Mirage (ON HOLD for revision)

Chapter 21: Before Sunrise

Cedric sat on the cold, linoleum covered floor and stared at Matt, lying defenseless on his jacket beside empty cans of beer. In the end, Cedric couldn’t bear to ask.

“Creepy,” Julius muttered, earning a death glare from Cedric.

“What?” Matt asked, sitting up with much effort.

After three six packs, majority of which was inconspicuously given to Matt, Cedric and Julius concluded that Matt was a natural, having expected him to fall after one can.

“What a scary brain, you have,” Cedric mumbled.

It was more than the natural drinker in him that made Cedric feel like a sheltered, catholic school boy.

After dinner, with the heavy silence in the air and Cedric's own lack of courage to ask, he magically produced a deck of cards. Whether it was beginner's luck or the mathematician in Matt working, he still knocked Cedric's pride as an experienced delinquent several places down.

 Matt suddenly sat up straight and picked up his jacket, patting it to get rid of the dust.

 “What do you think you’re doing?” Cedric asked.

 “Going back. It’s already late,” Matt replied.

 “It was late a couple of hours earlier, “Julius said matter-of-factly, “It’s morning now.”

 “Damn.”

 “Just go ahead and sleep,” Julius said.

 “Like this is your place?” Cedric said, getting up as well so that he and Matt were standing awkwardly in the room without any particular purpose. “Sleep is for the weak. Let’s have some fun, for once.”

“I don’t like the sound of that,” Matt muttered, but was dragged along by Cedric anyway.

The three of them piled into the car the same way they came, with Matt sitting like a kid at the back.

“So where is this fun?” Julius asked suspiciously.

“Right there,” Cedric replied, pointing at a spot on the map of the city.

“No way.”

“Yes way.”

“What are you guys going on about?”

“Nothing,” Cedric and Julius replied simultaneously.

“You’re nuts,” Julius muttered.

“It’s 2a.m. for chrissakes. No one’s going to know!” Cedric spat back. “Geez, mom.”

“Say that again and I’ll see you drive your own way there,” Julius replied with a sweet smile on his face.

“Can we open the windows? You guys stink,” Matt said without any malicious intent, so much so that Cedric and Julius could only agree.

They drove in silence for about twenty minutes. Matt quickly losing interest in where they were going, distracted by the wind on his face. He stuck his head outside the window a little and looked up so he could see the sky. At some point, he ended up lying on the backseat with his head leaning out the window.

“I’m not picking up your brain if it gets splattered on the road, got that?” Cedric said for lack of anything to say but needing to. The way Matt looked at something that isn’t there unnerved him, and the look Julius gave him told Cedric he agrees.

“It won’t be of any use to you anyway,” Matt replied distractedly.

The two breathed a sigh of relief.