New Year’s Eve was a drag, and January first was even more of a drag. But, by January third, I could get out of bed and make myself look okay again.

I guess my parents thought my pit of depression was caused by boy troubles and therefore, by letting me see Wyatt that day, they were gonna heal me, or something. Which, based on the way I’d been acting, wasn’t a bad assumption- but it certainly wasn’t fact. Well… Not entirely, anyway.

By noon that day, I finally left the house for the first time in about a week, since I’d become a total hermit during Christmas, rarely even leaving my bedroom.

When Sky’s car pulled up on the snowy sidewalk outside the abandoned, wintry school yard, an emotional rock clubbed at my heart. Then, the driver’s window rolled down and Wyatt stuck his head out, big round sunglasses sliding down his nose. “Hey, Layne!”

I climbed into the passenger seat. Not quite alive yet- still frozen, unused to most human interaction since November. “Hi,” I replied blandly.

“Man, you look sick- are you okay?”

“Oh, I’m not sick. Just pale, ‘cause it’s, like, fuckin’ January.” I sighed, stared out the windshield as Wyatt drove down the icy streets of Pleasant Grove.

“Wait, are you mad at me, or something? What the fuck?” Wyatt asked with a frown in my direction.

“No, no, it’s just…” I sighed deeply. “I dunno. Nothing seems to be going right.”

“Oh.” He didn’t talk again, focusing on driving, for a very long time, until: “Wanna go see a movie later, or something like that?”

“Sure.” Then,  I remembered and added, “Happy birthday, by the way.”

“Thanks. So, did you get a hold of our record at all?”

“Nope.” I leaned my head back wearily. “Haven’t heard a single song, sadly.”

“Lucky for you…” He reached down into his CD storage and tossed one to me. “I’ve got a CD for you.”

I admired the artwork of the cover, which was a monochromatic blue-washed picture of the band, with blurry white fonts. Then, I popped the CD into the CD player of the car as fast as I could without fumbling, and out of the speakers came a roaring sort of sleazy rock ‘n’ roll that sounded like the 70’s.

He grinned madly at me. “Do you like it? Do you? I wrote this song, man!”

“It’s fuckin’ genius, it’s fuckin’ great!” I returned the grin, and it was an honest one. “I love it. I love it so much.”

“Me and the guys all signed that one for ya, Layne, so you can remember us and all that. A souvenir, if you will.”

“I think this’s the best CD I own now,” I replied, admiring the album artwork. The four songs were Stoned, Good Looking, Twitch, and then, a cover of Danzig’s Mother.

“Well, what’d you wanna do? I guess this town is pretty boring…” He laughed kind of nervously. “We can go see a movie later, or something.”

“Yeah, I dunno… Pretty much the whole time I’ve lived here, I’ve been a hermit.” I sighed. “I’ve got no fuckin’ friends or nothing. It sucks.”

“Yeah, I bet. I wish you could come back to Sovernon… Ana’s a psycho without you, I swear to God.” 

I giggled. “She’s the best friend I’ve had in a while, you know, I miss her.”

Wyatt sighed, turned a corner sharply. “Let’s just get stoned,” he suggested, rather absentmindedly.

“That sounds great, man.”

By the time the EP ended, we pulled into a Burger King parking lot- it was the same Burger King I had gone to with Speed, actually.

I put on the CD again while Wyatt dug in the console of Sky’s car, muttering something to himself as he pulled the hair out of his eyes.

“What’s going on with Sleze?” I asked, my heart sinking as I thought about those guys. “What’re they doing now…?”

“Oh, you know.” There it was again, that flat, strange tone. No feelings, no meaning. “You know. I dunno. They’re okay.”

I raked my brain for the right words, but couldn’t pull up anything better than, “I’m sorry…”

“It ain’t your fault.”

I sighed, leaning my head back against the leather headrest. “Yeah, but I’m still sorry. It’s such a shame…”

Wyatt yanked a box of gum from somewhere hidden in the console, but inside there was no gum; only too many round, pale blue pills. He popped a few and then passed me my share. No water needed.

We sat motionless for a moment, watching the light snow fall, watching the kids in my grade clock in and out of their fast food shifts, watching the few customers come and go. The world was dead silent, except for the music that roared along in the car.

The Valium kicked in swiftly, and everything was softer, more relaxed. No corners or edges, just lightheaded 

“I wonder…” Wyatt’s voice trailed off. “Never mind, actually.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“Uh, I guess you don’t know anyone we can get pot from, right?” 

“Nope.” I exhaled, shut my eyes for a moment, and shivered. Stoned again. “This place is so square, it’s like… It’s like…”

“Nixon’s golden child,” finished Wyatt with a weary chuckle.

“Pretty much… It ain’t even funny, it just fuckin’ sucks.”

“Aw, man… What’re we supposed to do in this place, anyway?”

“What I’ve been askin’ myself since day one, Wyatt, babe. Nearly five months… Like, four months!” I sighed, then laughed quietly. My eyes wanted to shut forever.

“Okay, let’s go see what’s on at the movies, then. We can just see whatever’s on, you know?” Wyatt suggested, rubbing his temples before pulling out of the parking lot.

There was some war movie playing at the theatre, so we bought tickets and sat at the very back of the place; a classic move that I wasn’t exactly unaccustomed to.

And you wanna know what happened? Wyatt and I ended up tangled between each other and those folding theatre chairs, which squeaked uncomfortably. 

Unfortunately, an older man was sitting far too close to us, trying to enjoy the explosions and guns of this World War Two epic. He grunted and muttered, “Can’t you youngsters find a different make-out movie? I’m trying to watch this film.” We ignored him, obviously.

“Know what, Layne?” Wyatt giggled, his eyes falling asleep for half a second. “You’re pretty, Layne.”

I giggled back, high on pills and drunk on kisses. “You’re pretty…”

The mosaic of theatre chairs seemed to shift, grumbling beneath us. The loud screams of the war movie screeched in my ears, while my heart galloped in different directions at the same time, and yet everything seemed to be moving slower than it should’ve. Gravity was broken, and not for the first time.

Entangled in the back of the theatre, tongues swapping back and forth, my heart going quicker until everything was slow-motion. The plastic arm rest gave an awkwardly shrill wail, while people glanced back at us with a shake of their heads.

A curtain of his hair fell over my face, and he whispered, “How ‘bout we ditch this shitty movie?”

The movie was nearly done, anyway, so we slipped quietly out of the theatre into the already-dark freeze of the parking lot, and then into the car, whose shitty heaters were trying desperately to keep the five o’clock cold at bay.

I put on The Paranoids EP again, and we giggled over each other, both giddy in each other’s presence. Everything was just as soft as the snow that still drifted down from the sky outside.

“Hey, Layne?” Wyatt whispered to me, itching anxiously at his leather-clad arm.

“Yeah?”

“I think I’m in love with you.” He paused while my face fell loose in surprise. “I mean, like, seriously, I think I really am.”

“Really? Really?” I had the urge to scream. In a good way, of course. I began murmuring “Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ,” under my breath until the words fell out of my chest: “I love you, too.”