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Dustin has been in a trance.
Ever since he came home after helping at that shelter, after talking to Wayne Munson, he has been frozen. He came home and practically fell into his bed and cried into his pillow until he fell asleep. He doesn’t think he’ll ever wake up.
He doesn’t know how long he’s been in this bed for, but his bones feel like they’re trapped under a layer of ice. He doesn’t feel anything, much to his dismay. He should be crying, he should be screaming. Instead he’s just laying here, in days old clothes, and eyes still locked on the same few spots.
He feels so dirty, maybe due to the fact that he hasn’t moved an inch in three days. He’s definitely pissed himself enough times for the smell to register through the fog in his mind. His stomach hurts like hell, and he’s vomited up his own bile so much it would be spilling on the floor if his mother hadn’t been cleaning it up for him. Oh Ma, I don’t deserve you.
At some point, Steve comes into the room. “Hey… uh, Buddy.” I look at him. He looks like he just got punched, by the look on his face. God, I need to shower. “Everything… good?” How could it be. Stupid question. I stare at him, and I feel my eyes watering before I can stop them. “Oh.”
Steve does what he can to comfort me while still staying a safe distance away. I try to hold in my tears but that just means I cry harder. He places his hand on my back, and just sits there, looking at me. He leaves, eventually, finally. But shortly after, my mother enters the room.
She scoops me up the best she can, considering how heavy I am and how not-strong she is. I try to help, but I cant get myself to move at all. My bones still feel dead. She leads my limp body to the bathroom across the hall, and places me in the bath. Maybe I wont smell so bad after this… maybe I’ll be touchable again. Lovable again.
Somehow, that feels dangerous.
…
There are bats everywhere. They nip and bite at a figure concealed and foreign and dead and dead and dead and dead and dead and dead and dead and dead and dead and dead and-
He’s back in his bed, in a new set of clothes. He fell asleep in the bath, and he woke up feeling fresh. Raw. Alive. Somehow, that feels dangerous.
The water was hot, and it seems to have melted the ice that covered his bones and kept him down. He pushes himself up. And, tumultuously, he leaves his room. His legs feel quaky and he thinks they are on the verge of failing.
He grips the wall and anything on it like it gives him life, his stomach aching so much it seems as if someone is clawing at it from the inside.
He arrives in the kitchen, and his mother practically falls over herself running to him. “Dusty! You’re up!”
He can’t stop his smile. “Yeah. I am…” “Are you ‘kay, what- what happened.”
He looks at her.
She looks at him. Lost. “Dustin..”
“I’m starving.”
“Okay.”