_SEPIOL.

            ‘ the same goes for you. ’  he lights up and makes a note to give her one from his bag later, tit for tat.  ‘ just for the pain. they were doping me on fentanyl at first. ’  morphine’s bigger, badder cousin. synthetic crap. as for the rest? antibiotics, solidly, every day for a while. then elliot was out of the woods and elliot was finally allowed to go a day without nausea blocking the world out. he still struggles, though, falling between empty and angry like there’s nothing else. today is empty-er. 

            he doesn’t mean to stare at the scar when she brings it up. but it’s an ugly scar. i take a long drag on the cigarette until it starts to hurt, sternum stretching, and then lets it go slowly, looking off to the side. she could’ve been another shayla. you’re not supposed to feel guilty about the things you can’t control but control is all i have. i need it. i’m afraid of losing it. fear like that is a rat infestation in the walls of elliot’s brain and knowing bullet could have died and i would have never known and never tried to stop it is one of those rats biting through an important electrical wire.

             what’s the point of trying to save the world if you can’t protect the people you care about? i just have to remember this isn’t something that happened to me. this was something that was done to bullet. i have to remember that: i don’t get to make this about me.  ‘ didn’t say anything about being your therapist. just your friend. ’

_{she almost  did  reach the morgue.    cold and dead on that slab with a sheet pulled over her eyes    (    so she couldn’t stare them in the  face.    they wouldn’t have been able to look at her otherwise.    )    she pockets the lighter while taking a pull.     ❛     don’t know what that is    ––––    but i’m guessin’ it’s a substitute ?     ❜     never dabbled in the drug scene until recently.    claimed her  body  was a temple and  treated it  like one,  but isn’t so sure anymore.}

_{after everything that’s  happened  to it,  she feels more like ruin.    she’s hoping that’ll change,  because this  isn’t  who she is and this  isn’t  what she  stands for  and this just isn’t  bullet.    she catches him  staring  and might have socked him in the gut if it weren’t for the fact that she’s used to him.    but that doesn’t mean she has to like it,  and it doesn’t mean she’s  comfortable  with it.    more uncomfortable than anything.    like she’s been put under a microscope.    the scar is still  fresh,  pink and tender and raised from the surface of her skin.}

_{she’s  conscious  of it every day.    (    not because she thinks it somehow makes her  less,  but because of what it means.    )    maybe one day she’ll wear it proud.    a testament to survival.    but today,  she wears it with shame and a light dusting of  anger.    it’s all she has.}

_{❛     y’ know the questions they  ask  me ?     ❜     smoke filters out through her mouth between every word.    didn’t have the chance to properly exhale.     ❛     the kinda shit they say ?    you got  any idea  what it’s like t’ be that kid on the street that everyone thinks is  weak ?    it ain’t what  happened  that’s th’  problem.    it’s how these punk - asses are  actin’  ‘bout it.    treatin’ me different.     ❜}