Not Yet Forever
**Four years after The Cleansing**
‼️WARNING‼️ The contents of this may be triggering (explicit language, drugs, alcohol, suicide)
It had been four years since The Cleansing.
Four years since the last time I saw Iris.
Four years since I was fully sober for an entire day.
That day, after I buried her body, I went back to our apartment.
I grabbed some of my stuff, some of her stuff, and some things that we shared and I wanted to keep.
In the aftermath of the bloodbath, nobody noticed a small apartment go up in flames.
Ever since then, I’ve been living with a guy I met three weeks after that.
His name is Asher. We share a basement in some druggies house. He calls it an apartment. It’s not.
The whole place smells like pot and mildew. I’m pretty sure this place has given me lung cancer. It’s either the basement or the fact that I smoke most pretty much all day.
Me and Asher are sitting in moldy bean bag chairs he found on the side of the road, both of us holding a beer.
“Hey Way,” he says with a little tipsy-ness in his voice.
I grunt. Before Iris I rarely spoke. During Iris I spoke a lot more than usual, but that still wasn’t a lot considering she was the biggest chatterbox I’d ever met. Now, after Iris, the most I say is the occasional “pass the beer,” or “fifty for that tiny bag? Bullshit.”
I know she wouldn’t approve of me doing this with my life, but it’s my life. Fuck lung health.
“Some of the guys are going out tonight. Wanna come?”
The guys are a group of…well guys. Somehow I became one of “the guys”. It’s basically just fifteen or so of us that get high as a kite in a group, and then get roaring blind drunk in a group.
I shrug.
I’ll probably go out, get a drink or three, try to avoid any sort of interaction with women, and then come back home.
He smiles. To him a shrug from me means a “hell yes” in Asher terms.
“The guys’ll be here at seven.” He squishes himself even farther into the bean bag, takes a sip of his beer, and promptly falls asleep.
I run my free of drink hand through my grown out bright blonde hair.
Sometimes I think about killing myself. Have ever since she died. But even though she’s not here physically to keep me from doing it, I feel like she’d be pretty pissed if I just showed up in heaven sooner than later.
The thought of me going to heaven almost makes me laugh.
Almost.
It’s better to get wasted and high than end it all anyways. I think of it as punishment for what I did.
We make it to the local bar slash club at seven thirty.
Before we left, I put on the most female-repelling outfit I could find. Black jeans, black hoodie. Works every time.
The guys bust my balls on not showing off my quote “rockin bod”. They always do.
The group of us walk in and I’m immediately blasted with loud music a the smell of cigars and people.
I pull my hood up and stuff my hands deep in the pockets.
Our group disperses, some going over to a group of girls wearing almost nothing, others going to the bar.
I follow the ladder group.
Nobody notices me as I pull up a stool and tell the guy to make me the strongest thing they have.
“Rough night?”
I start as a girl sits down in the stool next to me, giving the bar keep a look and turning her attention to me.
I get my drink and take a sip, the liquid burning a trail down my throat.
“Rough life,” is my answer.
She nods.
“Mines just a rough night. Sorry about your life though. Sounds…rough.” She chuckles to herself.
Her drink comes and we sit in silence.
I tilt my head slightly to get a look at her.
She looks tall for a girl, but not skinny like those girls I see giving some of the guys lap dances. She looks like she could take me. Not that I would ever try to fight a girl.
Chocolaty brown hair down to her waist, bright blue eyes.
She’s the opposite of me. Bright blonde hair and dark brown eyes.
She’s sipping at her drink, staring at the wood grain of the bar.
I sigh.
Slowly, I turn my head to look at her.
It’s been so long since I’ve interacted with the opposite sex, that I have no idea how to start a conversation.
Her head turns my way and she smiles.
A real, genuine smile.
My mouth opens slightly.
And then Asher pops up in front of me.
“Let’s go man. I found a girl to come home with me and if we don’t get going soon she’s gonna leave with Colin.” He rolls his eyes.
I watch his back retreat.
Then my eyes meet the girls eyes.
“Nice kind of talking to you,” she says.
I don’t say anything. I just get up and follow Asher.