1. The girl is lying on her bed, fingers playing absentmindedly with her hair. She rolls a curl around her index and looks at the shiny strands twinkling under the bedpost light. She twists her finger around and lets the hair fall down in a whirl, then curls it up again. Up and down, up and down. Outside, the rain is beating hard on the sidewalks, thick and heavy, water coming down, down, down, flooding the streets and turning everything into a blurry glow.

She looks through the window. Still raining. It’s raining so hard the girl is starting to think it has always been like this, that it has always rained and will always rain, drops on drops on drops, raining and raining until everything is underwater and seaweed grows on rooftops. She pictures her house submerged in water, the family photographs floating like the scattered pieces of a puzzle, the carpets nesting clams and corals, fishes swimming by

2. As photographs float in her mind, she is taken aback by the sight a familiar face, a pair of sad eyes shining through the glass frame. They live in the same house yet she hasn’t seen him in days. She hasn’t properly seen him in years if she is to be honest. They used to be so close. Step-Brothers… always two steps at a time, four legs, four eyes, twenty fingers. Everybody thought they were twins. Then he left, came back, but it was never quite the same. Then he was always too high for her to reach and she did try to talk him out of it, she really did, but he just was not there anymore, there was something missing. Always on something or looking for something: a smoke, a pill, a snort, a hit.

She has to go see him.

3. She knocks on his door. The sound of heavy steps, then he opens. He walks straight to the end of the room and leans against the window.

“What are you are doing?”

The boy rolls his eyes and doesn’t answer, just lifts his hand up and takes a deep, long pull, closing his eyes for a few moments before blowing out the thick, white smoke that is already spreading through the room. He turns back to face the window, taking another pull before muttering something alongside “what do you think I am doing”

“Throw that away- now.” She hisses twisting up her nose in disgust. When the boy moves, it’s only to turn over so he’s facing her. He takes another pull, then another and another.

4. She is leaning against the doorframe, watching him and watching him until she finds herself more weary than irritated.

“Why do you always need to be so out of yourself?” She hears herself ask.

The boy blinks a few times, furrowing his brow in confusion. For a moment, his eyes light up with something uncannily soft and unspoken, blue and clear and hopelessly childish. In a flash, the girl is brought back to a distant summer and she sees a dark haired boy with tear-soaked cheeks looking at her with those same eyes. She suddenly feels like she has to get a hold of this scared little man, hug him and care for him and put him in her pocket to keep him warm and safe and loved and hers forever.

But it’s just a moment, a breath, a blink, and the boy’s eyes are clouded again, murky and distant and red from the smoking.

“Just close the door when you leave” and he takes a rough, hard pull on his blunt as his cheeks hollow, drawing large ponds of shadow on each side of his face. His stomach is drawn in so much his t-shirt’s fabric hangs loose from his torso.

(“holding on for dear life” she thinks, or was it “breathing in for dear life”?)

A tide of sorrow suddenly washes over her, a tide that runs right through her body and leaves her strangely exhausted.

5. The air flowing in the room is frosty and damp but the girl notices with bewilderment it has completely stopped raining. Without the steady thumping of the raindrops, the silence feels thick and pasty, only interrupted by his pulls and blows. It’s as if a bell jar has been placed over the room and no sound can seep in. It feels eerie, almost as if nothing exists outside of the room and him and her are the only human beings left on earth. Outside the window, the darkness is complete and the pale frame of the moon looks like nothing more than a pale frame.

The girl feels a shiver run through her spine and looks up at him through her eyelashes. He’s not facing her anymore and is now leaning against the window. Through the thin fabric of his T-shirt, his shoulder blades stick out, sharp bones that seem about to tear apart that stretched skin. Then the boy takes yet another pull and, all across his back, the fragile frame of his ribcage juts out, drawing hollows of shadow and lines of murky light.

Her heart skips a beat.

6. She stays still, silent, as the boy throws the burning red butt out of the window. She does not utter a word as he fishes in his pockets for some more hash and skins, then grinds it with his right hand, letting the brown powder fall into his left palm. When he has worn down half of it, he sets what is left on the window frame, pours the crumbles on a previously opened paper and starts rolling with the utmost care.

His hands shake a bit, but he manages without wasting a crumble.

When it’s tight enough, he leans forward and licks the final stripe of paper so he can finally roll it all around. He does this with such an intense thoughtfulness, such an intense something that cannot be defined as anything but love, gently closing his eyes and almost kissing the paper through his thick, parted lips, that the gesture almost feels lewd, debauched, lustful. It is wrong.

The boy eagerly slips the blunt in between his lips, lights it up, inhales.

She just stares at his puckered lips taking lingering pulls, his red-rimmed eyes covered by black-rimmed eyelids and his hands are shaking again and she just feels so terribly, terribly desolate she has to look awaty.

She needs to do something.

Silently, she approaches him and feels her hand reaching up and set on his cheek.

Everything is so silent and still it almost feels as if a sudden move or word could shatter everything apart.

She looks at her hand grazing the flimsy skin, at the intricate path of veins just beneath the surface.

She’d like to let her arm fall down, walk away but she just, she just can’t is all.

Everything is still for a few moments, fingers on fabric, eyes on the floor, the red dot of the joint like a star or a wound.