teach me gently on how to breathe || tradley/brad

سعادة

Drew comes back Wednesday, like he said he would, with a puzzle of Mona Lisa for Brad and himself. He's impressively more infuriating than last time as he talks about his boring life and how he miraculously beat his own high score on this stupid video game Brad used to play with him. From the looks of it, Brad isn't going to be able to get rid of the irritating boy within fifteen minutes this time, like he had been counting on. Somehow Drew's become insensible to how distant Brad is.

"Christmas is soon," Drew mentions. Brad glances around at the Christmas decorations the medical center had just hung up last night. The teenager has no idea what the date is (he doesn't even remember the date when he came to the medical center), but he doesn't ask. If he talks to Drew, Brad would probably end up screaming at him, and he doesn't have the energy to be angry right now (even though he thinks he deserves it). "I ordered your present yesterday," he tells him. "I'm really excited for you to see it on Christmas, if you're out of here by then."

What makes you think I won't be? he angrily thinks, glaring down at the stupid puzzle Drew was putting together by himself.

"And I almost forgot to tell you," he begins, "I made another playlist for you. I'll send it to you when you're back home."

The curly-haired boy exhales in a long, annoyed sigh.

Wow, that was loud, he could hear Tristan stating in his head with his stupid smirk. Brad accidentally lets out a small laugh.

Drew cluelessly laughs, too. "What are you laughing about?"

He shakes his head and looks back down at the incomplete puzzle, flicking all his emotions off again.

"Aw," he hears the boy across from him say, "you're so cute."

Brad huffs and pushes his chair backwards so it's only standing on two legs as he steadies himself with the table. It feels like this one hour has been going on for three years. He doesn't know how long he can stand listening to Drew talk, even looking at him gets on his nerves.

As he mutes the blond's voice, he thinks about before everything happened and how close they were, although they'd only known each other for five months. It's sad how much people change after you don't see them in the light you used to. Before Brad hated him, everything Drew did was awesome and hilarious and envious. Now, he wonders if he was always this annoying and loquacious.

"I wish you'd talk to me." Brad looks up and notices how sad he looks; how much he means it. But Brad still thinks he deserves it. He ruined his life, and no matter how upset he manages to look, the sixteen-year-old is not going to be best friends again with someone who's the reason he stopped liking himself in the first place.

The nurse approaches the two boys. She's not the same nurse as the one Brad's usually with, but it's not like he was growing fond of the one he had before. "Time's up," she announces.

Drew sadly nods and cleans up the forgotten puzzle. The curly-haired boy automatically jumps up from the table, letting out a sigh of relief.

"I won't be able to come next Wednesday," Drew informs him, placing the lid back on the puzzle box. "So, I'll see you next, next Wednesday. Have a good week, okay?"

When he's finally gone, Brad leaves to the white hallway and walks slowly with one foot in front of the other (which evidently annoys the hell out of the nurse more than Brad expected, but he really doesn't care), like he's walking a tightrope until he reaches the other side of the door and disappears into his nightmare again. It's not that being in the visiting room is heaven, but it's better than being on the side where everyone's depressed and he's not allowed to be in charge of what he puts in his body anymore.