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In life, there are moments.
Justin can’t sleep.
Clay’s not back yet and there’s a vice like grip on his stomach and his lungs won’t quite fill.
He closes his eyes.
He’s standing in that parking lot and Clay’s fingerprints are all over Tyler’s fucking machine gun.
Clay’s eyes are wild, and his chest is heaving.
“What do we do now?” Justin asks, as if there’s any good way out of this.
Moments that change everything.
Jess is kissing him. And he’s kissing her back, and he can’t breathe in the best possible way. For a second, and only a second, everything is okay.
And then he tastes salt. She’s crying. Or he is. Or maybe they both are.
“Jess?” he murmurs.
“Mmm,” she hums against his lips.
He’s forgetting something. They shouldn’t be doing this. There’s a reason. A good one. But he can’t remember it right now. “Nothing,” he mumbles, “I love you.”
And the problem is you don’t always know it right away. The flap of a butterflies wings. A stupid photo. And suddenly you’re standing in the middle of a hurricane.
He’s not sure you can call what they’re doing dancing. But there’s music and flashing lights. He and Clay and Zach keep knocking into one another and there’s a smile on his face so wide it hurts.
And then the crowd parts or maybe he moves the wrong way. It doesn’t matter. He sees it happen. He watches her lean in.
Jess is kissing Alex.
In life, there are choices.
Jess is kissing him.
Choices you can never take back.
The text comes through. But barely. His phone will be dead any minute.
Zach
Alex is in the hospital.
He shot himself in the head.
In case you care.
Clay stands frozen, Tyler’s gun hanging limply by his side.
Clay’s entire body shakes, and suddenly he isn’t pointing the gun at Bryce, he’s pointing it at his own head.
A siren begins to blare in the distance. Lights flash. “I don’t know,” Clay admits. And Justin knows that they are really and truly screwed.
And somehow you find yourself standing in the after. And there’s no going back.
Fuck.
The bedroom door creaks open.
“What happened? Where’s Tyler?” Justin is asking before Clay’s even in the room.
“Shhh,” Clay hisses, “Would you keep your fucking voice down?”
“Sorry,” Justin offers, lowering his voice, “Clay, what the fuck is going on? I haven’t heard from you in hours.”
“It’s fine,” Clay mumbles, “Everything’s going to be fine. Assuming no one told the cops something.”
“We didn’t,” Justin confirms, “Just a joke that got out of hand. Where’s Tyler?”
“Home,” Clay mutters, “His parents will drive him to a program tomorrow.”
“You told his parents?” Justin hisses.
“No,” Clay snaps, sinking down onto his bed, “His mom found his note right before we got there.”
“Fuck,” Justin mutters.
“Fuck,” Clay agrees.
Justin fists his fingers around the blanket Clay gave him once, “He left a note?”
“Yeah.”
“Fuck.”
They all could have died last night.
“That was fucking insane, you know,” Justin grumbles, “what you did.”
Clay’s quiet for a long time, then, “Yeah, I know.”
“Do you? Do you get that he could have shot you? Do you even care?”
“I care. I just–” Clay hesitates, “I could have shot you. Did you care?”
Justin shifts uncomfortably, “That was different.”
“How?” Clay spits, “How was it different?”
Justin stares up at the ceiling. He almost tells Clay that of course it was different, opens his mouth to say, “Because it was you,” but what comes out instead is, “We’re all really fucked up, huh?”
“Yep.”
Justin rolls over and stares across the room at Clay, “I’m glad Tyler didn’t shoot you.”
Clay snorts, “Thanks,” he says dryly.
Justin wonders how it happened that Clay might just be his best friend.
They should have fallen apart; they should have crumbled under the weight of it all. But they didn’t. And maybe they’re actually going to survive this.
It was just high school. Right?
“We’re going to survive this, right?” Justin whispers into the darkness.
“Yeah,” Clay’s voice comes from the other side of the chasm between their beds, “we’re gonna be fine. We have to be fine.”
Justin huffs out a breath and finds that it’s finally a little easier to breathe, “Okay, good.”