*** Warning for offensive language. ***

Word Count: 6111

By the time Lovely returned to the apartment, it was just passed 11:30 at night.

His walk around the neighborhood was surprisingly uneventful. Everyone left him alone, though his nice coat earned a few looks. Lovely simply kept his head down, his hands deep in his pockets, and restrained himself from glaring. Naturally, he assumed the worst about everyone he came across. Every poorly dressed male was in a gang, and every scantily clad female was a hooker. He expected to be accosted by them at any moment.

Lovely plodded through the parking lot with some relief, briefly slipping in the snow before regaining his footing. It seemed odd to him that seeing Ilian's apartment door alleviated some of the tension in his shoulders, considering how much danger he felt in being there alone. It wasn't home. It wasn't comfortable. It wasn't safe.

But it was welcoming all the same.

He dug further into one pocket for his keys, quickening his steps.

“What do you think you're doing, f*****t?”

The voice came from above, harsh and gravely. Lovely looked up and saw a heavy set man sitting on a plastic chair on the second story landing. Due to the distance between them, most of his features were indistinguishable. Lovely saw dark, short-cropped hair streaked liberally with gray, and a beer gut straining against a heavily stained t-shirt and a ratty coat.

A light was on outside the apartment right above Ilian's. The man sat beneath it, frowning severely. Lovely couldn't see his eyes, but from the sound of the man's voice he knew them to be unkind.

“What the <********> did you just call me?” Lovely said.

The main inhaled heavily through his nose. It sounded wet and throaty, like he was hawking up phlegm at the same time. He had a beer bottle in one of his hands. He took a swig from it but kept his eyes trained on Lovely.

“I called you a f*****t,” he said.

Lovely's hands balled into fists in his coat pockets. He stood very still, both mortified and livid. His face blanched. He had to take a deep breath to stop himself from reacting the way he wanted to.

He had been called many things in his sixteen years of life. Brat. Snob. b***h. Jackass. They were harmless and tame, nothing so derogatory as this. He didn't know how else to respond to it except to stare up in silence. His pulse quickened. His teeth clenched. His eyes were wide with fury. He wanted to lash out. He wanted to throw his fist into the man's face. He wanted to transform and put his dagger against the man's throat and dare him to say it again.

Lovely was guilty of insulting people. He said offensive things about people of lesser means. He believed himself to be better than they were, and he held himself above them accordingly. He cursed when people didn't fall in line and cater to his worldview. He didn't care about their struggles. They meant nothing to him—a waste of time and resources. A nuisance at best.

Be had had never, ever, not once in his life, uttered that word.

“Say it again,” he began. His voice cut off and he had to swallow down his revulsion.

“What, are you deaf, f*****t?”

“Say it again and I swear you'll regret it.”

“What are you gonna do, pansy a**?”

Lovely moved like he meant to dart forward, eyeing the stairs and trying to determine how long it would take him to scale them. At the same time, the man rose from his chair and stood at the railing. He looked intimidating, taller and heavier than Lovely was, with thick arms and big hands and a savage look on his face. Lovely paused, drawing up his power, seconds away from transforming.

A beer bottle shattered at his feet. Lovely jumped, startled. It had not been empty. Beer sprayed up and saturated the bottom of his pants. He slipped in the snow and fell backwards. He could not remove his hands from his pockets in time and fell hard on his a**. Cold snow soaked through his coat and pants. His power slipped away with the suddenness of it, his will to fight knocked out of him.

He looked up and saw the man on the upper landing laughing cruelly. He no longer held a bottle of beer in his hand.

Lovely's gaze swept over the parking lot, searching for a sympathetic face. He found no one. Alex was not out smoking. Gale was not in her car. Ashley's car was nowhere to be seen. The light was on outside her door. Lovely expected that meant her fiance wasn't home either.

“Not so tough now, are you?” the man called.

Lovely seethed. He picked himself up out of the snow and clenched his keys in his hand.

He was humiliated. Not only had he been insulted, but his efforts to do something about it had met a premature end. He felt weak and defenseless despite the fact that he could hold so much power over a person. He was enraged that this man's opinion of him could get a rise out of him. It shouldn't matter what he thought. He was nothing, a nobody—just some stupid, ignorant man who felt the need to bring others down to make up for his own inadequacies.

It bothered Lovely more than he thought it should. He shouldn't care. He was only playing this stupid game of being Ilian's boyfriend because everyone already thought he was and he could use that to his advantage. That was all it was. A lie. A ruse. A means to an end. It shouldn't matter what sort of disparaging remarks anyone made about it because it wasn't even true. They were the stupid fools who actually believed it.

But Lovely felt cornered. He had his own insecurities he tried desperately to push down beneath scorn and bravado. He hated feeling self-conscious. He thought himself to be superior to other people. He came from a wealthy family. His name meant something in the world outside of Destiny City. He was attractive. He was intelligent. He was talented. He had the whole world at his fingertips, just waiting for him to reach out and take it. Why should he feel unsure about anything?

Lovely was aware of his privilege, and he reveled in it. His life was easy. He'd never wanted for anything before. He was sheltered from the world's troubles. In his safe bubble of perfection, strife and atrocities didn't exist. There was no poverty, or hunger, or pain. There was no rape or murder. Unfairness and inequality were concepts made up by greedy people who just couldn't be satisfied with the proper order of things. There was no hate beyond what he felt for other people. If a problem existed, it was the complainants fault for not trying hard enough to resolve it on their own.

He believed these things because it was easy, because it meant he didn't have to exert the effort to do something about it. He didn't have to care.

Someone using derogatory language to insult him shouldn't concern him, because what they said was untrue (because he wanted it to be untrue), because, to him, they were little more than jealous, insignificant people who couldn't stand the fact that they could never hope to measure up to him.

So why? Why? Why was he bothered by it? Why did it make his throat tighten and his heart race? Why did he feel so degraded? Why was he letting it seep into his mind? Why did it make him question himself?

Before now, Lovely'd had his life all planned out. He would finish high school. He would attend a college or university where his name and prestige would be appreciated. He would become an artist. He wouldn't let himself be tied down to an unfulfilling job, because he had the money and the means to support himself. He would find a doting girlfriend who he would later make his wife—someone who could keep up with him intellectually, someone who was worthy of the privilege that made up his life. She would be beautiful, and sophisticated, and cater to his every whim, and when he tired of her (as he inevitably would) she would fade into the background where she belonged. He would die an old man, surrounded by nothing but extravagant things.

Yet here he was, accomplishing none of that. He had no home. He had only three-thousand dollars to survive on. He had no desire to go to school because it failed to enrich his life. He had no desire for a doting girlfriend because he had no interest in it beyond what such a relationship would do for his image. He was surrounded by all the terrible things he'd refused to believe existed in life, and for the first time in sixteen years he had to entertain thoughts that those things might actually effect him. He was hungry, he was cold, and he was afraid, and he had no one who could come and fix his broken bubble. He'd thrown his perfect world away the moment he'd left Dorian's house. And for what? To rebel? To prove that he couldn't be controlled? To prove that he knew what he was doing, that he could take care of himself, that everyone who thought poorly of him was wrong?

He had no idea what he was doing. Everything he'd ever known had fallen apart. He'd sacrificed it all because he'd become involved with an organization he didn't even care for, because, despite what he wanted, he'd come to care about someone other than himself.

And in that moment—out in the cold, with beer and snow soaking through his clothes, and a senseless, ignorant man sneering at him for something Lovely, if he were honest with himself, didn't even think was wrong—he realized that everything he'd ever believed about himself was a lie, and the comfortable, idealistic life he'd envisioned for himself was nothing more than a farce.

Life wasn't fair, and the world was unforgivingly cruel.

The man on the second story landing laughed at him loudly, piteously, and Lovely could do nothing but stand there and wilt.

A door opened, and a woman's voice shouted, “Roger!”

A woman emerged from the apartment door next to the Pritchards'. Her legs were bare. She wore a thick Hello Kitty bathrobe with a ridiculous eared hood which, for the moment, hung down behind her shoulders. Fuzzy purple slippers protected her feet against the cold landing. Her dark hair was piled into a messy bun on the top of her head.

She kept her door open a crack. She had her hands on her hips as she glared down Mr. Pritchard. She was taller than him, but slender, and she did not look afraid.

“What?” Mr. Pritchard said.

“What are you doing?”

“Shut your whore mouth.”

She looked over the railing into the parking lot below. Lovely looked back up at her helplessly.

She turned her glare on Mr. Pritchard again. “Have you been harassing him?”

“No,” Mr. Pritchard said.

“Really?”

“It's not harassment if it's the truth.”

The woman blew air out of her mouth in exasperation. She threw her hands up like she didn't know what to do with him. Then she stalked passed him and trotted down the stairs that rose along the side of the building. Mr. Pritchard backed up against his door to give her room, but not, it seemed, in an effort to be polite. Rather, it was as if he wanted to be as far away from her as possible.

She came out into the snow in her slippers, stopping in front of Lovely with her arms crossed over her chest against the cold.

“Don't let that mean son of a b***h get to you,” she said. “He's like that with everyone.”

“He threw his ******** beer at me,” Lovely said.

She turned to glare up at the man on the landing again. He grumbled unintelligibly in response.

Lovely examined the woman closely. She was thin, but not brittle. Somehow her slenderness looked strong as steel. He thought it was the way she held herself. She had good posture. She stood straight, with her head up, instead of curling in on herself. Her eyes were dark like her hair, set in an oval face with a beakish nose. Her forehead was perhaps a little too high, but she covered it with straight cut bangs. When the wind blew the strands to the side, he saw thick (but well maintained) arching brows.

Her fingernails were nicely shaped and painted a bold red. She looked tough, like the kind of person who didn't tolerate any nonsense. The Hello Kitty bathrobe did nothing to soften her appearance. She did not look young or childish, but mature and independent. She was sure of herself, comfortable in her own skin. She didn't look like the type to be beaten down by harsh words and unfair criticisms.

“You must be Ilian's boyfriend,” she said.

Lovely wondered how it was that everyone seemed to know that. He figured it must be the fact that he was a stranger to these people who seemed to know one another well.

“Lovely, right?” She said his name without hesitation, like it made no difference to her what he chose to call himself. “I'm Trish.”

He recoiled. He took a step back and almost slipped in the snow again.

Trish looked confused. Her eyes peered at him and studied the uncomfortable expression on his face.

“Has Alex been spreading around the story about the Johns again?”

Lovely nodded.

She whipped around to show Alex's door a hard glare. “Alex!” she shouted, but there was no response.

She sighed audibly and turned back to Lovely. “Don't believe anything he tells you, honey. He just likes a good laugh.”

“He was right about the Pritchards,” Lovely said weakly.

“Even he knows better than to sugarcoat the Pritchards.”

“And that stuff about Gale?”

“Oh,” Trish said. She looked in the direction of Gale's car, which was empty. “Well, no one can prove it. The cops are never here for her, at least. Mostly it's just the Pritchards. They're not above assaulting someone. Or each ******** pigs should mind their own damned business,” Mr. Pritchard sneered.

Lovely swallowed. “So... if you don't... you know...” It was beneath him to speak of such things. “... What do you do?”

“I'm a hairdresser,” she said. One of her hands reached out for a lock of his hair and played with it. “Yours could use a little help.”

“Ilian doesn't own a blowdryer.”

Trish frowned at him, but it wasn't disapproving. She looked sad. “Come on,” she said. She held out an arm for him. “Let's go inside.”

Despite his aversion, Lovely let her coil an arm around his shoulders. She led him up the stairs to the second floor landing. Mr. Pritchard watched them as they drifted by. Lovely lowered his head, but Trish glared the man into silence. Lovely heard him spit over the railing once they passed him.

Trish pushed her door open wider and guided Lovely inside.

He looked around with reserved curiosity. The layout was the same as Ilian's. A small living-room, a bathroom, a bedroom, and a sizable kitchen. The paint on the old cabinets was peeling. There was a table set against the wall, with two benches for seats instead of chairs. A stacked washer and dryer stood next to the kitchen window, which looked out onto the top of the hill the complex was set against. There were magnets on the refrigerator door. Some of them boasted a different location—Florida, Colorado, California. The rest were letters in primary colors, the kind he only expected to be used by children. A few of them were arranged into words. One was her name. The rest were vulgar.

Her furniture was colorful. There was a purple couch against the wall on the right. A lime green love seat sat perpendicular to that. Her coffee table was in better shape than Ilian's, and painted black. She used a large green dresser for a TV stand. Stephen Colbert was on.

Trish closed the door and ushered Lovely into the kitchen, where she encouraged him to take a seat at the table.

Lovely felt awkward and out of place. He sat there looking at his hands. He was silent. His heart beat rapidly. His throat still felt tight. He swallowed a few times to clear it, but it didn't help. He wanted so badly to be back home in his bed, but he knew that even if he sulked back there things would be different. He couldn't just fall back into the lie privilege had blinded him with, even if he wanted to.

Trish didn't try to make small talk. She put the kettle on the stove. She hummed to herself as the water boiled, and took out two mugs from one of the cabinets. When she came to the table with them they were filled with hot chocolate, topped with whipped cream and a sprinkle of cinnamon.

She sat down across from him. Lovely didn't look up. He was fixated on his mug. It was red. The words “Keep Calm and ******** Off” were printed in white. Above it, in the place of the typical crown, was a hand holding up its middle finger.

Lovely almost smiled.

“You look a little worn out,” Trish said. “It must be hard on you with Ilian gone. Do you have any family you can stay with?”

She sounded genuinely concerned, but not pushy.

Lovely wrapped his cold fingers around his mug. “I can't go home,” he said.

Trish looked at him sadly. She was quiet for just a moment, then asked delicately, “Were you kicked out?”

He didn't know what to say. He was tired of lying. The more he lied, the more tangled up things got. But he didn't want to admit that he'd run away, so he nodded slowly.

She didn't ask him why. Instead, she asked, “How old are you?”

“Sixteen.”

He looked up at her with some trepidation. He didn't want her to preach at him. He didn't want her to tell him what he should do, because it would probably require leaving Ilian's. He didn't really know why it was so important to him that he stay there, except it was the only other place he really knew.

Trish was older than he was, but so not old that he felt there was a huge generational gap. In her mid-twenties, most likely.

“How are you getting by?” she asked, sympathetic.

Lovely shrugged. “Okay, I guess.”

“Do you have a job?”

“No,” he said.

“Are you looking for one?”

Lovely looked back down at his mug. The whipped cream was melting. He didn't want a job, but he knew he'd need one eventually if he didn't plan on going home. His mother should have talked to Claude by now, but his cards still didn't work and he'd not heard from either of them.

“I don't really know what to do,” he said.

She nodded like she understood. She lifted her mug and took a sip of her hot chocolate. When she lowered her mug again she had whipped cream above her upper lip. Her tongue flicked out and licked it away.

“How long have you been with Ilian?” she asked.

“About two months.”

More lies. It was like he didn't know how to stop.

“He's never mentioned you,” she said cautiously, as if she were afraid of offending him.

“Oh,” Lovely said. He didn't know how to explain.

“And it was you who broke into his apartment?”

“Yeah.”

“You should get that window fixed sooner rather than later,” she advised. “Call management. They'll have someone come out to replace it. Do you have enough money to cover it?”

“Yeah, I think so. I... brought some from home.”

“Okay, good.”

She grew quiet for a moment. Lovely shifted in his seat uncomfortably. He brought his mug up to sip at his drink to hide the fact that he didn't know what to say.

“Are you still going to school?” she asked.

Lovely's shoulders slumped. He curled in on himself. “I don't know. I didn't today.”

“Given how late it is, I don't imagine you'll be going tomorrow either.”

Ashamed to admit it, Lovely gave a shallow nod.

“It's alright,” she said. She sounded like she meant it.

Lovely looked down at his drink again. He felt like a failure. He wondered if Ilian ever felt like that.

“You know, Ilian's been on his own since his brother died,” Trish said.

“You lived here then?”

“I moved in around the same time they did.”

To himself, Lovely wondered how Ilian and his brother managed to live in such a small apartment.

“Poor kid hasn't had it easy.”

“Yeah,” Lovely said. It made him feel ashamed. For the first time, he felt guilty for all the things he had. The big house. The expensive car. It had all been handed to him. He hadn't had to work for any of it.

“You don't look like you're holding up too well,” Trish said.

Lovely shrugged again.

“Don't be afraid to ask for help, honey. No one around here's going to think less of you for it. We all need help from time to time.”

“I just... I don't know what to do,” he said again.

He was humiliated when his voice cracked. He took a breath to get ahold of himself but the air got caught in his throat and he stuttered. He felt his eyes well up before he could stop it. Frustrated, he brought his sleeve up to his face to sop up the moisture, but a few tears slipped out and streaked down his face anyway.

He couldn't remember the last time he'd cried as much as he had in the last two days. He didn't usually get this upset, but then he'd never been in a situation quite like this before. He'd always had his family to depend on—his mother to comfort him, his brothers to protect him. Without them, he didn't have anyone. They felt so distant from him now, and he didn't know how to suck up his pride enough to go back to them.

He'd made a mistake. He'd disappointed them, and he didn't know how to handle that.

“My family cut me off because they don't like Ilian,” he explained. Eventually he gave up the battle against his tears and lowered his arm back down. He hunched over the table and cried over his mug of hot chocolate.

“You haven't been dating him very long,” Trish observed—quiet, like she was afraid she'd upset him more.

“But I knew him before his brother died,” he said. “I can't go back home and everything's falling apart, and I don't know how to fix it. I just want things to go back to the way they were, but even if they do it's not going to make a ******** difference because it was all just a lie. My life was a ******** lie. It was just... everything was so ******** perfect, and then Ilian happened, and even though I'm so mad at him I can't blame him for ruining everything because it was all a big ******** joke to begin with. I never had control. I always thought everything was supposed to be a certain way, and I wanted it to be that way so badly, but that's only because I didn't know anything different and I never thought for myself, I just followed along with what everyone else said and wanted and pretended like it was what I wanted too.”

He could tell Trish was having a hard time following what he was saying. She didn't know anything about his life, and despite his rambling he hadn't revealed much of it at all. She probably wouldn't even understand why he was upset over it. Did he have any right to be? He'd never faced any sort of hardship until now. Nothing about his life had been unfair. What did that say about him, that he was upset over how perfect things had been?

He was upset that he'd lost it all, but just as upset that he'd been so blinded by it. He'd been shielded and coddled by everyone his entire life. He hadn't even had the chance to know any differently.

He felt so much guilt and shame, and it hurt so badly because he wasn't used to feeling those things. He never had before. It was jarring. It left him breathless, struggling to find some sort of center, some sort of balance, only he had nothing to hold onto to bring him any sort of stability. It felt like he was reeling. He felt dizzy, and sick, and so stupid. He felt like he didn't even know himself anymore. He didn't know what to want. He didn't know what to believe. Everything had been stripped away and he didn't know how to hide behind the lies anymore.

So he made up new lies to replace the old ones.

He hated that he was crying in front of this woman. He knew nothing about her, except that she liked Hello Kitty bathrobes and had colorful furniture and liked her hot chocolate with cinnamon and enjoyed putting together dirty words on her refrigerator with magnets. He was a stranger in her home, and here he was spilling out problems that came from nothing more than being a spoiled little brat. She probably thought he was pathetic. He felt pathetic. He should be better than this, but he knew he wasn't. He wondered if he'd ever been.

“I don't know how to do anything,” he admitted tearfully. “I'm just a ******** spoiled brat. I don't know how to cook. I don't know how to do my own laundry. I don't know how to get a ******** job or even what to do because people are so ******** stupid and I don't want to deal with them. Ilian works at a ******** burger place and I can't ******** stand it because of the ******** grease, and I know it's just because I'm so ******** spoiled and I hate that because I don't know how to stop being that way. My family won't help me because they think I'm throwing my ******** life away, and they're right and I hate that, too, and now I'm ******** stuck here all by myself and I don't even know if Ilian's going to come back. What the ******** am I supposed to do if he doesn't?”

Lovely dissolved into heavy, gut-wrenching sobs. His voice failed him. He just sat there and cried. He let go of his mug to bring his hands up to his face to hide behind them, because he didn't know how else to stave off the humiliation. He'd never felt so desperate, so lost, or so alone. He wanted to sink into the ground and disappear, or curl up somewhere where he wouldn't be at risk of dragging someone else into his problems.

They weren't even that bad, his problems. He'd brought it upon himself. He was the fool who'd run away. He wasn't even completely sure why he'd done it. He hadn't thought about it at the time. Now it didn't even make any sense. He didn't understand it. He didn't know what came over him. And that frustrated him, the not knowing. He hated that he didn't understand himself, that he had no idea what spurred his actions. Everything felt backwards and upside-down and shaken up. It was all a mess, and he didn't know how to reorganize things or put the pieces back together.

Trish was quiet as he cried. She sat there and kept him company and drank her hot chocolate. When she was done, she stood up and put her mug in the sink. She came back to the table with a clean dishtowel.

Lovely glanced up at her when she handed it to him.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “I don't have any tissues.”

Lovely took it from her and wiped his face. His head hurt. His eyes did too. They felt swollen. His throat was raw and his chest ached. His nose was stopped up. Even as he wiped away his tears, more fell to replace them. He dried them up, then cried, dried them up, and cried again. He didn't know how to stop it. He was spinning wildly out of control without any hope of regaining his composure.

And now Trish had this to remember him by.

Finally, after fifteen more minutes of uncontrollable sobbing, Lovely was exhausted. His eyes were still wet, but the tears slowed. He coughed to clear his throat. He couldn't breath through his nose, so he settled for breathing through his mouth instead. Trish waited quietly. She sat down across from him again. Lovely was too embarrassed to look at her, so he drank some of his lukewarm hot chocolate for a distraction.

“All those things you said you don't know how to do,” she began gently, “those are things you can learn.”

Lovely sniffled. He knew that, of course, but he was too afraid of failing to try.

“I can show you how to do the laundry,” she said. “It's easy, I promise. Just don't wash a red shirt with a bunch of whites and you'll be fine. And cooking isn't so bad. I can show you how to do that, too. You know how to boil water. You can start with pasta. That's simple and inexpensive. You don't even have to make the sauce since you can buy it by the jar. Deb makes sauce sometimes. She's always made extra for me, Alex, and Ilian.”

“I don't think she likes me,” Lovely said. He didn't add that it was because he'd been rude to her.

“Making friends is the hardest part about living on your own,” Trish commiserated, “but you've already got a good head start. Just be open minded. Except for when it comes to the Pritchards. They're assholes. They kind of grow on you after a while in a weird way, though. They hate everyone to the point where it just gets funny after a while.”

Lovely laughed wetly, even if he didn't think he'd ever grow so comfortable around anyone there.

“But you need to find a job,” Trish said.

“I know.”

“I can help you with that, too, if you want. I'll ask around, see if I can find anything that might be more appealing to you than a burger joint. There's nothing wrong with that kind of work, but it's not for everyone. Some people don't have the personality or the strength of mind.” She paused. “That didn't sound as good as I meant it to.”

“It's okay,” Lovely said. “I understand.”

“You just need some time to get on your feet. You'll feel better once you do. And it's okay if you're afraid. That's normal. Just take it easy for now. Let other people help you. Don't shut them out.”

He nodded.

“Okay,” she said. “It's late. I think you need to go home and get a good night's sleep. Now that you've cried it all out, I bet you'll start feeling better in the morning.”

Trish stood up from the table. “Wait right here.”

She left to go into the bathroom. Lovely sat there quietly, drinking the rest of his hot chocolate. He stood up when he was done and put his mug in the sink.

When Trish returned, she had a blowdryer in her hands. She handed it to him with a smile.

“You can have it,” she said. “I have another one. It's one of life's many vanities, but I know taking care of their hair makes a lot of people feel a lot better about themselves.”

Lovely felt his eyes well up again. This time he was able to hold the tears back. He took the blowdryer into his hands and cradled it gratefully.

“Thank you,” he said.

“No problem.”

She put her arm around his shoulders again and guided him to the door. It didn't feel so weird this time. It was comforting. Lovely was almost sad when her arm slipped away. He hadn't been hugged or had any sort of affectionate physical contact in a long time.

“You can always come up here if you ever need anything. Wait, you know what? Hold on.”

She turned away again and went into her bedroom. Lovely heard her rummaging around with something. The jangling of keys led him to believe it was her purse.

When she returned, she held out a business card.

“So you have my number,” she said.

He took the card. “Thank you.”

She opened the door for him, and they said their quiet goodbyes. Lovely kept his head down as he walked out and made his way for the stairs. He was thankful that Mr. Pritchard was no longer out on the landing.

He made it down to the ground floor and took out his keys. Only when he had Ilian's door open did he hear Trish's door close. He sniffled as he crossed into the living room and shut the door behind him. He locked it, but gave a wary glance to the broken window. He made the decision to call management in the morning to see about getting it fixed.

Lovely moved through the apartment slowly. He felt different now that he'd cried. A little lighter, like the stress had eased. The fear and the confusion were still there, but it no longer felt so unbearable. He knew it would take a while before he felt confident again. That was okay, he thought. He had a starting point now. He just had to follow the path that led from it.

He brought the blowdryer into the bathroom and stored it in the cabinet beneath the sink. He used toilet paper to blow his nose, then brushed his teeth lethargically, taking a look at his face in the mirror. His eyes were red and puffy. He looked pale. His hair was a mess. There was a pimple forming right by his nose that he blamed on stress. None of it bothered him. He could fix it tomorrow.

When he was done with his teeth, he opened the medicine cabinet and shook out some ibuprofen for his headache, then went into the kitchen for a bottle of water to swallow it down.

He dragged his feet on the way to the bedroom. After turning on the beside lamp and shutting the door, he began to shrug out of his clothes. He left his wet coat on the floor, joined by his pants and his shirt. He changed underwear, then pulled on some pajamas. Tonight would be the first time since running away that he didn't go to bed in his clothes. It felt nice. It felt a little more normal, like he was finding a new routine to replace the one he'd had before.

Lovely crawled into Ilian's bed. The sheets were thin, the comforter was old, and Ilian's pillow was a little flat, but it was welcoming after a long day. Exhausted as he was, it wasn't long before he fell into a doze.

The Pritchards were arguing upstairs. Through the wall, Lovely could hear Alex and his girlfriend. In the distance, there were sirens. Dorian's side of town had not been devoid of sirens, or any of the other sounds that characterized city life. Lovely simply hadn't noticed them before.

It was strange, he thought, that he'd lived in this city for over a year and a half and only now knew what it sounded like. He wondered if he would ever get used to it.

And he wondered when it was that he'd decided he would stay.

He left the lamp on as he fell asleep.

He'd start over in the morning.