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Anyone who’s been to a frat party, a debate club meeting, a swim meet, or to a lacrosse match- anyone who’s been to anything knows Grant Laine. And anyone who knows Grant Laine is surprised that there’s blood dribbling down his face right now, and not ichor.
When you picture the word indestructible, typically, you don’t picture a man who’s 5’9. And yet, indestructible is one of the first things to come to mind when you look at Grant Laine. Indestructible alongside plenty of adjectives you’d use to describe the sun as it blinds you through a windshield. Blazing, arrogant, unstoppable. Though still indestructible, nonetheless.
Grant Laine thought he was indestructible, too. Which goes to explain most of his behavior.
Which then goes to explain why Grant simply assumes that the blood on the toilet isn’t from his less-than-graceful drop to his knees (someone must have forgotten to clean), and that the aching pain in his face was all a part of some masterful coincidence… (Allergies, maybe?)
Oh, who am I kidding? Grant doesn’t get allergies.
Still, he vomits into the toilet like any good Samaritan would do, and he flushes afterward like what any phenomenal humanitarian would do. And, just like any man, he does leave the toilet seat up upon retreat. He’s just a feminist, not an angel.
Grant leans back and away from the toilet and positions himself against the wall. He’s slept more often on cold tiles than he has in his own bed, he’s sure. And that’s if he sleeps at all. But he’s long overdue for a rest, and the cocaine can only last so long.
He knocks the back of his head against the wall in a steady rhythm, waiting for this nausea to pass.
Except, it doesn’t.
There’s only one thing more annoying than someone showing up to a party they weren’t invited to. And that’s when they bring more people in with them. When Grant feels a rising pressure in his chest, and the intense discomfort it brings with it, he groans to himself and does everything in his power to will it away. Grant was no stranger to spontaneous bursts of pain. His body often protested the many things he would do, and Grant’s response was to typically pop a Tylenol and keep it moving. Now, this wasn’t even Grant’s bathroom, but the medicine cabinet was sitting up there, enticing him over.
Grant really had no choice but to get up, swing open the cabinet and rob it blind.
He tries to push himself up, to do what he always does- walk it off. But his body isn’t so interested in keeping his legacy intact right now. It’s not interested in much of anything, actually. It’s gone numb.
Grant Laine, the man with tequila in his veins and stars in his hands, slides down the checkered wall and onto the floor.
There’s someone at the door. He can hear them. The angry mumbling, the occasional pounding on the door. If Grant were himself, he’d shoot back a smug retort, probably asking the guy if he wanted to watch, or something.
But all Grant’s trying to do right now is settle his breathing and quit gasping at the air. Just breathe. Normally. But when his chest seemed so tight and the room began to tilt- not in a cute ‘I’m sooo drunk!’ way, but in a ‘the tectonic plates are shifting without my permission’ way, it was pretty difficult to not hyperventilate. Every breath felt like it was going to be his last, and yet Grant had no time to savor any of them as the doomsday clock spiraled closer and closer.
He wonders, for a moment, if he’s going to die.
But no. That can’t be right. Firstly, Grant Laine doesn’t die. And especially not on a bathroom floor, a stranger's bathroom no less. If he were to die, he’d be floating dead in a pool with a bullet wound in his chest. That’s the way he’d go out. Not like this. Anything but this.
His hands are trembling as they reach towards the crack under the door, more instinct at this point rather than feasible strategy.
“Yo, mane,” an unrecognizable voice calls from just beyond the door. “Is somebody in there?”
Grant’s jaw is slack as he tries to fumble for a response. All he needs to get out is one simple phrase, ‘in a sec,’ and yet the words never come. They don’t die on impact, they die in his mouth, and they taste like bile.
His heart is assaulting his chest, Grant can hear it and he’s so sure the man beyond the door can hear it as well. But if he can, he’s not doing anything about it. He’s waiting patiently, standing there like an idiot. Grant can see his stupid shoes under the crack in the door, and he wants nothing more than to snap at this fool and tell him to do something, to do literally anything, to-
To help,
But Grant can’t muster the strength.
Instead, he lies there. Staring at nothing as his body mutinies. As everything he’s ever pushed down claws its way to the surface. As his body rebels against him, enacting revenge for every step he’s ever taken and every rest he hasn’t.
And then, as a final act of defiance,
He unclasps his watch.
And slides it under the door.