wasting time » lh ; mc

twenty one

:: 21 ::

       Introspection: both a wonderful experience and the most depressing kind of reflection that you could ever indulge yourself in. But, Michael has never been one to be such a pessimist and believe in the latter. Until recently, anyway.

Which actually brings him to his final thought in his weeks-long self-reflection: happiness seems to make up for in height what it lacks in length—put beautifully into words by Robert Frost, horribly ad-libbed by Michael.

(Thank you, fourth period Frost-obsessed AP Lang teacher. Michael didn't learn these things on his own time.)

In such a moment where you are at the peak of your teenage years and feel unstoppable, as if you could take on the world and conquer it all, it never crosses your mind that you will one day plummet from the cloud you are walking on and meet your impending depression. It sits and it waits on the ground for you, too. It's always immediately after that depression latches, it doesn't believe in giving a victim time to recover from their reality check.

And Michael is bitter. He knows within him that his depression never left (his denial certainly hadn't, either), but the fact that he was so blinded by the good streak he had going was infuriating. It should've been a sign, really, should've come with a forewarning that after years of such a beautiful, confidence-boosting routine everything would be ripped from him in the event of just one panic attack. Slipping back into bad habits does that to you, Michael thinks.

He wants to tell his dad, he wishes he could. He's afraid and he's not supposed to be and he's not supposed to be bad again either but, fuck, he's so much worse than he's ever been.

There's not even a chance for Luke to help him again, he's in New York. Calum couldn't deal with Michael the first time this happened, though it's not impossible for him to.

Michael just needs someone because he's gone so long without someone that he's finally pushing himself to stop being so blindly pretentious. He has to work on himself. He needs to coax himself out of the mindset he's had and, even if it happens slowly, everything will be okay.

As for his attitude toward Calum, he's put that friendship through a lot of neglect and ignorance lately. The only time he sees him now is during practices, and even then, Michael goes to Luke in the stands directly after. During today's practice, though, his dad made the team divide into groups of four to practice drop passes and assists. Perfect opportunity, he thinks.

"I'm trying to fix myself," he tells his best friend once they're next to each other, looking to the two fellow teammates they paired up with—Trevor and Noah.

Calum nods, softly nudging his elbow into Michael's side to warn for the puck headed his way. "What made you realize that you're kind of a dick?"

"Thanks, Calum," Michael rolled his eyes. He snapped his wrist with the stick in his hand to send the puck soaring toward Noah, who had difficulty stopping it. Sorry, unnecessary wrist shots are his thing. "I don't know. It's been building lately and I keep snapping."

"Maybe stop pushing yourself, then," Calum suggested. "You've gotten a lot worse in the past few months, ever since you set out on a quest to capture Andrew Hemmings' attention. Using Luke, if you've forgotten."

"That plan with Luke isn't a thing anymore," Michael admitted. "I don't think it ever really was." He knows it was, knows that in his own selfish mind he had every intention of using Luke and then leaving him like everyone else has done to the boy, but he can't bring himself to admit it. Anything else at this point, he's willing to, but not that.