I wouldn't willingly tell another soul.

I'd much rather have my grief eat me inside out first.

Some pain deserved to be swallowed, buried, and destroyed.

And if I can swallow and bury and destroy funerals and expectations and family then I can surely forget the pain of heartbreak.

It's just another thing that happens to me. It's just another thing that shouldn't have happened.

I want to picture anything else but like lightening her eyes flash behind my closed eyelids.

So with pain too heavy for any body to carry, I unlatch locks and take the steps two at a time.

My eyes find the sky and I find the energy to breathe.

It's twilight, the time between dreams and nightmares, the time between blurred perception and unthinkable mistakes.

I'm just in time to save the last of me.

The wind is rustling, it's pulling and pushing me, to where? I don't know but I stick my legs through the rusting railing and take in the view from the roof of my apartment building.

Looking down I watch my feet dangle and can't decide if I want to fly or jump, I guess I just want to feel anything but the ghost of her fingers against my bruised skin.

Inhaling, I try my best to ignore the way air struggles to my lungs, it's just a few minutes till it a new day with new hope.

It's just a few minutes till I can see the sun.

The same sun that rises in New York and sets in Detroit.

-

I don't understand.

Nothing in the universe has changed but somehow this isn't what I need it to be.

But how?  It is what it has always been.

Golden rays are stretched across the pastel blue of the morning sky, bathing in its quietness before shedding all signs of humility, transforming into a blinding light that forces me to look away.

I wish I didn't have to look away.

And I wish the sun didn't just feel like a burning ring of fire.

Glancing down, I make the mistake of checking my phone, the dimly lit screen telling me what I already know.

no missed calls, no new messages.

Swallowing a wave of nausea I know it isn't healthy to feel this sad and it can't be normal to try and find happiness in a spark of energy against a blue sky.

A heart so heavy can only invite ghosts in.

Ghosts that don't leave once they're remembered.

No.

It was safer to be angry, angry at Alice and angry at myself for not knowing better.

It can be a contest, who can I hate more? Myself or the girl that ruined the sun?

-

When the sun settled in its place against the sky and the streets began to be filled with the living and the purposeful, I took my cue and returned to my apartment.

I had all plans to stay inside, burn and melt into my own rage but being surrounded by books and notes and head scarfs that I couldn't bring myself to touch was a mockery I couldn't willingly endure.

So like an old movie, stuck on repeat, I know the scene too well, I'm weaselling through the alley and walking through the coffee shop's back door.

"Wow, you're not dead and your legs still work, huh asshole?" Leo questions, his voice filled with snarky ridicule.

I don't know why I'm surprised maybe it's because my mind doesn't feel like my own but I should have expected this welcome.

I've been missing in action.

Still, I make no effort to meet his eyes or match his words instead I pull the navy blue baseball cap I had found amongst things long forgotten further down my face, wishing it would magical hide the scabbing additions. 

"I'm talkin' to you!" He barks with a sneer matched by his clenched jaw, flushed cheeks and knuckle white fists.

"Something came up, alright? Just get out the way, bro." I hear myself grumble, my own fists clenching, my own cheeks heated and my jaw so tight it feels like it'll snap.

"I don't think so," He lashes out, jabbing his fist into my shoulder. "First you ditch me to play house with your damn girlfriend then you snake your way out of all your hours!" Leo snarls, taking a step forward for every step I take back.

Attack or retreat, I don't know, the world is tilting on its axis.

"Employee of the month, my ass!" He shouts, rage muddling his sharp features as he tosses his apron to the side and begins to charge forward.

I hope he knocks me out, I hope he knocks me out cold.

He stops.

Leo stops, his body jerking forward with the effort to stop and stare.

Stare at my dropped guard, trembling hands and the frail string that is holding me up.

In one swift motion, he steps forward and knocks the baseball cap of my head, curses slipping from his mouth like glass shattering to the floor.

"You should see the other guy." I choke out because getting and giving a good ass-kicking is something men can laugh about.

But Leo doesn't laugh, he doesn't even smile, there's just questions and calculations in his eyes.

"I knew it, you could see the bullcrap on her." He hammers, his strut rigid as he makes his way to the swinging doors. "Word of advice, if it seems too good to be true, it's probably a lie."

no missed calls, no new messages.

-

I should leave.

Take the last bit of my dignity and walk through the door but I'm rooted in spot, playing Leo's words over and over like a stuck record.

His words compete with the shouting just behind the swinging doors.

I can hear Macey, Ricky, Tony and Sam. They're arguing about me and what to say and who should be the one to say it.

I need to go, I just need to move one foot in front of the other - it's too late, a figure boulders through the swinging doors.

"Johnny, what's going on?" Sam asks, his voice barely above a whisper as he approaches me much like one would a beaten animal.

I don't know Sam, I don't know where to begin. Nothing makes sense, this doesn't feel real.

It's just another thing that shouldn't have happened.

I'll spare him, I'll spare her.

"You know me Sam, trouble doesn't find me, I find it." I hazard a nervous smile before taking a step back, "I'm sorry I'v-e been missing work and calls...your calls, I am really am sorry. I just need – "

Sam holds his hand up, his eyes sharp but his features sad. "Are you drunk...are you on something, right now?"

I suck in a breath and a hiss slips through my lips.

Ssssssssssss, it feels like Sam's removed Alice's knife, the puncture is uncovered, my heart is deflating.

This hurts more than Mr. Carter's fists.

Sam, the first person to think of me as a somebody is looking at me like I am nobody, like I'm nothing, like I'm my father.

I clamp my mouth shut, trapping the air leaving my chest but manage to hold my head high enough to meet Sam's eyes. With a shake of the head, I say no as his piercing gaze wavers and he heaves a deep sigh.

Slowly he drags his hands down his face as he looks back over at me, stiff silence blanking the two of us before his eyes pop open and his shoulders slum. "I- Johnny, I shouldn't have asked that, you're not- I'm sorry....I was just-" he stretches his hands towards me but I'm already tumbling through the door.

-

Nothing.

I'm nothing but a body moving forward, nothing but a figure trudging through the hallway, pulling keys from otherwise hollow pockets.

But I can admit, nothingness feels better than the pain of everything.

I'm almost at my apartment when I glimpse a figure hunched over bent knees and pressed against my door.

As I move closer, I can hear the slight blare of the music that echoes from her earphones.

Oh, I shouldn't have come so close. I shouldn't have moved at all because now I'm riding a roller-coaster, now I'm being hurled from absolute nothing, a state of utter numbness to the peek of everything and every emotion.

I'd turn around but there's nowhere left to go, I've ran from everything, everywhere and everybody.  

Besides, even in the state of nothing and everything, I still see her and feel her and feel for her.

She looks frail sat on the complex's carpet, surrounded by deep rust stains that could be cheap wine or spilt blood. 

I feel just as frail as I lower myself to her height, inhale the tantalizing aroma of coffee and pull out her earphones. Shaking her gently, I try to ignore how the feel of her skin sparks a fire against my fingertips.

Slowly her eyelids crack open. "Johnny..." She whispers, her eyes dancing across my face before settling on a particularly nasty bruise on my cheekbone. "Did you go to the hospital?"

"No, I grew up in a bad neighbourhood with a drunk for a father, I know how to take a hit." I swallow the lump forming in my throat as I take special effort to avoid meeting her eyes. "Why didn't you use your key?"

She clears her throat, stretching her legs out before lowering her eyes to the ground. "I didn't know if you still wanted....If you wanted me to use it...after-after what happed..."

I strain to hear her but once the words reach my ears, I stand to my full height and square my shoulders, hoping for the illusion of pride.

"It's your damn key, do whatever the hell you want with it." I sneer, holding on tightly to the rails of anger. "You should come inside, this isn't like your neighbourhood, the police don't come quickly, if they come at all."

Hastily, I step over Alice, unlock my door and enter my apartment

She should have called.

-

It seems as if when all is quiet, the world is at its loudest and goddamn, it's unsettling.

Sat on the furthest ends of the sofa from each other without a word uttered between us, everything feels entirely too loud. 

I can hear the scratch of Alice's jeans as she crosses and uncrosses her legs for the third time, the crackle of her fingers as she bends them over and the small pop of breath as she moves her lips to speak before seemingly becoming speechless.

Death by silence, what an insignificant way to go.

"Johnny...Johnathon, I am so sorry, you have no idea how sorry I am." She says, her voice barely above a broken whisper but it does the job, it breaks the silence as her eyes mist and her hands tremble. "I don't know how to fix this but I love you and I will fix it, I promise you, I will fix it." She speaks with determination, her wet eyes trained on me, her body cautiously moving closer to mine.

There's so much to say but I bite my tongue and allow for the words to burn my mouth instead of Alice.

"My dad he isn't the easiest person to explain or love and I never wanted that to happen but everything is back to normal now, okay?" she pauses, her tongue slipping out to wet her lips before she gingerly places her hand on my cheek.

I grunt despite my best attempt to control my temper, "hey, you played a good game, I'll give you that." quickly reaching up, I remove her hand as her eyes widen. "But you can't play me twice."

"This isn't a game, Johnny please, believe me, this is real, you and I are real." Alice pleads, her voice so cracked, I imagine that this is what broken dreams sounds like and for that reason alone, I want to forget it all but I can't.

"Alice, what do you want? What the hell do you want from me?" I can feel my voice raise with every word, my muscles tight and my blood boiled.

"I want us, I want everything to be like how it was." Her lips quiver as she tries and fails to hold my hand. "Don't you want that too?"

A laugh bubbles from the very bottom of my stomach, bitter and biting. "No, what I want is all my damn time back. I want back every second I spent wanting you and loving you. I especially want back the last three days I spent calling and texting you after you told your dad I was nothing and let him kick the crap out of me."

"No, no, no! It's not like that, you don't understand," Alice whimpers a raw cry as her cheeks flood with tears. "He took my phone and he just...if I didn't say that you were nothing to me, it would have been worse, everything would be way worse."

"How could this have possibly been worse Alice, how? and that's another thing, why does he speak to you like that? Why does he treat you like the dirt under his shoes?" I spring to a stand, my mind a whirlwind of questions and accusations.

Alice's lips set into a grim line, her body trembling as she wraps her arms around herself. Slowly she stands, her eyes cast to the floor before she gives me a harrowing look.

Closing my eyes and taking a deep breath, I try to steady weak knees. "If this is real, you have to give me something. Something to hold on to, something to believe in, I don't believe in just you, anymore"

She screams, heavy and loud, her hands quickly covering her face and wiping away tears before she shakes head. "You said what's buried stays buried."

"What?"

"The lonely hunters club! You said whatever I buried between the pages of that book, stayed buried. You can't take that back, you can't break a promise, you said it Johnny."

"Does any of this look buried to you?" I'm yelling and moving and grabbing notes and books and sailing them across the room. "Nothing is buried, what do you want to know Alice? What do you need to know about me that lets you tell me what the hell is going on? Huh Alice, what do you need to know?"

"Nothing! Nothing, I love you, I love you, right now. There's nothing that I need to know, please, please, please love me the same way that I love you." She's begging, clawing her hands at my shirt but I just keep shoving her away.

"My dad's dead Alice, drank himself straight to hell on the day I was graduating from high school and you know what? I didn't feel a thing, I didn't feel a damn thing. Then-"

"Shut up Johnny, please shut up!"

"Then you know what I did? On the day of his funeral, I got on a bus, left Detroit and never looked back! That's who I am, Alice, a runner, ask my sisters, call my mom. What else do you need to know? Oh wait wait, you'll love this, I -"

Boom.

It's like a train wreck.

Utter destruction, utter intrigue as Alice grips my shoulder, anchors herself on the tip of her toes and slams her lips against mine. It's primal and dizzying, her lips moving against mine as fast as mine move against hers. Her hands gripping and grabbing and scrapping against my neck as my hands claw and pull and squeeze at every inch of her.

Assault for assault.

Her body against mine, our own burning ring of fire.

Fire that melts us together.

Fire that almost makes me forget that when her lips aren't locked against mine, they're locked between lies.

No.

I jerk away like I've been dossed with ice water, my hands a shield as she stumbles forward before catching herself.

"Get out." I say between breaths. "Get...out...of my apartment, Alice."

"What?"

"Get out, get out, right now." My fingers wrap around her arm and I pull her alongside me as I march towards the door. 

"No! Not until I save us, not until we're alright." She hurls her body away, removing herself from my grip as she scrambles back to the sofa.

"Alice, what are you saving? We can't talk about my life, or your life, or anything. This isn't real, this isn't anything. This was a game for two people who didn't have anything better to do."

"You don't mean that."

"I mean it, I don't want you, I don't want us, I don't want to play games anymore. I just want you to leave and never come back."

I try to heave a breath, force air into my lungs and meet Alice's eyes but my vision's too blurry. Almost frantically, my hands swipe at my eyes, I can't figure out if this is just a consequence of hitting rock bottom or if there are actually tears pooling in my eyes. But now, it doesn't matter, through the clouds, I finally see Alice.

She looks like she's saved every hurt, she's ever felt for this very movement. Pain flows from her like a river, a river that floods me with regret. But ger hurt isn't visible for too long, soon she takes a deep breath and her entire being seems to compose despite the fact her face is wet with tears and her body sags as if she's been physically hit. "I hate you, I hate you Johnny." She yells as she turns to leave, unlocks my front door and steps into the hallway.

"Right back at you, sweetheart." I swallow hard, my words too bitter to taste as I slam the door shut on her retreating figure.

If it seems too good to be true, it's probably a lie.