The Degenerates - Under Edit

t w e n t y o n e

Last night, I somehow managed to convince Trey that the knife had slipped whilst I was cutting an orange for Lila. And also managed to persuade him into keeping me in the loop with Brad's murder.

I stayed on Trey's lounge last night as I fell asleep after another round of vodka. My cut feels tight, but significantly less painful. I took a couple more painkillers anyhow.

It was early when I opened my eyes that morning, still in the same position I had fallen asleep in, only with an extra blanket. I peered into Trey's room, expecting his door to be shut, but his door was wide open, and he was sprawled on his back, still asleep. He was still in last night's jeans, however his shirt was tossed lazily on the end of the bed.

He offered to take me to get coffee when he woke, but I declined, desperately wanting to check on Lila, and as it turned out, he had access to a car underneath his apartment. He did a quick once over of my cut, which was not showing signs of infection, and changed the dressing.

"Will you be okay?" Trey asked as I stepped out of the low black sedan.

"It's not me you should be worried about." I said, "Will you be okay?"

Trey smiled, "As long as you keep out of trouble, no need to tear my hair out."

I longed to be in his arms. That's where I felt safest.

"Well, have fun doing, whatever you're doing." I said.

I let myself back into the building and slowly climbed the stairs. Thankfully, the gauze left a buffer for my movement, so I couldn't move my upper leg about too much.

I paused halfway, and then turned to go back down. I let myself back out, and as I suspected, the garden near our building was flourishing with flowers. I silently thanked the -constantly- wet weather, and pulled a bunch of different coloured flowers I could see.

They were unfortunately wet, but I shook them off outside the doors.

Eventually, I made my way back to the room, and knocked softly before going inside.

"Lila?"

Both she and Sasha were curled on her bed. They were cutting out pictures of Brad, Lila having tears flowing steadily from her eyes. Sasha glared at me from her spot.

"Lila, I'm so sorry," I told her, "about Brad, about not being here for you. I'm such a shitty friend."

Lila looked up, "No," she sniffled, "you're not, you've been there for me since he disappeared."

I extended my arm from behind my back to show the shitty flowers I ripped from the ground, "These are for you," I said lamely, "I'm sorry...they're not that great."

Lila sniffled her tears again and stood up from her bed, hugging me. "They're just what I need, thank you."

I silently thanked her, and I was so grateful she accepted my apology, no matter how lousy it was. I felt worse and worse about leaving her as time went on, but I couldn't tell her about my leg.

"I'm still hurting," Lila said to me, "Unbelievably so. But I knew. I knew for a while that he was gone," she cried, her voice breaking. She pressed her hand over her mouth as a small sob escaped.

"I accepted that something had happened to him, but it still hurts so much."

I was lost for words, and Sasha appeared to be waiting for me to say something remarkable, but I had nothing to give.

"Lila I don't know what to say," I answered honestly, "I don't know how to make this better for you."

"We can't," she answered with a smile, "he's gone and we can't bring him back."