Tabs — Part One

June 2020 | Horror | 13,400 words

On the way to his friends’ apartment, David passed three wrecked cars. The first and second were empty, but the third, still clicking, held in its spiderweb of upset glass a twist of leg and hair, matted with blood. He couldn’t look away, couldn’t tell if it was right to pull over by the gas station to investigate. He quickly decided he couldn’t be expected to take responsibility. What would you even do? Knock on the window and ask him if he’s alright?

Within the span of seven deadly seconds, the mangled driver became a smudge in his rearview mirror. David shuddered and made himself forget about it. He had made a promise to himself to start taking the world’s mounting problems off his mind. He was off to a shaky start.

April had caught the city off-guard with a dry, styrofoam snowfall. But there was no ice, no reason for so many idiots to skid off into the store fronts. So David didn’t let those scrunched metal heaps warn him to slow down. Aside from those crashed cars, the roads were empty—an opportunity to lurch through every red light to meet his friends in time. He knew they wouldn’t wait for him much longer. Acid trips lasted all day long, and they had agreed on an early rendezvous. It was already half past nine.

If they dropped without me, fuck them all. I’m the one who fucking thought of dropping acid.

His friends probably thought it was Hugh Manson’s idea. The actor’s video flooded Twitter and Facebook feeds for a while:

“There’s nothing wrong with LSD,” said Manson. “I want to be open about my experiences with safe psychedelics. While we’re in lockdown, everyone should deeply consider it. Hours and hours alone in our houses . . . save 10 for time to get to know your mind.”

Maybe Manson’s PR manager hated him for the PSA, but not David. He, Tom, Mitch, and Garret had met a couple times before to trip on acid. Months had passed, and David was growing impatient for another hit. Hugh Manson’s video was the reminder and encouragement he needed to urge Tom to buy some tabs from his dealer.

As David drove, a woman on the radio read through two eulogies of Americans who had died from the Coronavirus. He exhaled thickly but didn’t change the station. He rolled into the driveway of the apartment building while her voice trembled: “Don’t test this disease. Think of the word plague. Think of that biblical staffed messenger silently screaming ‘Let my people go.’ Just like the pharaoh to his plagues, we’ve ignored this monstrous threat and have kept the curve from flattening. Listen to me: stay inside! Mask yourselves! Or watch the virus come for those closest to us, dearest to us. Who knows? The last of the good people may well have died today.”

David killed the engine. He sat in the silence. “No, not today,” he muttered. “You’re two days off.”

He was sick of hearing about COVID-19. Sick of lies. Sick of public figures pretending that the imaginary twigs they extended to Americans were strong enough to lift them out of the hell the government had helped usher in. For the first time in his life, the world was facing a global pandemic that had no guaranteed end in sight. This problem couldn’t be solved like a war. There was no enemy to shoot. They couldn’t talk or scare their way out of this one. This was Hurricane Katrina, Pompeii, the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs—a natural disaster that they had never prepared for. And they were trying to solve it in the aftermath. You’re a tad too late.

David believed that worrying should be saved for uncertainty. So why should he worry about the plague when it would certainly infect the entire world? Why should he continue to care? He was past the point of listening to high-strung talking heads tell him what to do. Right now, he needed to get his mind off the Coronavirus. He needed to get fucked up.

His friends were dying for an acid trip, too—dying of boredom after being trapped indoors for a month. Though, none of them really heeded the warnings to stay inside. They were all young and healthy, and would easily survive it, so they treated their front door like a beaded curtain. Still, the nationwide feeling of suffocation trapped their brains in a stasis. It was a bitch to schedule, but they eventually found the one day when they would be able to trip together: April 18th, a Saturday.

The month leading up to the date, David simmered. He shot messages to Tinder chicks, but always left the app unsuccessful. He made the same four meals every couple of days. His roommate, Jackson, never left his sight. David would take walks around the block, but with the earth refusing to commit to spring, the outdoors did nothing to lift his mood. It reminded him of gray weekends when he was younger, when the ground was mushy and the air was too cold to wear a t-shirt but too warm to wear a jacket. Days like those, when he felt stuck, unable to do anything fun, his mom would say, “It’s a good day to do something good for someone else.” David assumed her reasoning was that if he was going to be miserable, he might as well run with it. But he didn’t take advantage of those gray days. He stayed inside while he waited to see his friends again.

He saw Mitch first, vaping by the side door that was always unlocked.

“You made me look like a liar,” Mitch said as David approached. “You told me nine o’clock.” He bunched his sweatshirt sleeves around his fists like he was preparing to punch through a glass pane.

David sighed. “I don’t work around your schedule, dude.”

 Tom was on the phone when David walked into the apartment. He grinned excessively and raised his free hand in a sign of welcome. David spotted the coffee pot and went for it. Garret, still in the shorts he slept in, cut in front of David to grab and fill his big mug before David could take it. He looked down without any words as he reclaimed his spot on the couch. David sighed and took a smaller mug. He walked with his coffee to the round table at the edge of the kitchen and flicked through their mail while Tom muttered into his phone.

“You said you would take this relationship seriously.” Tom paced from his room into Mitch’s. “If you don’t like me, just say it.” He grinned playfully at his friends and paced back into his own room. “I know, I know you like me. What’s not to like? Heh.”

Mitch cleared his throat and pushed up his glasses. He glanced up from his phone to meet David’s eyes. David smirked.

Garret observed their silent exchange. “What?” he whispered.

David flicked his head toward Tom, but didn’t try to explain himself.

Garret raised his eyebrows to Mitch, to microscope more information. Mitch was already back on his phone.

Garret was probably as oblivious to Tom’s tendency toward emotional abuse as Tom was. Both of them constantly tested people’s loyalty and honesty. For Tom, David believed it was just the way he was raised. His parents spoiled him and made him believe he was special; he spent the rest of his life trying to bully people into raining him with the affection that his parents gave him in surplus as a kid. For Garret, David believed it had to do with the exact opposite parenting approach. Garret’s parents knew he was gay before he had reached middle school, and held off any interactions with him until he was finally forced to come out of the closet. From that point on, his extended family took him under their wing. He reached so hard for people’s validation, and when he couldn’t get it, he either forced it out of them or made them feel guilty for withholding it. The worst part was that both Garret and Tom were deaf to their own toxicity. Always would be. David couldn’t imagine being that willfully thoughtless.

He looked up as Tom took the center of the living room. With a blank face, Tom put his phone away.

“She’s coming,” said Tom. The victorious smile he had been hiding slipped out.

David sighed. “How long?”

Tom assured him that it would only be a few minutes. David tried not to let it bother him, but he felt that his impatience was justified. None of the guys were thrilled for MacKenzie to come—at least, not as thrilled as Tom was. He had been hyping her up for weeks.

“She’s just . . . bam!” said Tom. “She’s like the human body version of instant gratification. She satisfies. She’s great to look at and amazing to talk to.”

David simply grunted in acknowledgment when he first heard about her. He would be more open to the idea of Tom having a girl on his elbow if there were more girls to go around. David hadn’t gotten laid in over a month, and he knew Garret was also starving for a hookup. Not even Mitch would have his girlfriend here to fool around with. Honestly, it was kind of inconsiderate for Tom to invite his “girlfriend” over when all of them were dying to get their rocks off. 

David changed his mind when he saw MacKenzie in person.

He heard her first. Growing tired of waiting with the others, David snuck into the bathroom to catch one last look at his face with a clear mind. Suddenly, Tom’s muffled voice elevated and David heard the front door click shut. A higher voice, a feminine voice, a twiny voice dripping with delicate eagerness, piped out an introduction. David cracked the bathroom door open, but could hardly eavesdrop any better. Her voice had dipped down low. With his eye in the crease, David caught a couple tantalizing passes of MacKenzie’s well-stuffed jeans. He tried to open the door a little wider so he could catch a full view of her, but she moved so much that she continued to elude David’s complete line of sight. From her ass, he glanced up at her wavy red hair swaying back and forth with every antsy step she took. David had seen pictures of her, but they didn’t impress him nearly as much as the in-person hotness of her body.

Garret peeked his head over her shoulders and pointed him out to her. She turned around, revealing a homemade face mask covering her nose and mouth. She quickly scampered over to the bathroom door. For a second, David was so transfixed that he stayed in the crack of the door. Then, when MacKenzie pushed the door open and made uncomfortable eye contact with him, David realized she wanted to be in there alone.

“Thanks!” she said, giving him the hint to leave. Though he couldn’t see her mouth, he could tell she wasn’t smiling—her pink cheeks remained relaxed. He was hardly past the threshold when she shut the door.

In the kitchen, Tom popped open a plastic baggie in his pocket and removed a tie-dye blotter sheet. He split the tabs apart and pressed them into his friends’ hands like he was distributing communion. “She didn’t know what to plan for,” said Tom, almost embarrassed. “She’s ‘freshening up.’”

“Let her,” said David. He watched his tab soak up the sweat in his palm.

—

Perhaps it was the sight of the tab in his palm, and with it, the exciting moment coming nearer—or perhaps it was the length of the silence that filled the room as the guys waited for MacKenzie to come out of the bathroom—but something made David suddenly graze a nagging anxiety crouched in the back of his mind. He took turns looking at the faces of his friends, as though to give them one last chance to bring up the topic that he harbored. If they were going to say anything, none of their faces betrayed their thoughts on the matter of David’s mom.

It had been two days since she passed, and nobody had tried to give him their condolences. David couldn’t decide if he was angry or glad. On one hand, his mom’s death should have been the first thing they said to him as he walked through the door. On the other hand, he had been dreading the possibility that the subject might darken the mood that was already hovering over the day. He guessed that his friends knew he didn’t want to talk about it. They probably thought of the tragedy the same way that he did—there’s nothing that could have been done, nothing to do, and nothing to think about. Tons of people in the world were dying from the Coronavirus. These were crazy fucking times. What did other people usually say at times like these? A girl he hardly knew tried to reach out to him last night to tell him how sorry she was. Which was nice. David appreciated the sensitivity. He felt seen and heard when people recognized what kind of shit he trudged through. But the problem was that they never wanted to help him scrape it off; they just wanted to let him know that the shit was there: We can see you’re really going through it. That must suck. What help was it for his neighbors to offer their wimpy condolences? His friends on the other hand never tried to bullshit him. They never dwelled on feeling bad about themselves or others—only on trying to cheer them back up.

His dad was different. Mom’s death destroyed him, and he made sure the devastation spread wherever he walked. During the memorial service, David’s dad plodded throughout the crowded room with a wake of murky despair that seemed to naturally push his extended family six feet away from him. David couldn’t muster the courage to console him. As sad as he was, his dad was a cheater and a hypocrite. Sure, he was probably the most remorseful of the mourners, unable to atone for his sins now that his wife was gone. But David couldn’t look him in the eye. Part of his discomfort came with the fact that David knew he wouldn’t be able to make it to the open casket scheduled that Saturday.

“I’m already behind on homework, dad. I can’t drive back home a second time this week.”

“This is your mother’s funeral!” His dad’s voice peaked the phone’s audio. “Don’t give me that usual bullshit. This is fucking crazy. You will be here tomorrow. What will I say if you’re not there?”

“It’s not safe, dad! It’s quarantine.”

“You were here yesterday!”

“Mom’s body wasn’t there yesterday.”

“Everyone is coming except for your ungrateful ass. Heaven-all-fucking—” his dad cut out. He came back with a big breath: “Try. Try to be here. I know it’s hard. It’s hard for all of us. She was an angel . . . you know that. We all miss her. I know you’re in shock right now, but you gotta try. She would want you there.”

David thought about it. But he had promised his friends that he would be with them on Saturday.

“I’ll try,” he said, and hung up before he said something he would regret.

Now that he was in the apartment, staring at the tab in his hand, it was easy to push the guilt out of his mind. He knew that going to the funeral wouldn’t really be in honor of his mom. It was all for his dad. Knowing that, he wasn’t even slightly sorry that he was neglecting an opportunity to make the bastard look good.

They sat around the “dining room” table. MacKenzie came out of the bathroom and sat with them. As Garret scooted his chair to make room, Mitch jolted back.

“Can you not?” he grumbled to Garret.

Garret gawked at him. “What?”

“You rubbed your leg against mine.”

“I didn’t try.”

Mitch stood up and went to sit in his recliner.

Garret looked around at his friends and threw his hands. “Now I’m trying to rub his leg!”

“Mitch, what are you doing?” asked Tom, standing by the fridge. “We were gonna do a thing!”

Mitch shook his head and held up his tab. “I got mine.”

MacKenzie looked up at Tom with some discomfort. Tom saw her look when he sat and gave her some unspoken reassurance: It’s fine. He’s like this. Don’t worry. He smiled and said, “You’re gonna have to take that mask off to drop with us.”

“You a germaphobe?” asked David.

She arched her eyebrow, taken aback. “I’m doing my part.”

“You been outside since the lockdown?” asked David.

Mitch said, “No,” out of turn.

Tom laughed heartily to cut Mitch off. He turned to MacKenzie. “Let’s get you one of—”

“I got one for her,” said David, smiling, holding out a tab for her.

She stuttered, took one look at his hand and said, “I’ll take one myself.”

David’s smile went away briefly, then came back with charm. He leaned in. “You think I’m dirty?”

He was delighted to see her cheeks rise above the top of her mask—a smile. She said with hesitation, “No,” and took the tab from him slowly. The tips of their fingers brushed against each other.

Tom cleared his throat and thumped the top of the table with his knuckles. He put the tab on his tongue. “Ong yer kongue,” he said. “Like thith.”

Mitch sucked on his tab. Then David, MacKenzie, and Garret followed suit.

Before today, they had only tripped twice; just the four guys together in the apartment. It was a nice place to trip. One advantage it had was the balcony, a perfect spot for people-watching. Last time they had tripped, Mitch leaned on the bannister for an hour watching cars drive over the cracks in the road. He said it looked like rippling water. Tom had warned him incessantly to stay away from the balcony, just in case they lost the common sense not to jump. Mitch didn’t think it was any threat to himself, but David personally remembered having the urge, or the belief, that he could jump down from the balcony and have a conversation with a woman who had been rollerblading by. It wasn’t until the come-down that David realized the drop was over 30 feet. David had no idea how acid did that—took away common sense, inhibitions, and spatial awareness. If he hadn’t taken the extra time to talk himself out of it, he could have ended up with two broken legs. What’s worse, he probably wouldn’t have registered that he had done it, either. David’s pain was numbed during acid trips. He once pinched himself so hard he drew blood, but he just kept on laughing, riding the unstable emotions of the day. That was a good trip. He hoped for the same today.

1

They joined Mitch in the living room and connected Garret’s phone to the Bluetooth speaker. Because it was snowing, they closed the door to the balcony and shut the windows. “We might open them later when it gets hot,” said Tom.

“Ooh, when does it get hot?” asked MacKenzie.

David’s mouth twitched. He petted the arms of his slick leather armchair. “It’s what happens. Like, you’ll be sweating one minute and shivering the next.”

MacKenzie nodded sagely. “You’re Garret, right?”

“No, I’m Garret,” said Garret. His voice seemed to bow like an actor at curtain call.

MacKenzie looked at Mitch and Garret. “Are you two dating?”

“No,” said Mitch. His voice had lost the edge that was there earlier. He stared at a poster on the wall. He mumbled, “I have a girlfriend.”

She looked at David. “Are you dating him?”

David’s face got red. He laughed forcedly. “I’m straight.”

“Really?” asked MacKenzie.

There was something about the way she said it. At first David smiled. It was clear she was flirting with him. But that Really? was almost too authentic. “Take that mask off,” he said, leaning in. “And I’ll prove it to you.”

“He’s straight but he doesn’t get pussy,” said Tom loudly. He sat down between them.

“I could,” said David. He looked at the floor and chuckled a little as he watched his hand depress the carpet. Then he felt a rush of anger. “At least I don’t have a tiny—oh, I won’t say it.”

Tom’s face flushed red. “Watch what you say in front of my girlfriend.”

“Your girlfriend?” David scoffed. “You’ve known her for like a month, dude.”

Tom tried for a smile, but his fury seeped through the corners of his mouth. “It doesn’t take long for some people. How long does it take you?”

“Girlfriend?” David howled. “That’s not even the fucking . . .” He looked at MacKenzie, but she didn’t look back. He sprung up and walked toward the bathroom.

Tom whispered to her, just within David’s earshot: “He’s just jealous.”

Whatever. David shut the door to the bathroom. Look who’s the fucking expert on everything now. He pulled out his dick. At least I’ve got inches. He pissed and shook out the last drops on a towel bearing Tom’s embroidered name. You’ve known her for a fucking month you moron.

When David walked back out, everyone was sitting closer together, laughing like jackasses. David braved the sense of alienation and smiled forcefully. He soon caught up with what Tom had shared with the group: his dealer had given out these tabs practically for free.

“How many did you pay for?” asked Garret.

“Just enough for us,” said Tom. “I handed him a few twenties. But dude—look.” He leapt up and ran to his bedroom, and came back with a quart-sized bag filled with wrinkled sheets of tin foil. “I don’t know if he’s new or something, but he gave me whole sheets instead of single tabs.” He took out one folded foil square and unwrapped it. Inside was a grid of perforated paper, decorated with pastel smiley faces—a blotter sheet. Tom must’ve been holding at least 30 tabs of LSD in his hand. And there was more where that came from.

“Dude,” said David, more in awe than he liked to admit. “That’s . . .” He couldn’t make the word awesome come out of his mouth. The more he thought about it, the more the word scary wanted to come out. “What if he finds out?”

“I asked him like three times if he was sure he knew what he was doing,” said Tom. “It was like he wanted us to be loaded. What are you guys feeling, huh?” He ripped off a row of tabs and started dividing them up between them. “This one’s on the house.” He snickered at himself and popped one in his mouth.

2

“How do you feel?” asked Tom. Ten minutes had passed. He seemed to be talking to himself. MacKenzie laughed and gave a squeal like she was afraid to say how she was feeling. Mitch chuckled like Seth Rogen. David and Garret moped at the episode of The Fairly Odd Parents that Garret had turned on.

Garret grumbled, “I don’t think this shit is working.”

David was afraid of the same thing. Acid had worked for him in the past, but he had completely forgotten the experience of getting to the drop. It seemed to him that the trip happened all at once or never at all. If it didn’t happen, there was something wrong with the batch. Maybe that’s why it’s free. He couldn’t feel anything creeping up on him.

But the others seemed to be feeling it. He kept glancing over at MacKenzie, and noticed that she was particularly swept up. David could almost see the inhibitions fall from her shoulders, from her fair skin, from the folds in her shirt, the shirt that was pulled so tightly around her perfect tits. The material of the shirt was sheer enough to see that she wasn’t wearing a bra, but too modest to reveal the outline of her nipples.

Tom took off his sweatshirt and threw it at the coffee table. David’s head twitched when he heard the sweatshirt crash like a case of water. He turned his head and realized that what he really heard was a remote control falling. He laughed in his head. Even after realizing what it was, he was still startled by it.

He realized that he had actually been laughing outside of his head. He quickly forgot about how funny it was and studied the remote, which had found a cozy place on the carpet to rest. David sat up to readjust Tom’s sweatshirt so that it wasn’t hanging off the edge of the table. He did this for about 40 seconds, unsatisfied with every position he put it in. He couldn’t put it down. The fabric felt so big and anchored, like the crust of a sweatshirt-shaped planet.

“David,” said a voice. It echoed in his head. He didn’t know where to look. He flipped his head from side to side to catch the source. It was Mitch. He was standing at the end of the hall off the edge of the living room, stanced like a matador, waving his pants like it was his red cape. David burst out laughing.

“What?” moaned MacKenzie, rolling on the floor, trying lazily to see Mitch from her disadvantaged spot. David smiled at the way she said it and almost forgot to respond.

Mitch was in the kitchen. He was wearing his pants again. “Mitch isn’t wearing pants,” said David, but he could see that he was too late to say that. He laughed at himself. Mitch was rubbing the calves of Tom, who was squatting on the countertop, watering the plants that were just beyond his ordinary reach. If Mitch was trying to make him fall, he was close to succeeding. Tom squealed as he continuously fought for balance. The music pounded like a shiatsu massage across David’s ears so pleasantly that he didn’t notice MacKenzie was offering him a pack of Gushers.

“Just feel the way it . . . mmm . . . pops!” she closed her eyes and slipped another under her mask. “Is it normal for things to feel different? It’s like I’m eating a . . . haha! Meat-lover’s . . . fucking . . . watermelon! Hahaha!”

She was no longer in front of him. David looked for her, but she was in the bathroom. He counted everyone in the room. Mitch was one, Tom was two, himself was three, and Garret was four. Garret giggled. “I think it’s kicking in,” he said.

“I think it’s kicking in,” said David to himself, taking another piss. He laughed. “Yeah, this is what it feels like.” He stretched his soft dick out as far as it would go and watched the tiny droplets ripple in the toilet bowl. He pressed the toilet handle and took a look at himself in the mirror. He smiled wider than he had in weeks. His straw-blond hair—aggressively straight and hanging over the top of his forehead, which he always thought was impossible to make look good—looked overwhelmingly sexy. It looked right. His hair looked like it was made specifically for him, like it was the only hair in the world. What had it taken to make the hair come out of his scalp like that? What biological miracle was it? David held his breath and tried not to move anything except for each follicle of his head. What was the process of making hair like, of pushing hair out of a crater? Was hair a liquid of some kind that dried once it got out of the skin? Or was hair like a tree? How did it grow? David knew hair was dead cells, so how did it grow? It wasn’t living, was it?

David shifted his feet. They were soaked. The sink had overflowed.

He laughed maniacally and placed his hands in the sink. He splashed the water over his face. For a split second, as he was submerged by the torrent of water, he was transported to a waterfall in Peru. He could feel each gallon of water as it coursed over his skin. He felt the water cling to his shoulders and trail in beads down his cheeks. He stared again at his face in the mirror and rubbed his hands up and down his skin, up and down the hair follicles, up and down the streams of water. He smiled unwaveringly. Man, I’m sexy. Man, I’m hot. I’m handsome as fuck. Fuck . . . 

“Let’s fuck.”

David didn’t know who said it, so he ignored it and listened to the saxophone in the music play its way around his crotch, around his chest . . . Fuck. He wanted to fuck.

The sky was gray, purple, stained like a soaked bedsheet. Tom leaned on the railing of the balcony and watched the sky for what felt like twenty minutes. Mitch stood just inside the open balcony door, shirt and socks off. “Shut the door, it’s too fucking hot out there,” Mitch said. He grunted in agreement at himself and stood up shakily to write something down on a sticky note. Tom didn’t respond. He was in his own world.

Garret rubbed David’s shoulders as they observed the ticking of the analog clock above the TV. Garret whispered something, but it was as loud to David as the music that vibrated its way into his lungs: “This is why . . .”

Why . . . ? David thought he understood what Garret meant, but even when he searched his mind and came up with nothing, he nodded silently. He needed Garret to know that he appreciated the thoughts he was having, even if they couldn’t be put into words.

“You guys,” said David. Now MacKenzie, Garret, Mitch, and Tom were on the floor in front of him. David fell to his knees. “Why does it feel like I’ve known you guys . . . since . . .” He wanted to say since I was born, but it stretched beyond that. “This stuff—” he was talking about the acid tabs now— “is so . . . much.” Everyone agreed. “It’s like I’m . . .” He raised his hands above his head and stretched them out to his friends, “on the same wavelength as you. Like we’re one soul. Now, here we are.” Everyone nodded like they were thinking the exact same thing. “And we’ve known each other since the dawn of time. And here we are, eternal beings, just in a limbo. I feel like I’ve known you since the universe was made. But we’ve only just reunited.”

David looked around. MacKenzie and Mitch were tearing up, smiling, as they listened. David started tearing up himself. “I love you guys,” he said. “God . . . I feel it so strongly.” The music lifted his spirits high into the popcorn ceiling that shifted like warm bubble bath water. He leaned forward and brought everyone in for a big hug.

David was balls deep in MacKenzie. He knew how he got there. First Garret had tried to kiss him, then David kissed Mitch, then MacKenzie rubbed David’s crotch with her foot, then David sucked on MacKenzie’s toes. Then, all while Tom, Mitch, and Garret watched, David fucked MacKenzie. There was no guilt, no tremors of inhibition holding David back. He kept thrusting deep inside MacKenzie. When he came, it was like sheet music was flooding its way out of his penis and into her womb. He flipped over and felt the euphoria send him into a tired daze. That was it.

“What the fuck . . .”

MacKenzie curled her knees in. She put her fingers between her legs. Then she kicked David away. He got up quickly, trying not to trample his friends in the process. That’s when he noticed that Tom, Garret, and Mitch were not in the living room with them anymore.

“No . . .” MacKenzie couldn’t speak clearly. She was no longer wearing a mask. The lame cloth wrapping lay slumped underneath the coffee table, useless to protect her from the virus. The next words flipped out of her mouth like hastily shuffled playing cards. “That’s not good. We shouldn’t be. I don’t. Why did I do that?”

A cold, ghostly gavel fell through David’s body. “Oh,” was all he could say. He stumbled forward to comfort MacKenzie, but she only crawled away.

“Tom?” She asked it like she was staring at a huge spider in a washing machine.

Tom groaned from another room. “You fucking bitch . . .” David saw Garret sitting down with him just inside Tom’s bedroom door. Tom was gripping his own shoulders in a self-sobering hug. He shaked with raucous tears. “You bitch . . . you fucking bitch . . .”

David found his underwear and slipped it over his wet junk. He stepped back to the corner of the room. I’ve got to be more careful of what I think . . . David walked into the bathroom. He walked out, past Tom. “I’m afraid of what I might do,” said David. “I feel like I might . . .” He looked back at MacKenzie, who was pulling her clothes back on in shame. “Did I actually do that?” he asked, then covered his mouth. Did I actually say that?

He looked down at his friends, whom he had been hugging only minutes ago, with whom he had just expressed his love. Mitch was pressed against the front door, looking at David with utter contempt, mumbling something again and again: “I’m trapped in here . . . trapped in here with you creeps . . .” Garret’s eyes were shut tight, like he was riddled with his own inner turmoil. Tom was more tears than body tissue, his face curdled and raw.

I did. I did that.

—

CONTINUE READING IN "TABS — PART TWO"