The pizza place wasn't that far a walk from school, but my bookbag felt like an escapee from fat camp was clinging onto me. My house was walking distance from the school too, but I'd pick pizza over my mother's cooking any day. Snow fell from the sky, oddly muffling the shouts of kids trying vainly to catch their busses. My feet crunched the soft powder beneath me in my red Doc Martens as I began the weary trudge up the hill. All too late, I heard sloppy speeding footsteps behind me and a loud guffaw as the handle of my backpack was roughly grabbed. I was spun around in a violent circle and I yelled as the grey sky blurred above me. I understood the pain of a snowman in a shaken snow globe now. The hand released, and I spiraled out of control like one of the snowflakes above me. I fell in the snow with a faint oof as a cloud of powder puffed up around me.
I heard Gale and Lucette`s laughter from somewhere above me. My hair was splayed out around my head like tendrils of flame laced with white snowflakes. Gale`s head appeared above me.
“Need a hand?”
I laughed, and took his outstretched hand but pulled him down into the snow on top of me. I could feel his hot breath on my cheeks, numbed by the cold. His lips were parted slightly, and I could feel his toned abdomen rising and falling with his still labored breathing, and his legs were tangled with mine. His grey, tempest eyes met my emerald ones, and I felt like a pine sapling caught in a winter's blizzard. I thought we were just friends but… I wanted nothing more than to be swept away in those eyes, to have his lips press against mine and push him down into the snow, to run my greedy fingers through his tangled, thick hair, to become a flame of passion against a world of cold white.
He flicked my nose and rolled off me, snapping me out of it. I sat up, hoping they would think my cheeks were just rosy because of the cold. I struggled to stand with my backpack, shouldering it finally and we all continued to plod on. Oh jeez, Roxanne. What are you thinking? He`s been one of your closest friends for years, now this comes up?
The rundown pizzeria was a welcome warmth against the freezing cold. My mouth watered as the beautiful greasy scents wafted towards me. Snowflakes were still caught in Lucette`s wavy blonde hair.
I nudged her. “You order first.” Social interaction was not my forte.
“No you.”
“Nonono it's definitely your time to shine bud.”
Gale solved our debate and pushed me forwards. I swear I could feel the heat of his hand through my sweater. Jesus you need to stop, Roxy.
The cashier loomed in front of me. It was an innocent looking girl in her twenties, but still she as well have been Joseph Stalin with my level of social anxiety.
“Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh... could I get a slice of plain pizza and some zeppoles?”
“Uhhh could I get a slice of plain pizza and some zeppoles?” I heard Gale`s teasing whisper from behind me. I shot a dirty look over my shoulder.
“Sure thing. That'll be 3. 50.”
I hurriedly handed her a five dollar bill, took the change, and scurried out of the way, eager to get out of the spotlight. I elbowed Gale in the gut and he snickered.
I sat down at one of the only tables in the tiny place, the wooden chairs seeming to have sat far too many people. Various pictures of Venice and wine glasses hung crooked on the walls, and a TV played a random spanish channel. My seat looked out the window at the intersection, and a row of bushes now lightly dusted with snow. The blinking red light dangled like a perverse, flashing star gaudily threaded on a necklace chain. The maroon window shelf held various spices and menus. I`d sit in that same old seat and eat their same old pizza for what must`ve seemed like a million times. The taste would start to get old, sure. But not a day goes by now when I don't desperately wish I was back in that moment. My two closest friends were right by my side, both within an arm's reach. We were all happy, we were all together. It's dumb, but it felt like home right then. There was no place I would rather be. I thought it would last forever. Problem is, forever never seems to last long enough. Back then though, I just studied a chipped statue of a potbellied, laughing italian cook with a protruding double chin.
“Wondering what it'd be like to get it on with him?” Gale`s rumbling voice in my ear made me jump, and he whapped me on the backside of the head as he passed.
He sat across from me, putting his leg up on where Lucette would sit.
“I guess you could call it a zesty Italian undressing.” I replied, and we both smirked as she took a seat, swiping his foot off her chair.
“What are you two smiling about… You know, actually, I don't even want to know.” She knew our sense of humor too well.
The scratched wood floor creaked as Gale rocked back in his chair, and I slid my foot under the leg of it, pushing him slightly backwards. He violently spazzed out, coming back down on all four legs with a slam. Gale flipped me off with one of his weirdly long fingers, dimples creasing on his cheeks as he smiled.
“Go put your alien hands somewhere else.” I laughed.
“You know what they say about long fingers…” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively.
“No, please tell me, what do they say?” Lucette leaned in mockingly inquisitive.
“Well-” Before he could finish his thought our slices of pizza and his garlic knots arrived in an aura of heavenly aromas, delivered by the godlike hands of our waiter.
Between sloppy bites of pizza I mumbled, “So where we gonna work on these coffee can cameras?”
“I figured at my place tomorrow?” Lucette was making what she liked to call icing by pouring water in a small pile of powdered sugar and swirling it around with her finger.
Gale and I nodded, and I finished the rest of my pizza as I forlornly licked the rest of the lingering sauce from my fingertips. I wished it was Gale`s fingertips I was licking it from. Ah jeez Rox. I stole a quick glance at his muscled biceps, and wanted nothing more than to be curled up with them draped around me, surrounded by his strong, comforting warmth. I felt like he could save me from myself.
I needed to distract myself so I blurted, “Yo let's go to the ropes course!” Our high school had a sketchy ropes course with some tattered pieces of equipment. We didn't have access to any of the safety equipment but who cared?
Lucette led the way out, and the creaking door left flakes of green paint on my hand as I pushed it open for Gale to come out behind me. Maybe he'll start a conversation with me, maybe it`ll lead somewhere, maybe-
The steady stream of maybes experienced an abrupt drought as Gale rushed past me to walk right next to Lucette.
Oh.
My heart joined in the snowflake`s lackadaisical downfall from the sky, except it was too laden with the weight of overwhelming rejection to remain afloat on any flimsy breeze of lingering hope for long. It plunged straight down to land with a wet smack right between my stumbling crimson Doc Martens that now walked in between the fading footprints of two budding lovers on a sidewalk that was not wide enough to fit three.

I trudged on behind them, my heart becoming as numb as my fingers.
The ropes course loomed before us in the snow like eerie fingers clawing up out of an icy grave. A tall, crooked tree leaned over the course, as if it were an senile old man. The rockwall was missing the first couple of rocks to prevent kids like us from climbing it, but the rest jutted out at random places like pimples on the face of a pubescent teenage boy. A row of tire swings lightly dusted with snow hung quietly in a line leading to a giant's ladder, and a long, thick horizontal log hung slightly suspended at the beginning of the tire swings.  Gale and Lucette sat on the log, and she began to shiver, her silver breath curling from her scarlet lips. He took off his weathered, brown leather jacket and wrapped it around her narrow shoulders. Lucette flashed a bashful smile at him and pulled it tightly around her with white knuckled fingers. I looked away as my icy face burned with jealousy. Snowflakes continued to gather in my hair like the dead skin of my vain fantasies.
I gazed upwards at the giant's ladder, dangling intimidatingly above me. It consisted of six long wooden beams strung together by two wires threaded through the end of either side to create a supersized ladder shape. An overwhelming urge to climb to the top of it made my fingers curl with anticipation. Lucette and Gale were still talking and she was beginning to lean into his arms. I turned away and focused my attention on scaling the giant's ladder. I had to at least get on it. It was a sizable distance from the ground to the bottom rung, so I hopped on the tire swing closest to it, my tight skinny jeans dampening as the snow on the top of the tire swing began to seep into them. Cold air rushed through the holes of my sweater as I stood up on the swing, beginning to rock back and forth, gaining momentum to grab ahold of the bottom rung. It danced just out of my reach as a wind gusted, but on the next swing I clenched the wire tightly in my fist.
By now Lucette and Gale had noticed me.
“Roxy! Roxy! Roxy! What! Are! You! Doing!” Gale yelled, concern tinting his voice.
“We're at a ropes course! I'm climbing!” With the last word I took a leap of faith and wrapped my arms and legs around the bottom rung like a koala, except much more gangly and panicked.
“Rox, don`t die!” Lucette`s voice rung out below like funeral bells.
“I'm tryin mate!” I grumbled, and clenched my teeth as I hauled myself on top of the wooden beam. I shakily stood up, tightly clutching the wire in my fist and grinned, resting my arms on the next beam, “Well I made it!”
“Here hang on, we'll swing you!” Lucette laughed, and ran over below me, grabbing ahold of one of the wires before I could protest. Gale followed suit, grabbing the other wire with his mouth warped into a mischievous rictus. You Only Live Once by the Strokes faintly drifted up from below. Gale must`ve started playing music, and it was a fitting song.
I began to laugh then, feeling my jealousy fade away as I glanced down at their blurry faces below, smiling up at me. This was the happiest we'd all been in a while. I wasn't about to ruin that with aimless jealousy. The snowflakes pelted my face with icy pricks as I swung, and yelled along to the chorus, breaking the strangle muffling effect the snow had.
“SIT ME DOWNNNN! SHUT ME UUUUUUP! I'LL CALM DOWNN AAAAND I`LL GET ALONG WITH YOU!” I closed my eyes and my mouth curled into a smile as I sang. My face was frozen, but I didn`t care. I tilted it back towards the sky and caught idly drifting snowflakes on my tongue. The moment was so sweet, I wanted to live in it forever. Everytime I hear the song, I do. Though these days… it leaves a bitter taste.
In that instant they were still my two closest friends. Each of them were each a part of me, the only reason why I stayed whole, and in those few weeks to come I'd never felt more complete. They completed my jigsaw heart. Nothing had changed, in fact it had grown into something better. I might have been a third wheel, but sometimes all you need in life is a tricycle.

After many visits to the pizza place, I found myself in Lucette`s basement with my fingers dug into the thick, fuzzy carpet as my arm flopped off of the couch I was splayed out on. Lucette sat on the couch, leaning on my legs, and cut neat little rectangles into three coffee cans for the eyeholes of the cameras. She didn't trust Gale to cut his own, not because she thought he might chop off his finger, but because she was stressed that the rectangle would not be a perfect rectangle. She didn’t let me cut my own because she didn't trust me with a knife.
Gale plucked the plastic disgrace of a Guitar Hero guitar from the ground and plopped in front of me on the couch next to Lucette, leaning back against my midriff. There was no place in the world I'd rather be. The coffee can cameras were finished, all we had to do was take a long exposure shot of something in the school. Lucette and I amusedly watched Gale struggling with Guitar Hero. His eyes were glued to the screen as his fingers began to madly scramble at the technicolor keys, but clearly they weren't madly scrambling enough.
“Helen Keller would be better at that than you, ya know that?” I propped my head up and looked up at his dead serious and overly concentrated face.
“The Wii… is harder… than X-box.” He growled in between his finger spasms which seemed to be of no avail to the animated crowd which was booing him violently now.
“Yeah, you're not doing a very good job impressing me right now,” Lucette smirked at his fleeting expression of annoyance before his deadpan face dominated again.
“The next one of you to say something is going down.” Now he was getting feisty as he began to smack the keys with renewed vigor.
“Maybe you should try going down a level.” I suggested.
“Alright that`s it Roxy!” He grinned and dragged me off the coach, beginning to wrestle with me on the floor. I heard Lucette laughing somewhere behind me as I was completely caught unawares.
I was a mass of flailing limbs, laughing as the world spun around me, as if I was trapped inside a kaleidoscope somebody had dropped down a hill. Everything is right in the world when it's spinning, when everything is a messy blur of smeared colors and random sounds and limbs. I couldn't tell where I stopped and Gale began. It`s when the world stops spinning you have to be careful. When it stops, you realize which limbs are your own, and which are not. Sometimes when you stop spinning, it`s not just the extra limbs that are missing, but a chunk of your heart too. But back then I was so limitlessly happy it felt like my heart was a supernova, becoming brilliantly bright in it`s explosion of pure jubilation. So bright, it blinded me to the future. So bright, it convinced me forever existed. It doesn't. Explosions are explosions, no matter how they formerly seem. Supernova`s are no different, such displays of unfathomable light can only point to one conclusion. The slow death of a star. I just didn't know I was dead yet.
Gale released me from his iron grip and I flopped onto the ground next to him, exhausted.
Lucette peeked over the edge of the couch down at us, smiling.“It's still light out, we could go over to the high school now!”
I should've said no. God, I should've said no.
“Let`s go!” Is what I said.
The three of us tumbled up the stairs and piled into her pickup. There was no room left because it only had two seats, so I dove into the cargo bed of her red pickup with three coffee cans in my arms, which was not the best idea because coffee cans tend to hurt when you fall on them.
Gale began to get out to switch places with me but I yelled, “Floor it, I'll be fine!”
“But Rox-”
“FLOOR IT!”
It was a race against the swollen, glaring eye of the sun as it sunk lower in the sky, setting the world aflame with screaming splashes of color. Lucette got behind the wheel and I had to hang onto the sides of the cargo bed for dear life as we lurched backwards. Gale turned on the radio, and cranked the knob all the way to the top. The coffee cans bounced around me as if they were excited for their first and only chance to be something other than a coffee can. You Only Live Once by The Strokes was blaring again, and I shakily stood up, stretching my arms out wide like flightless wings. Tonight they flew.
The drums and crackling guitar took me past the stars we raced against. We drove into the steadily sinking sun as it painted the world in soft shades of gold. Everything was gold then. Lucette`s hair was billowing behind her like the rays to her own sunburst. Gale`s eyes reflected the golden light, flashing with elation as he looked up at me. I was soaring, my chin tipped back as I breathed in the tie dye sky. My fiery hair whipped wildly behind me in the careless hands of the wind, and I felt as though I was a stray ember of the sun. I whooped as we sunk into the auburn inferno, eternalized by the golden touch that had awoken the fire in our souls.
I never wanted that car ride to end.
But it did.

We veered precariously into the High School's parking lot, and I grabbed the three coffee cans and hopped out of the cargo bed as we screeched to a halt. I basically threw the coffee cans at Gale, but he managed to catch them alright. I was still on an adrenaline high, my hair all kinky and windblown.
“PHOTOGRAPHIC PAPER!” I yelled excitedly and began to run for the school, my Doc Martens slapping against the concrete. Lucette and Gale sprinted behind me unquestioningly. Gale carried all three coffee cans.
I pounded on the front door of the school after jiggling it`s locked door handles aggressively for a few minutes. A suspicious peppery-haired wrinkly custodian squinted out at us from behind the glass.
He cracked open the door a tad and said in a crusty, old man voice, “What's wrong with kids these days, coming back to school?”
“Please sir, we have to get into the school, it`s for a photography project and we'll all fail the class if we don`t take a picture using these cameras in the school-” I rambled, my words beginning to all blur all into one.
“Yeah, yeah alright, alright. Just quit botherin` me and don't break anythin` or vandalize like you young'uns tend to do.” He opened the door, and we tumbled through, our feet sliding on the checkered tile. We must`ve looked like the scene out of the Breakfast Club.
Our wheezing laughter echoed through the halls as classrooms shot by, and finally we crashed into the photography room, quickly piling ourselves into the dark room. The distinct smell of developing chemicals hung stagnant in the room. I flicked on the safelight and everything was bathed in a reddish tint. Various trays of chemicals sat idly in rows along the two walls for developing photos. It`s one of the things I loved about old school photography, it wasn't about seeing what developed from the positives. It was about seeing what developed from the negatives. I reached in the cardboard box containing photographic paper and pulled out three pieces. The amount of light let into the pinhole camera determined how defined your photo would develop as you dunked it in the various chronologically ordered chemicals. Too much exposure to the outside world, and it would turn completely dark. Too little, and it would remain a stark white. As I grow older, I find people are the same.
Gale handed me one pinhole coffee can camera at a time, and I jammed the photographic paper inside each one of them, making sure it hugged the inside of the coffee can smoothly. We all sealed the lids tightly shut and put electrical tape over the pinhole in the side to act as a shutter. Upon taking the photo, we would peel the tape back to allow light in, and close it again when we guessed the time was right. It was all a gamble with the sun. One I intended to win.
After making sure all of our pinhole cameras were secure and would take a quality photo, we felt our way out of the darkroom. Gale traced his fingers down my back, sending an icy shiver down my spine that somehow turned my body to flame. I glanced back at him and he shrugged, but I thought I could make out a curling grin in the blood red light.
“Guess I thought you were the wall.” He whispered. I could feel his hot breath tickle the stray hairs tucked behind my ear. I heard the sly smirk staining his low voice like alchohol on a drunkard's breath. I wanted to taste his smile. No Rox, you couldn't do that to Luce. I shook my head, and tried to rid myself of the thought, but it remained lurking in the back of my mind.
I scrabbled at the door handle in the dark, and the door swung open, blinding all three of us. We squinted at each other in the fading daylight.
“Alright here's the plan, we each find a place to take our photo that can have an exposure time of thirty minutes and develop as many photos as it takes until we're satisfied with a shot. Good?”
Gale and Lucette nodded, and we broke apart in separate directions as we scoured the building for a suitable location for an exposure. I found a well lit stairwell and gingerly set down my pinhole camera. The light filtered in through the old curling design of the railing, lacing shadowy ringlets on the floor. I sat cross legged next to the camera, peeling back the electrical tape and began to anxiously estimate the amount of exposure time. After a short while I closed it, and ran back to the dark room, my Doc Martens booming in the empty hallway like thunderclaps of an oncoming storm.

I barrelled through the photography room door straight into Gale`s muscled chest. My fingers lingered on it for a moment as I pushed myself backwards to walk around him.
“Sorry,” I blushed as I made my way past him to the darkroom.
“Don't be.” His firm grip slid onto my shoulder and pulled me backwards, my body pressed against his.
I wish I could say I protested. I wish I could say I stopped him. But I didn`t.
He looked deep into my eyes, and I was overwhelmed by the raging tempest that resided in twin pools of grey. Gale leaned closer, his cupid's bow lips parted slightly. I`d been shot straight through the heart. Our pinhole cameras dropped to the ground with hollow clunks. I closed my eyes and relinquished myself to the irresistible pull of his storm, feeling as though I was no more than a helpless sailboat, thrown about on the throes of raw emotion. Our lips smashed together, our breaths ragged and fleeting as I was submerged time and time again under his intense waves. I was drowning in him, so deep I'd forgotten what air tasted like. I only tasted him. I only needed him.  His hands tangled themselves in my fiery mane and he cupped my head so I stood teetering on my tiptoes. I ran my hands up beneath his shirt, tracing the lines of his sculpted abdomen with my straying fingers. We slammed up against the wall, and he fumbled with my arms as he held them by the wrists above my head. The concrete was cold against my back as he kissed me so hard I thought I might melt away into it. I forgot which limbs were mine. I thought I had been found, but the truth was I was completely lost.
He pulled away and we stood, glancing at each other and panting. I combed my fingers quickly through my messy, frazzled hair in a vain attempt to calm it down before Lucette came back. My lips were still tingling and my body was still aflame wherever he had touched. There weren't many parts spared from the inferno. Giggling to ourselves, we made our way back into the darkroom, picking up our pinhole cameras from where we had dropped them. I had just closed the door to the darkroom when Lucette came crashing in. Immediately the inferno was doused by the killing frost that smothered my heart.
“I was looking all over for you guys! I couldn't remember how long you were supposed to leave the photo in each chemical, but I knew you`d know Rox cuz you're into this stuff…” She trailed off, waiting for an answer.
Nausea gripped my stomach and twisted it into a pretzel. I hated myself. My head was spinning so far out of my reach and yet everything seemed so surreally normal in those few minutes. It was the last few minutes of normal we'd all have though I didn't even know it yet. I miss normal. I miss it with every ounce of my being. The word “miss” is a sorry understatement for the sheer longing I feel, so strongly it overwhelms me and swells out of my mouth in a bloodcurdling scream.
“Roxy?” Lucette called me back to life. Gale was looking at me nervously out of the corner of his eye.
“Uh yeah, um I`d say about thirty seconds to a minuet in each.” My voice sounded funny. It was disconnected, like a radio on the wrong frequency. It didn't sound like my own.
Gale developed his photo first, swirling it jerkily in the various liquids. His face was an indiscernible mask in hues of red every time I looked at him. His photo seemed to develop alright, a little overexposed and dark, but not a failing grade. He'd taken a picture of a staircase as well, but his led downwards into the shadows.
“I'm gonna wait in the car.” His voice was unwavering as he walked out the door.
Lucette developed her photo next, gently laying it in the developer. Dark amorphous shapes began to appear at first, then took on more characteristics as it lay beneath the surface. It looked like... it looked like the photography classroom. A sudden fear seemed to pinch my arteries shut, stopping my heart cold. Slowly, painfully, several ghost images of Gale and I traced themselves onto the photo. She must`ve let her photographic paper be exposed in the pinhole camera while she was looking for Gale and I, but we were already in the room. A long exposure shot meant that multiple ghost images of moving objects could be captured in the photo if they were moving slowly enough. It just so happened that Gale and I were the objects.
We both had several ghosts. He had his hand on my shoulder, pulling me backwards. He had his hand in my hair, tangled and reaching. He had his hand on mine, lifting it above my head. His hand was gone now. All that remained was the cold of his absence and the chemical smell of betrayal.
“Roxanne…Roxanne what… what is this…” Her voice was a trembling whisper.
“Luce-”
“I can't believe you would do this. You. My best friend…” Her voice faded off into the droning buzz of the safelight.
The dripping photo shook in her clenched fist as she began to walk towards me. I backed out of the darkroom. My undeveloped photo was exposed to the light. It would turn black if it was developed now. We would never know what might have been.
I began again, and my voice sounded like it was in a different dimension. None of this felt real. “Lucette, I-”
“MY BEST FRIEND!” She roared, her face flushing with anger. “MY OTHER HALF! MY RIDE OR DIE!” Her voice caught and tears were streaming down her face, lingering on her chin. She advanced towards me quickly, raising her hand and slapping me across the face. It should have stung. I didn't even feel it. Not really. Her voice became dangerously quiet again, dropping so low it was almost a whisper. “Never in a million years, Roxanne, would I have done this to you.”
I looked into her hurt, disbelieving blue eyes. I might`ve been submerged before, but now I had hit rock bottom. Gale had taken me under, but it was her tears that tore away my sails and left me no more than a skeleton of a boat, collapsed on the ocean floor.  I couldn't think of anything to say. I should have said something. Anything. But I just ran. I was a coward, and lower than that, a traitor.

It was pouring outside as I stumbled out of the building. I fled into the night, but I couldn't escape the thoughts inside my own head. It was you, Roxy. You`re the reason they're going to fall apart. I was drenched and my Doc Martens were filled with puddles already. I didn`t care. Nothing mattered anymore. I didn`t matter anymore. I didn't deserve to. The stars were choked by the foreboding clouds that massed overhead, and the blurring sidewalk was illuminated by flashes of lightning. Thunder rumbled and shook me to my core. I ran on. It`s all your fault. A low hanging tree branch scratched my face. It etched thin trails of blood on my cheek which were diluted by the ceaseless rain. Nothing will be the same anymore. The three of you don`t exist anymore. You'll never be together again like you were. Those days are OVER. It`s GONE, Roxy. And it`s all your FAULT. I sobbed horribly as I ran, sometimes so hard it bent me in half. I retched, but all that surfaced was a thin stream of bile that dribbled from my quivering lips. My hair was plastered to my arms and back. It was turned brown by the rain, a fire quenched and turned to pitiful mud. I screamed into the night, screamed in frustration at the future that was lost like an undeveloped photo forced into the blinding light. It would only turn black if it was developed. I craved that darkness now. I wanted it to end. I wanted this pain to stop. I wanted it all to stop. I wanted to go back. I wanted to go back. I wanted to go back.
I staggered onto my front porch. My hands were shaking so badly I could barely fit the key into the lock. My parents were away at a dinner party. Thank God.
My tears made my vision bleary as I stumbled to laundry room, my hands fumbling at a bottle of bleach. Maybe it`ll make me as white as the photo before she developed it. When everything was alright. I thought disorientedly.
I tripped up the stairs and grabbed my speaker from my room, heading towards the bathroom. I turned it on to the radio and The Strokes pained voice crackled out of it just as I reached the inside of the bathroom and flicked on the light. I peeled off my white shirt that stuck to me and threw it violently on the ground. I had intended to take a shower, only I didn't make it that far.
The end of You Only Live Once was playing and echoed off the walls. I was trapped. I was utterly trapped within the walls of my own mind as snapshots of all the memories came flooding back. Gale and Lucette below me as they swung me on the giant's ladder. Gale and Lucette laughing and sitting side by side with me at the pizza place. Gale and Lucette walking on either side of me on the sidewalk. Gale and Lucette sitting in front of me as I splayed out on the couch, both of them using me as a backrest. Gale and Lucette didn't exist anymore. None of it existed anymore. It was gone it was all gone it was all GONE. All because of YOU. I collapsed onto the bathroom floor, clutching my knees and rocking back and forth as the sobs came heavy and quick, forcing me to breathe in shallow gasps. The room spun around me. I couldn't breathe anymore; my breaths were fluttering and quick like butterflies I couldn`t catch.
My favorite memories of them weren't even anything special. We were just talking. Just sitting around and talking. Joking around, laughing and smiling. That`s what I miss the most. Just being with the two of them. They made me whole. Now I was falling apart. My jigsaw heart was irreparably crumbling into millions of pieces, strewn about the floor along with my tears. They made me so high, but now I was so irresurrectably low. My two closest friends. Gone. We`d never be all together again. Never again.
The beginning stumbling drums of Someday by The Strokes blared from the radio. I slammed my head back against the wall as he began to sing, a fresh torrent of tears gushing down my face.
“In many ways, I`ll miss the good old days, someday, someday.”
I screamed as a feeling of frustration swept the ground out from beneath my feet. I was helpless to do anything but watch as the good old days slipped away. They weren't coming back. They weren't ever coming back. The room kept on fading in and out of my vision. I wished it would disappear for good.
“It hurts to say, but I want you to stay, sometimes, sometimes.”
I wanted them to stay so badly. So, so badly. But I could feel them already drifting away like the tiled floor beneath my feet.
“When we was young, oh man did we have fun, always, always.”
I didn't understand how my heart could be in my throat and in my shoes at the same time. All I knew was that it was torn apart. Maybe that's how it worked. Half in my throat and half in my shoes.
“Promises, they break before they're made, sometimes, sometimes.”
The tears had stopped now. All that remained were dry gasps that made me shudder. I looked at myself in the mirror and saw my gaunt reflection as no more than a skeleton. I couldn't even see myself all that clearly, I was shaking too badly. I was a leaf waiting to be torn off the branch by a storm, waiting to loose myself in the dark oblivion that blotted out my skies.
“Yeah, I think I`ll be alright.”
I raggedly whispered along with the song as I reached towards the bottle of bleach. My voice was lost anyways.
“Oh, someday… Still I ain't wastin no more time.”