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"Donnie! Donnie! HEY!"
He's ignoring her, but Gretchen can run faster than he can. She says it's the smoking. It's probably the smoking. Gretchen is mostly right, even if they haven't spoken in a while. He ought to listen to her more often.
She tears down the street, skitters past him, and wheels around, backpack hanging off of one shoulder. She's fucking pissed. He keeps walking.
"Donnie, what the fuck are you doing?" Gretchen falls in beside him and keeps up even when he starts walking faster. "I called about twelve times."
"I wasn't home."
"Where were you then?"
Donnie pauses and tries to think of a lie that will be convincing enough.
"You were with him again. Of course. Fuck."
"Look, I--"
"Yeah. You're an addict. I've heard it all before."
It was the first time Gretchen ever saw him cry. Donnie maintains it was just from the blood in his eyes. (And the ecstasy, but Gretchen doesn't know about the ecstasy.)
"You're talking crazy and then you wonder why I don't answer the phone? It's 'cause every time I skip a day of school I get this bullshit. I wasn't with Jason, I had the fucking flu." The high ground is a fun place to be, even if it's a complete lie.
"I thought you weren't home."
"I had the flu at my grandparents' house."
"Funny, because Elizabeth told me she didn't know where you were." She's played her trump card. There's fuck-all he can say to that.
Donnie sighs. "Fine. Jason called, and I answered, and he said--"
"Did he say he loved you?"
"No, he said he had a couple beers and wanted to have them with someone." Donnie's getting a headache in the front of his skull. It's practically piercing through his brain. "I'm not stupid enough to fall for that shit again."
Unexpectedly, she doesn't call him out on that. "And what, a couple beers lasted three fucking days?"
"It wasn't just beer. We... talked. Did other stuff. I don't remember. Just get off my fucking back, alright?" The headache is getting worse.
"Donnie. Look at me." Gretchen speeds up again and grabs his shoulder, practically wrenching it back. "Look at me!"
He obeys. What else can he do?
"Why can't you remember?"
"My memory's shit, Gretchen, let go--"
She squeezes harder. "Why can't you remember, Donnie? What did you take?"
The barely-disguised panic in her voice is a vestige from the last time him and Jason were together. Jason had always been unpredictable in a way she (everyone. veronica and gretchen and elizabeth and hell even sam. everyone.) had said was going to lead to something bad. It was intoxicating, both the danger and the alcohol.
Jason gave him pills and liquor and a broken nose, called Gretchen, and ran before she could kill him for it.
It's different this time in a way he can't think of right now but needs to, needs to find some kind of defense for himself. But his fucking head hurts and now Gretchen's shaking him and he can't fucking think when she does shit like this and it feels like his brain is breaking apart at the seams and memories are coming back, a bit, hazy, Jason with the bottle and there was a gunshot and something else. They fucked, he's pretty sure of that, at least.
He doesn't tell Gretchen.
"I just drank some stuff. Normal stuff. He didn't spike it or anything. He doesn't do that shit." Donnie shrugs her hand off his shoulder and starts walking away.
"What, you're defending his honour now?" After everything he did to you?
"No, I just haven't decided he's some kind of fucking monster the same way you and Veronica have."
"You remember what he did to her, right?" Gretchen's starting to actually get mad. He deserves it. "You remember? Or did he fuck it out of your empty little skull?"
"Normal shit." He shrugs. "That's just JD."
"Fuck you."
"It's not my fault I'm right," he says, continuing. He shouldn't be. He should apologise. He should tell her that she's right and he's sorry and that he'll never see Jason again. Standing right before the Rubicon, dipping his toes in the shallows. No army though. "She was being overdramatic. It wasn't that bad at all."
Pretty soon his nose is broken again and probably his kneecap with it. Everyone he loves is violent in some way.
"You know what, I don't care if he fucking kills you. I don't. Whatever the fuck masochistic thing you've got going on is not my problem. I have sane friends."
He doesn't need her anyway, he thinks as she walks away.
It's the pain this time too.