Chapter Text
He could wake up still at the gym, maybe in the bathroom, with hundreds of dick drawings on his face and a shit ton of pictures online. I would be fitting. He could still wake up in the Darkroom, just not as a subject but abandoned at the floor so he can’t possibly get more in the way of Jefferson than he already has. Instead, he wakes up on Victorias room.
The room is very… Victoria. There are a lot of posters from her family gallery and big kinds of scary pictures of herself displayed at the wall next to the bed framed by LED lights that are (thankfully) turned off this time. The poster is the least Victoria thing in the room, it’s a big greyscale picture of a bearded man you would see at any craft beer place that is not her type at all… Nathan always sees her lean on the more skinny or the dumbest guy that you could ever meet, so he would describe her type as easily forgettable.
“Nate! What the fuck happened yesterday?”
Victoria was sitting at the end of her bed where Nathan was lying down, the spare mattress had a white stained sheet on it, meaning that she slept on the floor.
“I don’t know, I felt bad, I guess.”
She shouted by his side like a maniac, she always did shit like that. Victoria could be insufferable sometimes, especially in the morning or when she insisted he had to help her shopping.
“Bad enough to fall on that boys tits?”
A cellphone was smashed against his face with a shitty picture on display that showed him completely blacked out and being held by Warren with everyone around them laughing or just… staring. It made him nauseous, the screen was too bright for his eyes.
“Fuck off, stalker.”
Victoria chuckled, at least someone was enjoying themselves with this situation, he’s glad. Seeing Vic always meant forgetting the shitty things he has done but the feeling that everything was starting to fall apart started creeping up his spine and it made him cold to the bone. Did he take his medicine with him? No. Fuck.
Nathan lets himself wonder for a second if Warren is thinking about him. He shouldn’t be, the last thing he needs is to be involved in Mark Jeffersons spider web, waiting for the attack that doesn’t kill but tortures. She turns to him trying to read his face, but she always sucked at reading faces.
“You know, I don’t think you remember but last night you woke up and started, like, crying on our way here.”
Thank God that he really doesn’t remember.
“How embarrassing was it?”
Nathan asked with a huffed laugh but it wasn’t funny and it made his head hurt even more.
“No, you were like, really quiet. Kind of creepy. I tried to talk to you but Max woke up and we started running.”
He feels like crying again, or punching something. Can’t she just shut up?
“Listen, I need to get back to my room, where are my clothes?”
He was wearing one of her shirts that smelled like one of her perfumes, and now, his sweat.
“What a shame, you looked so much cuter like this!”
His medicine was dropped by the side of his bed, close to a pile of dirty clothes. He pictured it perfectly.
“Can you stop treating me like I’m your fucking little gay fairy best friend? I’m fucking not, you bitch.”
Nathan didn’t even stay to see the look on her face, he just stormed off after dressing himself in speed limit so he didn't look stupid. Victoria must have just stood there and would probably text him in the next three hours saying sorry and asking to hangout because she can’t keep up with Courtney anymore. He felt bad for her sometimes. But the only person who can make fun of Nathan for being gay was himself.
He was almost used to it at this point. He used to cry himself to sleep when he remembered a move that Mark made on him because it worked every single time but now it was like a joke. Nathan rarely thought about being with someone in the middle of the mess that was his life, so he stuck with ignoring it and ghosting Victoria whenever she brought it up. Maybe later in life he would get a frigid wife that's also a psychiatrist to help him get a grip
He smoked a cigarette outside to calm his nerves and was just about getting another one when his spare phone started to buzz. His face and hands started sweating.
“Nathan, what have you done?”
It was him, there was no escape now. It was Mark Jeffersons voice, calm and collected, perfect to fill him with guilt and regret.
“She wouldn’t take it! I tried, I really tried but she refused… Can I have another shot? Give me one more chance. I can do this.”
No, he can’t.
“I saw the picture, there is no use in hiding it. You took the wine, why?”
Nathan was going to be sick.
“I didn’t mean to.”
Then something shifted on the other side.
“You can talk to me. You can trust me with this, okay? Just let it out.”
His tone shifted completely. It was more soft now, sweeter, just how he would speak to those other girls. Nathan threw up at that exact moment. A pool of bile formed on the ground and it felt like all the air was taken from his lungs. His body became weak due to the lack of food. Nathan can’t even remember the last time he ate something. Fuck, his cheeks are wet from tears.
Everything is slowly falling apart by the minute. He’s sweating cold, he can feel the blood from his head going down and his phone feels lighter.
“I expect you here tomorrow at 5 p.m. Please show up, Nathan.”
The grass felt like it was melting when he sat down. By now, he knew what to do in situations like this but Nathan preferred waiting for it to pass. He didn’t feel like he deserved to get better if his own body couldn’t do the minimum by itself.