Dark Places

19 | drake, what the fuck is this?

❝fall into a dream, in a hollow room;
frozen in a sleep, i can see it's you.❞

☽

JONAH SLURS SOMETHING in Spanish, soft, yet full of a scathing blame, and Drake hisses something back, jagged, yet thick, laced with a biting frustration. I roll my eyes as I press my back to the door, listening to them argue in hushed voices. I don't need Jonah to fight my fights, especially if they're with Medina.

"Um, dude," Connor cuts them off, a whisper, rising in his intoxicated attempt to stay quiet. "I would not fuck with Luz." He breaks off into an obnoxiously drunken laugh. "Seriously, that bitch might just kill you, D."

Tempting.

"Connor," Drake snaps, "you don't even know Luz."

"Oh, and you do?"

My throat tightens. Ah, no.

"Fine, a la mierda. Fuck this."

His heavy footfalls, rivaling the storm, thundering past my bedroom, striking kitchen tiles, and then, in the wake of a slamming apartment door, echoing, echoing, echoing.

I close my eyes and inhale, overwhelmed with the fucked up urge to follow him, but before I can even curse myself out for that, I hear the soft, timid footsteps, timed perfectly to his drunk stumble, his tight string of Spanglish, and his clumsy knock. "Luz." Jonah. "Hey, Luz."

Fuck, I'm done with tonight.

"What? ¿Qué quieres?"

The doorknob twists, and I slink away, turning, just in time for Jonah to push the door open cautiously. His gaze lifts, glassy and shaky, desperately searching the darkness. "Hey, are you okay?" I scowl at him, unimpressed by the guilty smile lilting at his lips. "Drake didn't mean that, hermanita."

"I don't care," I say, and I mean it. I don't care if Medina thinks I'm a raging bitch. Es su problema, no mía.

"He left," he says, scratching the back of his head with a sheepish shrug. "So, if you wanna come out and talk, I'm—"

"Oh, yeah!" Connor scrambles over, shoving Jonah lightly to shoot me a pleading look. "Luz, you should come out and talk... be- because I only know two things about you, babe." He holds up four fingers, his brows furrowing in mock sadness and his lip jutting out into a pout. "Alcoholic. Lesbian."

Oh, if I could get away with it... if I could get away with murder, Connor might end up dead before Drake. Somehow.

I bite back a nasty comment, along with the homicidal fantasy, and mask the annoyance with a sweet smile. "Aw, thanks, babe, but I think I'll pass on a conversation with a drunk pendejo that I've... oh, yeah, never liked."

Connor shrugs. "I think you're just jealous that you can't get drunkkkkk."

"Hey, man," Jonah hisses, jerking an elbow at him.

Yeah, Jonah had said, it will be the perfect environment for recovery, Luz. Yet, here I was, standing in front of my trashed brother and his equally trashed roommate on Friday night, in desperate need of heavy fucking liquor, if I was going to deal with them for another fucking minute. I was waaaaay too sober for their shit.

"Yep, okay." I clap my hands together and nod, stepping forward with a tight smile. It doesn't help that they're loaded, because all I do is usher them out of my doorway, but Jonah still trips over his own feet and goes tumbling into Connor, triggering an unbearable roar of laughter from them. "Yeah, I'm good. I'm done." I nod again as I retreat back into my room, knowing that they're not even listening anymore. "I'll talk to you tomorrow, mano."