**Help is a recurring annoyance. I don't know how to explain, except, when you relapse, sometimes it feels like every attempt at HELP is so fucking hostile. People attacking you for being weak or broken or fucked up. People not understanding you can't help yourself. People giving up on you. People you're hurting. People you love.
❝and you must've met a man—
tall and handsome at that—
who must've put a spell on you, baby,
and must've kept on comin' back.
'cause i can smell him in your skin;
i bet i taste him in your blood.
must be all the young boys, baby.❞
☽
IT'S ALREADY MIDNIGHT-DARK. Sooty. Autumn is passing by, dimming, dying; in its wake breathing a clear, quiet sky. Cold. Leaves flitter and pitch. Footsteps echoing, disappearing. His hands keep shaking. (Jittery.) Drake and I heading down Hanover. Everything warped, hollowed, haunted by an oddly deafening silence over Portland.
Stay in the dark, Melo.
You might be my fucking demons, Melo.
It's a clumsy walk. Shivering. Leaning on Drake. It's crisp in October. He doesn't say anything sly or shitty or slow and sweet in Spanglish. It's a dry-icy bitterness, a beautiful night to just... walk away. Leave. Fuck Drake. Fuck Portland. Fuck it all.
22:27, I check. Somebody else is watching, checking, too. Something.
Isn't tiempo a human construct?
Possession.
Transcend, Melo.
I'm tired, Medina.
Instinctually, I grab his hand, steadying him. My gaze skittering as I hone in on a distant mirage of low, smoky voices ricocheting and lingering; bare impressions of a vague beat pulsing. Music. Everybody laughing and coughing, raspy, gravelly. It's real.
They're... real.
Smoke rises in hazy waves, puffs of chilled-grey air wilting. People are sprawled, spilling off our porch and onto the sidewalk, clogging the corner of Hanover and Cumberland.
My teeth grit.
Connor.
Voy a—
Drake stiffens up as I let go. It's all vaccuum sealed strangeness, seeing somebody see him. Somebody—a fringe of a loose crowd—approaching Medina. His baggy-dark jeans and faded shirt, sleeves ratty and moth-eaten; inked forearms, insides of wrists; five o' clock shadow darkening a scowl. Flagging him down, flashing a Corona.
Why do I recognize h—
"Drake," he says, and I know. Thick. Throaty. Tortured.
They're fucking.
"Drake, you've b—"
"Hey, hey, Jake, hey." Medina pulls him in, almost aggressively, and I cock my head, wondering if he's always so rough, or if he's always holding back. (He could be so soft.) Jake seems conflicted. His gaze dangling. "Hey, I didn't know Connor invited you," Drake is saying, pulling away. "¿Cómo tu 'ta, Barnes?"
"Uh, yeah. Good. I'm, uh—" Jake coughs. "I was intrigued by Connor's idea of a party in your apartment," he says, an uncomfortable jerk of his chin. "Hope your downstairs neighbors don't mind, D." His arm opens, gesturing around: chain-smokers perched on wooden steps, hanging over a railing, leaning against an older Honda Accord, milling around us cluelessly. Lighters flicking. Chatter.
YOU ARE READING
Dark Places
Mystery / Thriller[UPDATES ON FRIDAYS] It's been three years since Luz Melo left Portland, Maine... and Drake Medina. ☽ When her "borderline" alcoholic lifestyle in NYC falls apart, leaving her girlfriend in rehab, her grades trashed, and her scholarship revoked, th...
