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Bartles and Jaymes settled with a sickly taste on Dan’s tongue, and he couldn’t help but scrunch his nose up at it. His poison was cheap, and it tasted the part. Dan hadn’t imagined as a child that his solace would be contained within dollar store wine coolers, but regardless, he drank a whole pack alone in his apartment. It was quiet in that apartment. It always was.
Mr. Mumbles had curled up by his side as he sat on the floor, back against his bed. Her back softly rose and fell as she slept, and it was a constant that Dan could get lost in on another night. Moonlight streaked in through the window, casting odd shadows across the room that shifted and contorted—from the movement of the curtains, or the addled mind, Dan couldn’t really say. It didn’t even really matter. The moon’s gentle glow came not as a comfort, but as a cruel reminder of all the things Dan fought to forget. He couldn’t.
Part of him longed to call Chris. A significant part. Chris always knew what to do, even when Dan refused to listen. Chris was the beginning of all the good in Dan’s life, and the end of it, too. Even so, he let his phone lay on the floor beside discarded bottles, untouched. Intoxication brought a thick clarity to Dan—he didn’t want to bother Chris more than he already did on a day-to-day-basis. It wasn’t fair. Not to Chris, nor Dan.
Even so, he couldn’t help but long for something different to what he had. If captured on a canvas, it could’ve been called a perfect moment. Sitting in the even air with a cat by his side, cool light washing over him as if to purge him of his sins. Yet, there was nothing wonderful inside. Crisp, cool air may have filled Dan’s chest with a subtle sting, but nothing came close to touching the empty abyss where he wished his heart still was. It may have still beat, but that was all.
Dan wanted to leave. The scene was too tranquil for the thick-dripping thoughts that poisoned him from the inside out. Many times he had heard those things described as spirals, or as drowning, but he couldn’t disagree more. It was never fast. It was a dark and awful cloud of sticky black syrup that hung over him as it grew from his lips and mind. And it dripped down on him, staining whatever good was left. All he could hope for was that it left Mr. Mumbles alone.
Suddenly, with movements that startled both Dan and Mr. Mumbles, he propelled himself up into a standing position. He swayed, but stayed upright. There was nothing left in his apartment that could be good. All that it did was pull him down by the soul until he was nothing more than the bottles of Bartles and Jaymes—empty and discarded on the floor—waiting for a miracle that would never come.
With shaking steps that made no sound as he padded through the apartment on his toes, Dan ignored how the world tilted dangerously as he went. He couldn’t be any more off-balance than he felt all the time, really.
His car keys sat on the kitchen counter, surrounded by filth. He snatched them in his wicked fingers, looking down at the key in the palm of his hand. There was a whole world outside, and Dan was too pathetic to ever look out at it. Somehow, he felt as though it was all a waste—despite the fact it wasn’t even over.
The door opened and let in the springs of night—that cold autumn air that made his skin get a little thicker. Cold as it was, all it did was spark a new ember within Dan. It stirred that fire within him that begged to finally feel alive.
Bare feet touched the pedals of his car. It crashed and kicked as he turned the ignition, teeth showing wide as he felt something better than he was finally enter his bloodstream. He didn’t want to be alone anymore, really. Maybe he could go and see Chris. Or Hortense. It didn’t really matter. Either way, Dan gulped in the air around him and shifted gears.
The lines on the road wavered more than he did. With every window in the car rolled down, Dan took in another deep breath, slow and measured. The little road he found himself on was empty. Dan was empty too.
The light on his dashboard flickered. Dan flickered back.
With emotions that so often were a knife, Dan went straight down the road, wavering only a little. It emboldened him like fire singing him at the edges.
The car grew louder as he pushed a little harder on the pedal, watching the speedometer slowly go higher and higher. Maybe if he maxed it out, he could find the answers he was so often seeking.
Dan couldn’t find clarity, but he found something quiet and still. It settled at the bottom of his stomach like glass. With wind whipping through his hair more violently than it had before, Dan leaned his head back, smile fading back into a small, empty frown. He wished he could feel alive again, but he didn’t.
Eyes shutting against the wind, Dan tried desperately to let himself go back to feeling any way at all. Force himself, if he had to. The world was twirling and dancing around like a ballerina, and Dan’s stomach followed suit. His car whined against the sudden expectations imposed unto it, and Dan listened absently to its swan song.
Yet, his heart still thundered in his chest, and he could feel it everywhere from his fingertips to his eyes. With a beat in his gaze, he opened them. He didn’t even really register it. Not at such speeds he couldn’t see the very world he had chosen to try and look at. Not when his heart felt as though it could just—