career. 'Potential career' he'd argued, and PJ shot back with 'you've got more of a future in the medical field than anyone else at this goddamn school', which was probably true. Everyone at Seacoast had like no interest in the medical aspects of the school, and were more involved with topics like English and History which was stupid because science-y things paid more.

"Shut up you still have an A in that class." Cat rolled her eyes, wrapping her arm around PJ's shoulders, who smiled bigger than I'd ever seen him smile before and hugged her back. 3 weeks ago they'd called it official and since then they were always together. Well it's not like they hadn't been that close in the first place, but that's not the point.

"Yeah but like everyone around me got an A 'n shit." He mumbled, his eyes fixated on the various rips in Dan's jeans directly across from him.

Dan coughed up a long stream of smoke from between his lips directly into my face while he smushed the cigarette in his fingers on the cold cement, flicking the ashes to the bottom of the jacuzzi. He was still upset, even 3 weeks later. I would've felt bad, except I didn't. He deserved being carried home like a child.

"Don't be fucking rude," Cat grumbled and tried to swat away the smoke drifting past me and over towards her "and Chris, you're not gonna die."

"Yeah," PJ interjected "it's like when you're running and you stub your toe; are you gonna let your weak ass toe bring you down, or are you going to cut it off and keep running?" he ignored the 'that is absolutely disgusting' and 'bad example dude' comments by hiding his face in the crook of Cat's neck. They were so cute, I hated them.

Cat bumped my shoulder with the back of her hand to grab my attention. "How's your Zoology thesis going?"

To be honest, I had barely even thought about it. 'Anything we've learned so far', she'd told us 'write it about anything. Elaborate. Connect it to things that shouldn't be related.' I thought it was pointless to relate it to something outside of the single unit we'd touched upon; after all, that's not what Zoology was about. But the whole class went with it, since it seemed like an easy way to get a good grade. But then she told us how much we had to develop it and for extra credit we could create a semi lab for it. Leave it incomplete, unfinished, just a draft. After a good half hour of flipping through the same pages repeatedly, I decided on relationships between different species. There wasn't an explanation behind it other than I was getting tired of searching and just picked one so the agony would be over. But the agony wasn't over because I had no idea what in the world to write about.

"Not too bad." I told him, and the topic dissipated like cigarette smoke into the bitter wind.

__________

"Are you still mad?"

"Do you still wanna know about 23?"

I nodded.

"Then yeah, I am still mad."

PJ sighed, exasperated and frustrated, from his end on Dan's couch. "Why can't you guys just make up? Shake hands or something?"

Dan grunted something inaudible under his breath and downed the last half of his drink in a couple of seconds, which I hadn't even seen PJ do with a glass of lemonade from the stand down the street. Dan's might've been more impressive if he wasn't chugging obscene amounts of alcohol.

And I guess my roommate had had enough of Dan's excessive drinking, because he got up, snatched the unopened bottle out of his hands, nearly broke his window trying to open it, and chucked it out as far as he could. He shut the window with a satisfied grin, Dan staring, mouth agape. I would've clapped but I would've gotten sucker punched.

"Mate, what the fuck?" Dan coughed, the lingering scent of alcohol still seeping from his lips. I could practically see the fumes floating through the air and twisting around anything it could wrap its ghost around.

"I've had e-fucking-nough of your bullshit lies of 'yeah I'll slow down on the beer'," he mimicked Dan's voice a couple octaves lower than his real tone and dropped the air quotes created with his fingers to his sides "if you keep drinking so much, you're gonna die."

"Good." Dan spat, stunning us both into complete silence.

I felt like I'd been hit in the stomach with a 10 ton bowling ball. Pushed off a cliff. Punched in the face with a solid metal bar. Stabbed in the chest. Shot with a bullet. Cut in half with a sword. Mauled by a wild animal. Sick to my stomach.

Dan had never really struck me as the guy that wouldn't mind going silently into the night without a goodbye, or even the type that would even think about it. He nearly had his entire life set out for him; animal behavioural studies, I think he said he wanted to work at a zoo and specifically get the job to feed the monkeys because they were the weirdest and they reminded him of some people he used to know. Maybe he wanted to travel to Africa or something. He'd told me while he was drunk so I couldn't really trust a thing he told me.

But now, sitting back and looking at every curve and angle of his body, I could've been looking at a ripped picture, thrown carelessly against the wall in a fit of anger so the glass covering shattered but somehow stayed intact, a consistent reminder of everything that had irrevocably ruined him.

I didn't want him to leave.

PJ was at a loss for words, staring blankly at Dan like he couldn't believe what he'd said.

"You're drunk," he concluded sharply, saying it more to reassure himself than anyone else "You're drunk and fucking lying."

Dan slammed his feet on the floor and stood up, looking PJ directly in the eyes with fists clenched and teeth bared like an animal. He eyed the door, then PJ, and glanced back to the door before glaring at me with pure hatred burning in the fire sparking in his eyes.

He stormed out, flung open the door, and growled "don't expect me to come back."

Then he stood there for a second, halfway out of the room and chest heaving with anger, and then said "and don't let them see me dead."

And he was gone.