Midnight Philosophy ✓

10:02 AM

"Someone please set me on fire."

"I will. Right after I burn the sofa."

"Ugh. What time is it?"

"It's ten in the morning."

"That's too early."

"How?"

"Look - Sol - that's an ungodly hour. Anything with AM is an ungodly hour and I won't stand for it."

"Okay. Well. My parents are coming to visit me in a couple of hours so you need to get your shit together and go lock yourself in your bedroom and don't come out until they leave. My mum knows you ruined my grandmother's vase and my dad thinks you're a drug dealer."

"What? Your parents are coming? You didn't tell me."

"Mate, I've told you so many times but you just never listen! Maybe you should clean your ears once in a while or grow more than three brain cells -!"

"No shouting! Ow. Damn it. I bet Aarav doesn't have to hide in his room all day."

"No because Aarav doesn't go around banging people on our sofa."

"What are you talking about? Aarav slept with Nina Blood in the shower two weeks ago! Ah - my head. It's too bright in here and my head hurts.What the hell did I do last night?"

"....is that a serious question?"

"Please don't remind me. Oh god - ew - I have stains all over my boxers! Please tell me this is chocolate and not shit...oh good, it's chocolate! For a second I was like whoa...what the fuck am I doing with my life? What is wrong with me?"

"Oh many, many things, Micah. Where should we start?"

"Let's not start at all, okay? I need a shower. Did I sleep here?"

"Yeah. After you finished making chocolate pudding in the middle of the night you sat down on the sofa where you banged Brookes--"

"Oh my God--"

"Then you added some vodka to the chocolate pudding and proceeded to eat it as you watched It's Always Sunny on Netflix. I left you like that and went back to sleep. I wake up and look, you're still on the sofa, dressed in just your chocolate stained boxers and looking like shit. Now will you please get up and go hide in your room."

"Why can't I stay here? I've already sunk pretty low, I can't sink any lower."

"You say that but then you always manage to."

"Fine. I'll go. I'm warning you though. I probably won't come out. I can't - there's no way I can go to campus and face Brookes...my god, what the fuck did I do? We had - we had such a good thing going and I messed it up. He's never going to speak to me again, he's gonna hate me, he's gonna despise me and I can't blame him. Oh fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck --"

"Micah. Calm down. It's okay. Micah."

"Sol. I don't know what to do. Tell me what to do. How do I fix this? I've lost him haven't I?"

"You haven't lost him. You've alway been good at finding the things."

"Somethings are meant to be lost and I'm tired of searching. I'm just tired, Sol. Life is so complicated and I'm so tired and sleep is never comes."

"Micah-"

"I can't do it. I don't see the point."

"You want to know the first real thing I learnt about life when I was nine?"

"....what?"

"Life isn't as complicated as people make it out to be...but it is hard. It's so hard and it's so cruel at times I want to scream myself out of existence. It's the hardest thing any of us will ever do and I used to wonder, all the time - I used to wonder why any of us did it. And then - then, a little while after my accident, deep in the darkness when I all had was my thoughts for company. I realised life is hard, difficult and stained with grief but we do it because we have to. Because the alternative is unthinkable, permanent and unlit. Really, it's amazing the things you can do because you have to - because the lasting darkness on the other side is nothing compared to the light you could have, you do have. Micah, life is hard but you keep going, even if the world is burning and your feet are bleeding. You keep going and you don't stop for anyone, anything. So, if Brookes means as much to you as you say, you'll get him back. You'll find a way."

"W-Why? What's the point?"

"Because you have to - because the alternative is--"

"--unthinkable, permanent and unlit."