affluenza (1.) | ✔️

Interlude // Sebastian Grey

TW// DRUG ABUSE

December 19, three weeks later

        DEVIN BLOWS A a waft of smoke in my face, laughing loudly. I flick him off before taking the blunt from him, shutting my eyes as I blow it out of my nose and from my lips. We were in my room, him sitting on my chair in the corner and me sprawled on the bed. I clasp my hands together and lean my head behind them, sighing.

       Devin clears his throat awkwardly. "So, I wanted to talk to you."

        I open my eyes a bit, looking at him through my lashes. "Yeah, of course. What's up?"

       I hand the blunt back to him and he takes another drag, shutting his own eyes. "Every time we hang out we're getting high."

I sense the seriousness in his tone but just laugh it off. "You sound like you're complaining."

Devin sighs again and I lift up a bit off the bed, focusing my eyes on him. He opens his own eyes, face stony. "It's been three freaking weeks, Sebastian. We're not going to talk about this at all?"

I push myself off the bed and run an angry hand through my hair. "I'm not doing this right now. I invited you over to have fun, not to talk about B-Braylen."

"You can't even say his name!" Devin argues, crossing his arms. There's a charged silence and I sit back down at the foot of my bed, rubbing my forehead. I was feeling the blunt now and had to listen very carefully to what he was saying. "Remember that time in the ninth grade? Braylen was going out with Janis Cord. I remember you talked about him all day."

Devin chuckles at the memory. "'Since when did he start dating? I hear she's got bad breath. They won't last for more than a month; I guarantee it,'" he says, mimicking the words I'd uttered nearly four years ago.

"I was right," I mumble hopelessly. Janis and Braylen didn't even make it past their third week together. He was the one who broke things off.

"You were into him," Devin argues softly. I turn to him, hoping my face was devoid of emotion. "You were into him then. You were into him in middle school. Hell, maybe even in elementary."

I scoff. "I didn't know I liked boys in elementary."

"But he's never just been a boy to you, has he?" Devin murmurs. He's looking up at the ceiling, eyes glazed over. I sigh. Devin got extremely philosophical when he was high.

"It's okay to miss him," he continues. "It's okay to feel guilty for che—"

"I didn't—," I hiss. "You were right. I've wanted Braylen for a long time now. So why the hell would I mess things up just when I'd gotten him?"

Devin licks the corner of his lip, thinking. "I—"

"I'm going to the restroom," I announce, standing up quickly and walking the short distance to my bathroom. I shut the door behind me and lean against it, heart pounding.

I didn't like how I felt when I thought about Braylen. I never had. It was like he was right there, within my clutch, but he kept dancing around me. Teasing me. Mocking me. Killing me.

My blue eyes are rimmed with red as I stare into my pristinely clean mirror. The maid had been over the night before and had left no traces of imperfection in the entire house. The only place she never touched was my music room. I made her stop cleaning it years ago.