There's nothing like a splitting headache to accompany that raging pain that you just have to sit and wait out like rain, because, fuck, it leaves in a couple weeks but until then there's nothing else you can think about. And it's not like a my wrist is sore pain, it's something deep, deep inside you that you can't avoid no matter what. The terrible part isn't the pain, either, but the fact that every time there's an extra sharp pang you remember the reason behind it and just want to…I don't even know. Get something out, or, in my case, leave it in and sedate it until it falls into a peaceful sort of sleep.

It's too many things on one mind at one time, and I can't go about normal things with a lump in my throat and a churning conscience.

It wasn't hard to end it.

It was just, oh, this isn't working. It was pretty mutual, smooth considering the usual process of misery that winds its way up. I just told him that things were getting too complicated and that it was becoming drama for everyone and we practically weren't even dating anyway, it was just a normal symbiosis of you get yours and I get mine. Maybe with a few extraordinarily gay moments and a couple I love you's thrown in, but still, it wasn't important.

Why, then, did I feel like I was going to either explode in a magnificent burst of colour that wowed the crowd for that teetering two seconds, or simply melt into the slick concrete?

Because people are weak, that's it.

I shoved a hand into my battered parka, searching for something intangible in the dull orange pockets.

My foot subconsciously made its way to push back the rusting kickstand of my bike, the thing leaning precariously in the wet grass as I glared at a father and a tiny little child over at the far apparatus. Instead of throwing myself into a swing like I had imagined just moments before, I carefully placed myself in, leaning back and lighting up before I threw a conniption fit.

There was nothing that suited me better than to sit there, worthless, at an elementary school, and smoke all of Craig's stupidly minty British cigarettes down to the damning filters.

I tried to look up at the sky, but it was doing this not-raining thing (my dad always called it pissing), but my eyes hurt and the smoke was getting in them so I contented myself with shutting them and bothering the family with my cancerous fumes. Truthfully, I didn't care. It's not that I was in a huff about the whole Craig ordeal, I wouldn't have given two shits about anything anyway.

It was just something about that look he gave me when I told him that he knew where to find me if he ever needed me, and the strangely muffled sound when he got out of that car that barely lived through the eighties, and his lingering kiss goodbye that tasted like smoke and cereal and something I could never even place.

Part of me knew it was a slim chance we would really see each other after that, and the other part was being rational and telling me that he would still call at odd hours every once in a while. I sort of hoped he wouldn't. It would be too much.

Craig, though, would continue on with whatever he wanted to do, and I would be the creepy guy blowing smoke into little kids' faces and, well, just laughing with my friends like always. It didn't matter, and nothing mattered, and all I knew was that I was supposed to just live anyway and go with whatever happened, whatever I decided.

It was just another week of constant physical fuck and then it would be forgotten. Just the way I liked it.