Tweaker

xvii. fight or flight

xvii. fight or flight

We walked for what seemed like days but turned out to be just a few hours. We walked until our feet were sore and bruised. We walked until our knees gave out and our hearts broke to pieces when we hit the ground. We walked, not out of sadness, but out of remorse because we knew, in our hearts, that we'd just lost our best friend.

The only thing was, we weren't sure which one of us it was.

"He was great, you know?" Preston started to say, causing me to swallow hard and Finn to stop just a few steps behind us. We turned around and looked at him, his face bursting red in anger and frustration.

"Don't talk about him like that," he growled out.

"Like what?"

"Like he's dead," Finn snapped, glaring Preston down.

"Well," Pres yelled back, suddenly angry at the thought of Benji, "He might as well be."

The look on Finn's face right after he heard that scared me more than I ever thought possible. His pupils swelled to fill the iris of his eyes, like they always had when he was pissed off more than words could explain. He looked like something out of a horror story as he clenched his fists, white knuckled and busted open from the brick walls he'd punched after we saw Benji. His jaw line was more prominent than ever with his teeth gritted and his face took on a form in which I could not explain, even if I had tried, as he slightly raised his eyebrows in disbelief at what he'd heard.

"Take that back," he growled.

"Why?" Preston yelled, laughing slightly with frustration and hatred for what had happened to Benji, "Why would I take it back? Just so we can be in this position in another four months? Just so I can visit him in the hospital again tomorrow and make sure he didn't mean what he said to me? To you? To the girl you're oh-so in love with? But wait! That's easy for you, isn't it? It's easy for you to listen to someone about their addiction and why? Why, Finn?"

"Preston," I whispered, trying to calm him down as Finn took a step closer to him, "Stop, okay?"

"Shut the fuck up, Greyson. No one asked you," he snapped at me before turning back on Finn, "Do you know why, Finn?"

"Pres . . . "

"It's easy for you to be here for Benji because you know that's where you'll be. You're going to be lying in that hospital bed, maybe the same room, within the next, what? Three months? And you know you're going to expect every single one of us to be there, sitting next to you, holding your hand and telling you everything is going to be okay. Well, guess what, Finn. The world isn't a bunch of fucking rainbows and happiness. The world fucking sucks and your life sucks and you're going to die, but why is that such a big deal to us, anymore? After Donny, it should've been easy for us, shouldn't it? Everything should've just went on perfectly after Benji overdosed, right? Because we've been through all this before so we should be able to handle this, right? So when you go, we should all be okay and just sit there and be there for you? I'm sorry, but I won't do that for you and I sure as hell won't do it for him, either. He made his bed, now it's time for him to lie down in it."

I stood there, dumbfounded by what I'd just heard. It wasn't just because Benji had, in fact, gotten himself into this. It wasn't just because, as much as we didn't want to believe it, all that was true. It wasn't just Donny being brought up, again. It wasn't any of that . . . It was the fact that it was Preston saying all this.

He had always been the one to sugarcoat it for us. He was always gentle and subtle about the messages he wanted to send. I hadn't known the change before, or how deep it ran in Pres, but I had always hoped and prayed it would never come to this. I always hoped and prayed that he would be better than the demons in our heads, the ones we were all fighting off and trying to keep back, but I never thought I'd be wrong. I never thought it would come down to an ultimatum between being here and not.