#exploratory surgery

Summary: Sal tells Travis what really happens after death, and makes him promise something. Word Count: ~871 Rating: G Pairing: Sal/Travis Warnings: Existentialism, I guess?

A/N: I should clarify that Sal wasn't dead long enough for his soul to really do anything, and that this is his interpretation of events as a result.

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“I just think- it’s so fucking stupid, man. It’s just stupid, and embarrassing. To, y’know, be like this.” Travis tugged at his earlobe nervously. The cool lake water did nothing to cool the hot embarrassment lighting him up inside.

He’d never told anyone about… Whatever that was before. It was simply too stupid to talk about even if he did have friends to talk about it with. His weird little habit of reading his Moomin books and pretending he was a little kid again. Back when his mother was still around, and Mary still smiled and he was still friends with Larry and Ash, and things were easier. They were still hard, but they were easier.

He didn’t know what it was, and he didn’t know how to talk about it, but he’d seen Sal last fourth of July, when he didn’t have his meds. No mask, vomiting on the forest floor, so disoriented he didn’t know where he was. He screamed like death and called for his momma. When his father finally found them, Sal crawled into his arms like a young child, begging for papa to save him.

Whatever was wrong with Travis, Sal must’ve had it, too. That’s why he was the first and only person Travis would ever talk to about it.

But the way Sal scoffed chilled his shame and set a cold pit in his stomach in its place. “Who fuckin’ cares man? It’s not like anything matters anyway.” Sal blew the smoke from his cigarette out through the holes in his mask.

“You’re not planning to kill yourself any time soon, are you?” Travis paused his nervous habit and side-eyed Sal. Sal would never normally say something so pessimistic, and that only made his pit worse.

“No, no, it’s not like that. I just mean…” He sighed. “This is all we get, you know? When we’re gone, we’re gone. So who cares what makes you happy?” Sal shrugged, turning to look at Travis with his head cocked to the side in that way Sal always did.

Travis didn’t know how he felt about that, being raised Christian. “I guess.” He said noncommittally.

“When my face thing happened, I coded twice. I was fully dead for a couple of minutes total. You know what I saw while I was gone?” Sal continued staring ahead at the sunset, bumping the ash off his cigarette and onto the ground.

So there was actually some weight to Sal’s whole ‘dead boy’ schtick… He grabbed his fish necklace loosely, intrigued by Sal’s experiences with the other side. Well, as long as they weren’t his bullshit ghost stories. “What?” He asked.

“A big, fat load of jack fuckin’ shit.” Travis watched his adam’s apple bobble in his throat as he swallowed. “No light, no dead grandma welcoming me to the end, no voice of God. Not even any cool ghost shit.” He paused. “But you know what? It wasn’t bad. It felt nice.” That last part felt a bit too tacked on to feel natural.

In spite of Sal’s claim, Travis couldn’t help but feel a bit harrowed by this information. What about all those people that claimed to see things on the other side? Were they just lying? How did he know who to believe now? Was Sal just saying it was nice to make him feel better about it? He didn’t know where to even begin answering any of these questions.

“So who fucking cares, man. Who cares if you like kid’s stuff, I like kid’s stuff too. I like kid’s stuff, and I dress like a girl and I’ll fuck chicks and dudes, and I still like the Spice Girls, even though they’ve really fallen off these days, and I like romcoms, and mayonnaise, and maple syrup on my scrambled eggs, and I don’t care what anyone else thinks because this is all we get. I’m not gonna spend it being embarrassed to be alive, and you shouldn’t either. You hear me?” Sal still didn’t look at him.

“I’m gonna do whatever the fuck it takes to be happy. Because I have to.” Sal’s voice was so serious it was shaking.

Sal had never gotten this intense before. Even when he was trying to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that ghosts were real, even when he got so angry at Travis’s father that he couldn’t think in a straight line, he never got even a modicum close to the amount of intensity that Travis was feeling right now. There was something behind those words that went deep, deeper than his DNA, deeper than the molecules that made up his body, and straight into the celestial threads that stitched his soul together.

Whatever it was, Travis wasn’t convinced he shouldn’t be worried. With a furrowed brow, he reached over the tiny gap between them and grabbed the other boy’s hand. Sal took another drag from his cigarette before squeezing his hand back, putting his head on Travis’s shoulder as they stared at the sunset.

“Promise me you’ll do whatever it takes to be happy?” Sal said.

Travis exhaled harshly out of his nose with a grin. There he was, always looking out for Travis’s happiness.

“She’s asleep now. Let’s begin the surgery.”

The Sally Face gang plus Travis all get high together.

Rating: T Word Count: ~1800 Pairing: None/Gen Warnings: Drug use and references to child abuse

A/N: this involves two of my very self-indulgent headcannons; that ashley has tourettes, and that sal has POTS. this doesn't change much about the characters but is some needed context.

========

“How’s it feel so far? Good?” Ashley turned her head to him and elbowed him gently, her eyes half-lidded and red. Her ear was pressed to the couch and there was a deeply inebriated grin on her face.

“I can confidently say I have never experienced this feeling before in my life.” Travis felt like he was going to start phasing through the overly soft couch he was planted on. He stared at the ceiling, his hands resting on his stomach, listening to the quiet Spice Girls song playing in the background. Maybe it’s the fact that he doesn’t typically listen to a lot of contemporary music, or maybe it’s the weed, but right now, Saturday Night Divas was the most beautiful song he’s ever heard.

In this moment, he could feel everything; the fabric of every piece of clothing on his body, the thick and stale air of the Addison Apartments, the softness of the couch and how his weight shifted the stuffing inside, the way Ashley’s body next to him shifted the couch even further, the sensation of his bruised and scraped skin, the weight of his own body, he could even feel the Earth’s axis. But unlike other times this happened, it wasn’t overwhelming. It felt fine. Unifying, even. He could feel the way that everything was connected.

“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” Ashley asked, probing him for symptoms of greening out.

“I have no idea.” Travis looked back to the ceiling. Whether it was good or bad just seemed so insignificant to him right now. Right now, it just was.

Based on the way the others always acted when they were high, he was expecting more of a euphoric feeling when he tried it for the first time, but it didn’t feel quite like that to him. It felt like a relaxed, yet weighted clarity had dawned onto him. He was putting into words concepts he was acutely aware of but never consciously recognized. It was heavy, evocative, thought-provoking, stimulating.

“I think that’s a good sign.” Sal said from his spot on the floor. He’d been laying down on his back on the floor for a while now, since he took a couple of huge hits from the bong and his blood pressure dropped so badly that he nearly passed out just sitting up on the couch. Larry was digging through his kitchen for chicken broth and pickle juice right now.

“Should you even be doing this with your heart thing?” Travis asked, noting the way his heart was pounding in his chest a little bit, but Sal blew raspberries from behind his mask. “It’s fiiiiine, probably. I haven’t had a heart attack yet. I just need a little bit of salt or something, then I’ll be at least half as normal as I usually am.” He snorted.

Travis didn’t really know what that meant, but if Sal knew what he was doing, then he probably shouldn’t argue too much. Travis was acutely aware of how that was a mildly unusual thought process for him to be having, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care all that much. Right now, he just wanted to sit in the moment.

Larry walked back in with a mug of something hot with a straw in it in one hand, and a jar of pickles plus a plastic fork in the other. He kneeled down next to Sal to set them on the ground. Sal raised himself to his elbows to start getting up, but his arms and shoulders were visibly shaking from the effort, and he quickly plopped himself back down on the ground, snorting, and Ash quickly joined in.

“You have to feed me...” Sal said. “You have to feed me pickles like a baby bird.” Larry chortled highly. “Dude, I would do that for you… If you actually needed it.” He opened the jar of pickles and stabbed the fork inside uncoordinatedly a couple of times before pulling one out for Sal.

“Ew?” Ash said.

“But I do need it, Larry, I need it so badly. Feed my- my pickles, Laaaaaaaaaaryyyyyyyyyy-” His voice got progressively louder until Larry grabbed the plastic nose of his prosthetic and shook Sal’s face until he started laughing.

“Shut up, I feed you pickles. I do it every day.” Larry deadpanned, and Sal laughed. Without missing a beat, the blue-haired boy replied, “My beautiful pickle nurse saves me from the brink of death once more.”

Sal unbuckled the bottom straps of his prosthetic face so Larry could attempt to shove a pickle underneath it in what was probably not the most effective way to get this done.

Travis had a feeling that none of what they were saying was true, but he wouldn’t know. Maybe friends did pickle-nurse each other.

“This is proper procedure, right Neil?” Ashley asked, looking over to Neil on her other side. Todd was on the floor in between his knees, letting his boyfriend play with his hair.

“I taught Larry everything he knows about pickle-nursing.” Neil said, not even looking up from the little braids he’d been constructing and deconstructing repeatedly in Todd’s curly, red hair.

Todd seemed to stir for the first time in maybe thirty minutes. He wasn’t asleep, he’d just honked a little too much of that bobo and got himself a bit more blasted than he normally would’ve liked. His voice was quiet and words slurred together in a far-gone kind of fatigue as he asked, “What the fuck are we talking about?”

“Nothing, don’t worry about it, baby.” Neil said, petting his head softly. “Okay, I believe you.” Todd said, leaning back into the couch. “I’ll believe anything you tell me.”

“Travis, which is gayer: pickle nursing or hair salon?” Ash asked, gesturing from Sal and Larry to Todd and Neil.

Travis continued staring straight ahead, having absorbed himself in the conversation around him. He felt perfectly content right now, listening to this.

“Hellooooo, Travis?” Ash begun waving a hand in front of his face, and Travis started to snap himself back into reality.

“Huh? Whuh?” Travis sputtered and blinked dumbly, before he processed what had just happened. “Oh my gosh.” He covered his face in embarrassment and began laughing drunkenly, all high-pitched and lacking inhibition. He fell over onto the soft armrest of the couch as his knees lifted themselves up until his feet were off the ground.

“What, whaaat?” Ash asked, grabbing his shoulder and shaking.

Travis peered at Ashley through his fingers, and she could see parts of the stupid, inebriated grin on his face, and his squinted, reddened eyes.

“I thought I was listening to the radio. For like, the past ten minutes.” Travis’s voice was strained from trying not to laugh again, and he failed this fight after he stopped trying to communicate.

Ashley burst out laughing at his stoned-up mistake, and Larry began laughing hard enough that he needed to lean over, his forehead resting his weight over onto Sal’s trunk. Sal himself had spat warm chicken broth all over the inside of his mask, and he quickly turned over on his side, laughing and sputtering wetly on the ground, with Larry on top of him.

In the middle of the childish laughter, a deep and stinging melancholy had struck Travis.

It used to be a lot like this. Him, Larry, Ashley. All wound up in laughter at Travis’s old-fashioned home, or Ashley’s contemporary one. In Larry’s musty, turpentine-smelling basement bedroom. He remembered the smell of that wooden tree house Mr. Johnson had built before he disappeared. He wondered if the some of the glitter he’d spilled in the carpet of Ashley’s bedroom that one time was still there in its minuscule, yet untouchable glory.

Does Larry still have that scar on his elbow from that time he fell down the front steps of Travis’s house?

Travis’s ankle never stopped clicking when he turned it a certain way after he fell on it wrong from falling out of the tire swing in Ashley’s back yard.

Sometimes he still heard Ashley involuntarily repeating something rather mundane he’d said so many years ago with the same tone and inflection as when he’d first said it. It was like a snapshot of that moment existed within her permanently whenever her tics made her say ‘I got peanuts!’

It used to be a lot like this. Easy, fun contentment away from their parents. Away from expectations or prying eyes.

But then they got older. Life started getting complicated. They couldn’t dismiss their parents’ expectations anymore. Grades started becoming important. They had to think about their futures.

They just changed.

…No, that’s not what happened.

Travis changed.

And he didn’t just change out of nowhere, he was made to change, molded into what he was now through closed fists and backhands. Through hair brushes and belts, buckle-side first. Empty locked closets and physical restraint.

All at the hands of his father, spitting verses of the holy book like venom.

His father took him like clay and Travis let him, until he became so deformed by that tireless anger that he couldn’t look his reflection in the eye anymore. Because when he looked into those angry brown irises, he found himself consumed wholly by his father’s.

…And now they were here, where Travis was pausing in the middle of a laugh with people who used to have reasons to care about him, letting that old, empty ache spread further within his heart.

As they continued to laugh, and as the laughter died down back into conversation, he found himself falling quiet again. The way they spoke so naturally without him intervening only served to remind him that he didn’t belong here anymore. Maybe he never did.

Travis’s eyes made their way back to the point where the ceiling met the top of the wall as he leaned back into the couch, letting the soft, old cushions absorb his weight and sink his body in.

Nothing he could say in this conversation would be as funny or as useful as something one of their actual friends had to say, and he knew that. He knew that he was incredibly out of place here, what with all of the inside jokes and referenced memories he was missing. The way that they seemed to stop trying to include him as he got quieter and quieter again.

He internally begged someone outside his head to bring him back, to want him, to even notice him, but he wouldn't ask out loud, and so it never happened.

Sal notices that Travis is a bit space-y like he is, but it's a bit different.

Rating: E Word count: A thousand and something Pairing: None/Gen Warnings: Use of homophobic slurs

A/N: welcome to my new series called exploratory surgery. idk how many more of these i'll post but the general concept of this series will be me posting plot bunnies, darlings or drabbles that i can't/won't/shouldn't otherwise put into full fics, or they just haven't become full fics yet. you can think of them like 'sketches' in the same way that someone posts art sketches or whatever. idk i haven't slept, this one's vaguely about a niche headcannon i have for travis being able to see ghosts. please enjoy, or don't

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It wasn’t unusual for Sal to be found staring off into the distance about something, what with the ADD diagnosis, chronic dissociation, and now these new episodes, where he’s getting fucking visions from god or something. His friends had started calling him Space-y Face because of how often they had to wave a hand in front of him to get his attention. ‘Hey, Earth to Sally!’ It was a whole thing.

That’s why he noticed that Travis seemed to have the same problem.

Some teachers seemed like they didn’t want to call out Sal for spacing out, they seemed reluctant to want to put too much attention on him, which was kind of annoying when he actually wanted to pay attention in class, because then he had to get his notes from other people or ask questions after. At least he could kind of appreciate the thought.

But they weren’t afraid to call out Travis when he was staring out the window, and make him answer questions in front of the whole class when he wasn’t paying attention. Considering he was a known problem child, it seemed like some kind of sadistic humiliation tactic to try and push him back in line or to punish him for being such an asshole, or maybe even because they simply didn’t like him, and they used him as some kind of scapegoat. Some teachers certainly hated their lives enough to do that.

Though, there was one thing that kept bugging Sal.

When Sal zoned out, he could sometimes be like a mola-mola fish, floating through the ocean, going wherever the current takes him without a second thought, or even a first one. Eyes visibly unfocused, blinking slowly, speaking slowly, mouth sometimes left agape if he wasn’t talking, (which made him glad he wore a mask, because he sure looked stupid like that). The entire time, it would kind of feel like he was moving backwards through a brick wall; it was hard to think or move, and everything felt so distant. On really bad days, it honestly felt like he took something, his head was so fuzzy.

Other times, he could be like a possum playing dead: completely frozen. Hours could pass that left his body sore and aching, where he hadn’t moved a muscle or thunk a single thought. That happened a lot around August 16th.

Either way, the big thing about Sal’s zoning out, according to how Todd’s described it, is that he seems incredibly distant and unfocused. It looks like he’s ‘inside’, as he described it—inside his own head.

Travis wasn’t like that at all, in Sal’s observations. When he stared off in the distance, it was like he was looking at something far away, even when he was staring at an empty corner. When the teachers called him out, he sometimes did some kind of double take, or his eyes kept drifting back into the spot he was staring at. He didn’t seem like he was inside his head, he seemed like he was looking at something that was right there, but Sal couldn’t really be sure what.

It reminded him a lot of whenever Gizmo started staring randomly into the distance, like he was seeing something nobody else could. He always wondered if animals could see ghosts.

Now he was wondering if Travis could, especially with the way he was currently staring at that roadkill.

Sal had been going for a walk around town on a Saturday afternoon and had ended up in a nicer part of town, the part that Ashley lived in. He was thinking about stopping by to hang out with her, when he spotted Travis, who also lived in this area.

Travis was across the street from him, on the other sidewalk. He was completely frozen, staring straight down at a dead cat near the curb.

Sal decided he felt like being a pest that day, so he walked across the street nonchalantly to over just behind Travis, who continued staring at the ground.

His gaze, shifted near his feet as Sal began approaching, but Sal’s mouth moved before he could process it, and his subsequent greeting startled Travis out of whatever daydream he was having about that dead cat.

“Hey, Travis, what’cha lookin’ at?” Sal said, almost instantly regretting it. He should’ve waited a bit longer to see what was going to happen next.

Travis jumped hard enough that his hair seemed to stand on end for a second, before he realized it was just Sal. Then he slumped his shoulders and rolled his eyes.

“What do you want?” He spat.

“Saw you blankly staring at a dead cat for no reason, thought I’d see what the fuss was about.” Sal tilted his head to the side curiously. “You know that cat or something?”

“No, never seen it before.” Travis’s voice was cold and bland.

There was a beat of silence, where Sal was staring directly at Travis. Silences like this tend to make people uncomfortable, and often makes them volunteer information they wouldn’t have normally simply by being asked. It was one of Sal’s special tactics for extracting information from other people, and it typically worked especially well, because most people already found Sal’s presence discomforting.

“Anyways, bye.” Travis began walking away.

Travis was weird though, it didn’t always work on him.

Sal caught up behind him, patting him on the back of the shoulder to get his attention again.

“You stare at stuff a lot, you know that?” Sal said, walking beside him.

Travis walked faster. “What, are you stalking me? Freak?”

“Is that a question?” Sal cocked his head to the side, appearing nonchalant as his legs struggled to keep up with Travis’s long strides.

“You’re a freak, no question about it.” Travis huffed, adjusting his book bag irritatedly and turning his head.

“It’s not hard to notice things about other people if you just pay attention. You can learn a lot about people by just watching them.” Sal’s voice was calm, factual, as if it were normal to just watch people all the time.

Travis had felt dread before, but not quite like when Sal had finished letting that sentence out of his mouth. Sal was about to describe some of his unconscious behaviors, and it was going to make him deeply uncomfortable, and there was nothing he could do about it, because Sal seemed to just love making him as uncomfortable as possible in every imaginable situation. That blue haired faggot just had to stick his plastic nose in everything.

“Like, you read a lot—like a lot, a lot. You’re ambidextrous, but I’ll bet you’re naturally right-handed because that’s the hand you punch with. You’re not very familiar with computers, and you like to be outside, but you’re not really jock levels of athletic, so I think you kind of just hang out there, usually in trees, 'cuz of the callouses on your hands. You ever been hiking? You might like it.” Sal’s voice was way too cheery and overall normal to be saying these things. Nobody knew these things about Travis, because nobody paid attention to him. They all hated him, because he was an asshole, and that was kind of the point.

The fact that Sal could just swoop in and watch him like a hawk when he wasn’t paying attention and learn all these things about him without even talking to him was terrifying in the same way he was terrified of God.

Travis recoiled harshly. “Ugh! You’re such a creep! Don’t watch me like that, what’s wrong with you?”

“What, it’s a bad thing to pay attention to your friends?” Sal sounded a bit disappointed. After that, he was disappointed? Over what? That Travis didn’t like being watched? He sure hoped this was just God working in mysterious ways somehow, because he hated this.

“I’m not your friend, you fucking stalker. Leave me alone.” He began to walk faster, and Sal started to trail behind. “To be fair, I’ve kind of just been seeing you around for a couple of years, now. I’m not even paying that much attention to you.” Sal shrugged, shortly before tripping on something on the pavement.

“That doesn’t make it much better, you fucking weirdo. Stop watching me!” Travis began racing back to his house, his face burning red at how much Sal had seemed to learn from him when he wasn’t even trying that hard. What would happen if he tried much harder? He really needed to stay away from this guy.

Sal gracefully recovered from his trip and stared off at Travis’s disappearing form, head cocked to the side. He just didn’t quite get that guy.

AKA how many Nicole Dollanganger references can I make in a single fanfiction. The answer is a lot.

Summary: Travis goes over his view of Sal and his crush on him. Word Count: 1815 Rating: T Pairing: Sal/Travis Warnings: References to child/domestic abuse, internalized homophobia and religious themes

A/N: The first one I've actually titled, lol. Makes some mild references to my other fic, "Death Lingering", up on AO3. Not needed to read this, but explains some stuff.

======== Hell has a name – Chapel Hill.

An arid wasteland of unheard prayers and belt-buckle lashings, it sits in the center of Nockfell surrounded by an ancient and decrepit stone wall, commanding a legacy of fear and reverence. The other side of the wall is unknown to me, but I was always good at pressing my ear against it and listening to the sounds of the adjacent unbound people.

Still, after all these years, I can’t tell if I’m locked inside or out.

I peer through cracks and holes in the carved out rock, just big enough to stick my fingers through. I can’t exactly tell what’s on the other side, but I’m scared of it. It’s full of a terrifying life that I know I can’t live myself, so I sit back from my side of the wall and I watch what pieces I can catch through the holes.

You are the way you waste, and I waste away by watching you.

Out there, you’re warm and content. I don’t see your smile, but I could pick out the sound of your laughter in a crowd of a hundred people. I watch you keep yourself busy by feeding your infinite curiosity, always sticking your plastic nose where it doesn’t belong, and often paying a price for it. But you don’t care, as long as you’re satisfied.

You’re cool.

I’ve almost always thought that.

Your dark clothes, your heavy jacket, your fingerless gloves. Your chipped black nail polish, the wallet chain that matches Larry’s, that stick and poke of a butterfly on your wrist. The way you always walk with purpose, the way the insults roll off of you, the sincerity of your words. The music, the backtalk, the friendship, the graveyard hangouts, the treehouse, the basement bedroom, the rebellion, all of it.

It’s cool.

Maybe the grass is greener on the other side, but I’d rather have your problems than mine. Creaky, leaky pipes bursting with green ooze in an allegedly haunted, run-down apartment complex with stained and matted carpets and a legacy of murder honestly doesn’t sound so bad to me compared to the things I have to come home to.

It would be a reasonable trade-off for friends. Family. People that check in on you. People who aren’t afraid to say hello to me in the halls. I could go check the mail and talk about the weather with someone like it’s normal. I could be a part of something.

I know it’s selfish, but I want it. I want it more than anything, and you have it.

You’re not as afraid of consequences as I think you should be. Maybe it’s because we’re different. Maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe I’m just a coward, too weak-willed and spineless to fight for myself.

Maybe I’m afraid of coming out because it means I’ll get treated the same way I’ve treated you. Maybe I’m scared of losing the plausible deniability of the late bloomer when people finally see me for what I really am. Maybe I’m scared nobody will fight for me because I deserve it.

Maybe all of that’s true, but the thing I can’t stand the most is the way I know you would look at me with pride. Contentment, joy, peace. Your eyes would crinkle at the edges and that would be the only indication you could give that you were smiling. Put a hand on my shoulder, give me a hug, invite me to lunch, bring me to your friends. You’d reel me in for good, and I could never handle that.

I fear the weight of your forgiveness would crush me.

I’ve seen the depths of your shame and fear. I’ve seen the way you cry and scream and vomit and beg, writhing on the ground as memories of death’s touch strike you down again. I’ve touched the subdued terror in your soul with my bare hands, and they burned under the heat of it. I know the humiliation you hide behind that mask you call your face. I will always know you by your scars.

Even after everything you’ve been through, you’re hopeful. Kind. Genuine.

I don’t know how you do it.

You take my cruelty in stride, never taking your heart off of your cheek. You afford me more patience than I deserve. The earnest tone in your voice always shakes me to my core, threatening to break the hollow foundations of my disgraceful being, when you say that deep down I’m a good person, even though I don’t think there’s anything inside me anymore.

In my dreams, I can see your face. I can run my fingers through your hair. I can hold your sadness for you. I can touch your skin, your clothes, your lips. In my dreams, you walk me through town by the hand, and you look at me with your head cocked to the side like you always do when you’re observing. It’s peaceful, quiet, calm. We’re left alone.

In my dreams, I can trace your scars. The deep trenches of carved out flesh, the webbing that moves up into your hair. In my dreams, I can kiss the purple vein on your temple, the altered shape of your jaw, the tiny, protruding bump of your nasal bone. I could tell you that you don’t have to hide from me, I’m not scared of you. That I wouldn’t have you any other way. That it makes you who you are. That you’re cool.

In my dreams, nobody will ever touch us. But I could never really touch you either. Only in my dreams could I love you the way I want to, and for it, shame swallows me whole.

I remember how it started.

There was always this seed of sin inside of me. I didn’t plant it there, but I did bury it inside my heart. I pretended that it couldn’t grow its roots in me if I ignored it, but weeds don’t need you to water them yourself to grow into a parasitic garden. I covered it in my need for perfection and normalcy. I covered that in prayer, fear, guilt. I layered it all over this seed like pavement, but cracks grew in my facade fast, and through those cracks, the seed had sprouted.

If you trace the stems down underneath the concrete, you can find a cavity full of the tangled nest of the roots of my desire.

I hollowed out my soul trying to stop the spread, but all I did was make more room for it. No matter how hard I tried to fight it, I have become completely and wholly infested. I know one day, hell will catch up to me, and the light in your soul can’t save me from my fate. I can tell myself anything I want, but I know that deep down, I will burn for it.

You were exempt from P.E. for several reasons, so I never saw you in the locker rooms, just on the bleachers, your head in your hands. You always looked tired when you sat there.

No, it was during one summer break I saw it. You and your friends were at the playground, dicking around on the monkey bars while I sat on the bench, half-reading my book, half-watching you through the cracks in my wall again.

You hung upside down, laughing at something Larry said. Your shirt slipped up, all the way to your armpits. It was all skin, hatched with sparse blue hairs on your chest and stomach. The waistband of your boxers, wrapped around your bony hips. Ribs, held just centimeters beneath, moving and bending as the rest of you did. Barely-used abdominal muscles struggled to keep your weight as you bent up, trying to pull yourself back down, and I still remember the way your stomach folded over itself when you finally got up there.

I can never erase it. That piece of you is locked inside of me forever. It keeps me going just as much as it holds me back. I’ll never let it go if it kills me.

I could never have what you have. I could never do what you do. I’m not strong like you are, I’m a coward. I’m weak, worthless, and empty. There’s nothing inside of me worth looking at, let alone anything worth saving, I know that. God knows that. But I can watch you through the cracks. Pretend I’ll one day take you up on your offer and talk to you, let you in. I’ll keep you at arm’s length, saying words that sound like they mean something, then disappear again.

I could never be like you, but I can watch you from afar, and that’s enough for me.

When the last bell of the day rings, I watch as you and your friends are the first ones out of those double doors, laughing and tripping over yourselves on the stairs as you stumble into the rainy streets. I watch as you all join hands, spinning around in barely coherent circles, words unintelligible, youthful energy palpable. The sound of your joy cuts through the ice-cold rain, straight into my stomach, watering the weeds I can’t pull out of my chest. The ambivalence of your mask does nothing to hide the unbridled joy you have for the moment, eyes crinkled and head bobbing to the loose rhythm, until your feet stumble over themselves; you’re the first to fall over and you take everyone down with you, laughing onto the soggy ground.

You all lay, cradled by mud and grass, hands grasping for one another as you keep pulling each other down, cursing and teasing each other while the wet dirt and plant life stain your clothes.

For a moment, you catch me watching. Your head on the ground, tilted back to look at me with an upside-down view. The rain is beginning to stop now, and your blue eyes find mine more clearly as the skies began to empty of their storm clouds. I see that look in your eye. You want to greet me, to run up to me, talk to me, but I don’t let you. Won’t let you. You want to pull me in so badly, but I can’t do it.

Watching you is all I can let myself have. But you’ll never understand that, which is why I saw your deep-blue irises, full of life and contentment, and I walked away from them, even as they called my name.

I feel the flames of Hell licking the backs of my ankles as I run from you again.

One day it will come to claim its pounds of flesh from my body, and when it’s done, there won’t be anything left for you to bury.