The Smoke From His Lips

25

Alana slowly braided Connor's hair, him on the ground and her sitting on the steps to her backdoor. She was always open for him. She was support for whoever needed it. Sure, she was mostly Zoe's friend and didn't really hang out too too much with Connor, but they were lab partners.

That might seem insignificant, but it truly wasn't. They worked at his house in his room, and she watched as he tried to write out the notations on a piece of paper, but every time he tried to he ended up crossing it out and roughly scribbling stars around the margins to help calm himself down. It's how Zoe picked up the habit. After so many pages of stars he looked at her with tears rolling down his cheeks and an ashamed look in his eyes. He convinced himself that he was stupid for not knowing chemistry, so he yanked at his hair and bit his thumb, slammed his fist into his desk and stomped on his own foot. She watched how he calmed himself down through pain. It wasn't much later that she found out he did cut himself before, and she was trusted with the information. She never asked uncomfortable questions, she never judged or told him what to do, she just sat and let him vent, listened, and suggested what he could try when he's frustrated. It built an understanding between them.

"Why did Jared have to find out?" Connor whispered thinly with more tears filling his eyes and blurring his vision down. He put his third cigarette of the short time he's been with Alana to his lips and took a long drag from it. He took too much smoke it and choked on it, coughing quietly into the collar of his shirt.

"Everything happens for a reason," Alana sighed quietly as he unbraided the French braid and started to rebrand it again, "remember our talks about fate? Calls in midnight to ramble about the dynamics of purpose? Jared found out and that's fate doing her job."

"Fate cost me Miguel 'fore, why's she try'ng to ruin my fuck'n life?" Connor groaned and sniffled slightly as he grabbed a rock and threw it as hard as he could. "Jared's gon' leave me an' I'm gon' kill myself jus like Fate fuck'n wants!"

"Fate doesn't mean for you to off yourself."

"Why?! She acts like it!"

"She's making you stronger like this. Last attempt, you failed. Now? That means you're still here for a reason."

"There's no reason t'be here if he leaves me b'hind in the dust because of my arms!"

Alana sighed quietly and let Connor take deep breaths and deep drags. "Connor, do you love him?"

"What?" He asked shakily and sniffled.

"Do you love Jared?"

Connor hesitated to answer, "Yes."

"You truly do?"

"Where's this goin?" Connor snapped slightly, putting out with cigarette butt with his fingers.

"Trust me," Alana faintly chuckled. "You've gotta let him know you love him. He's a sensitive and very self conscious guy and you can't forget that when you're upset."

"He's gonna leave."

"If you love him you have to trust him too," Alana eases quietly and tied off one of the French braids she twirled into his hair. "He's not just a buddy. He's a true friend."

Alana's heard stories from Connor about buddies in the past, about Miguel, about a lot. Connor had a lot of trust in Alana, who didn't?

Connor nodded shakily and took a deep breath. He leaned back into Alana's hand, her tying off the braid and swinging the other back and forth with her fingers. They both were in a zone, like a tiny world-ignoring bubble in that moment, and that was obvious once Jared walked over unnoticed. He cleared his throat slightly, and that's when they both looked over, jumped and squeaked a small surprised peep. Jared just stood, rocking back and forth and back on his heels, side to side, feet not keeping still. He was too anxious. He was always too anxious for things. Average things. Necessary things. Hell, he gets anxious trying to spell necessary without spellcheck. Whenever he did, anyone could see the faint eraser faded attempts if they actually looked for it.

"Connor...?" Jared hesitated, voice slow and woozy. "Are we going to talk about what happened, or are we just, gonna ignore it and try to not remember?" That earned a raised eyebrow from Alana and a deer in headlights one from Connor.

"I don't know," Connor mumbled, voice slightly uneven in tone. He cleared his throat to try to get rid of it. "You're apart of this too, don't dump all this shit on me." Jared slowly nodded and bit into his lip.

"I want to talk about it," Jared said firmly, even through the wavering and fearful tints there were in his voice, not to mention expression. "But... I just..." he tried to figure out his words. It never worked. Connor shifted uneasily, nauseous with thoughts. He leaned to Alana subconsciously like looking for protection. His expression seemed heavy and hyped with fear, lip twitching at the corner he typically held his cigarette, and that's essentially how Jared could tell he had at least two cigarettes already. It happened when he smoked too much. "How many cigarettes did you smoke?"
~

I'm high and it's midnight and I've definitely cried a tiny bit watching hours long loop of Gordon Ramsey screaming about lamb sauce
So

Vote and comment please! It's like, the few things that encourage me to keep updating