A
Are you a good person, or a bad person?
You can’t be both. You can’t live somewhere in the middle, in the grey between. You can’t be a good person who does bad thing. And you can’t be a bad person who does good things.
You have to choose.
So, are you good?
Or are you bad?
I don’t remember which one I am. I think I stopped trying to figure it out. I used to think I was a good person who did bad things. Or maybe a bad person who did good things.
My friends say I’m good. My best friend swears I’m only good. She tells me every day. I’m not. I’m not the person she thinks I am.
My best friend is a red rose. She’s beautiful. She’s deep. She’s perfect. She’s a red rose. A bright red rose. She’s a red rose blooming in a garden full of other roses. She’s not alone anymore. Maybe she was, once.
I’m happy she’s growing. I’m happy her petals are opening. I’m happy the world finally sees her flowers. But I’m not a red rose. She doesn’t see that. She thinks I am.
I’m not a red rose. I’m a black one. And I’m blooming in a garden all by myself.
I don’t think I’m a good person.
I think I’m a bad one.
B
Have you ever wondered why people are drawn to the mountains?
It’s the same reason they’re drawn to the stars. Or to the ocean. It’s that moment when you’re standing there, looking up at the jagged mounds of rock that are almost too big for your small mind to comprehend.
And you realize how small you really are. How insignificant.
And if you’re that small, then how big can your problems really be?
Your problems don’t matter. You are a speck of dust in a universe that will never know your name. So in a world where your problems don’t matter, and no one will ever remember a single thing about you…
Why be anything but completely happy?
1:A
I didn’t want to be here.
I didn’t want to be here at all. I could feel the grimace tightening my face as I looked around this shit-hole of a house. The walls were peeled and cracked, riddled with holes. Garbage littered the floor. The sink overflowed with dishes, food caked and crusted on them like they’d been sitting there for days. The air was thick and musty, sweat clinging to the dust in every room.
And the people weren’t any better. I knew the look in their eyes—glazed over, heads drooping, nodding off in slow motion. I knew the kind of people they were. Addicts, and not the kind that just needed an escape. Not the kind you could still find some hope inside. These weren’t casual weed smokers. Hell, they weren’t even heavy smokers. They weren’t party kids getting blackout drunk on a Friday night and waking up with regret. I’d stopped fearing those people a long time ago.
Those people were sad. But sometimes, sad people still had a light. Sometimes, it was buried deep inside, but it was there, dimmed by weed or booze or heartbreak. Sometimes, they just needed time to remember it was still flickering. My best friend was proof of that. Wasn’t she?
But these people, they didn’t have light anymore. If they ever did, it was gone now. What they had left was a hunger. Not even for life, just for the next pill. They were empty. Shells. The only thing that filled them now was the thing that would eventually kill them. I let my hand brush my pocket, feeling the exact thing I hated inside of it. The baggie. Pills stacked inside it like candy, painkillers that were really just killers. Tiny, deadly things. Waiting to take another life.
“I’m fucking done with this shit, Levi,” I said, keeping my voice low but sharp. He was standing beside me, scanning the dozen or so bodies scattered around the house. From the look in his eyes, I knew he was thinking the same thing I was.
“It’s not up to me, Austin. You know that,” he said, not even looking at me.
“I don’t give a shit whether it’s up to you or not. I’m not fucking dealing these things again. We shouldn’t have done it in the first place,” I gritted out. My voice dropped toward the end, like the weight of the sentence was pushing it down.
“I know that, man. It’s your fault we’re in this situation in the first place,” he muttered, and the anger flared in my chest like a match against dry grass. But I didn’t have the right to be mad. He was right.
