Who likes hospitals? I certainly don't. But... I kinda like the way nurses tend to me. I still don't know what's wrong with my face, but they look at me with gentle pity and offer encouraging words while running tests and preparing me for... whatever they need me to prepare for. They want to call my mom; they need her to come in. Ooh, she won't be happy about it. She doesn't get paid for her absences.

They talk to her, explaining the situation, and then hand me the phone. I take it.

"Are you okay?" Mom's voice sounds a bit distant.

"Yeah," I reply.

"Good," she says curtly. "I'll be there in an hour." And she hangs up.

With my face bandaged, I walk out to the waiting room and, to my surprise, see Tanner sitting in a plastic chair, scrolling through his phone with a bored expression. When I sit next to him, he turns to me. For a moment, it seems like he's studying my wrapped-up face, but I'm not sure. I don't look at him.

"You're good to go?" he asks, placing his hands on his knees, ready to stand.

"No," I answer. "I have to wait for my mom. And... they said I need stitches." Tanner licks his lips and presses them into a thin line. "You don't have to stick around," I add for some reason. I didn't expect him to stay, but he surprises me again. He leans back in his chair and taps his phone, waking it up.

He turns the screen to me, showing a video. A deer dashes towards the road, heading straight for the moving car, but tumbles into the snow at the road's edge at the last moment. Driven by inertia, it skids onto the road, but the car comes to a stop just in time. The deer struggles to its feet and quickly dashes away. The most peculiar thing is that the road is absolutely empty and the fields - vast and deserted - stretch in both directions from it till the very horizon, and still the deer managed to almost jump in front of the only moving car.

As if reading my mind, Tanner says, "Those sons of bitches do that shit all the time. My dad hit one once; the hood folded in half. It was sick."

"Did the deer survive?" I ask.

Tanner smirks, "Not after my dad shot it."

I hum in reply and sit back. Tanner keeps scrolling through videos, and I watch them out of boredom. What else is there to look at? At the unnervingly slow clock with a second hand that seems to stutter? At the white walls, where fluorescent light bounces off, making spots dance before my eyes? At the patients shuffling around, waiting, and filling out forms?

Tanner walks to the vending machine and buys a chocolate bar. He gives me half, and we lapse into mindless video-scrolling until my mother arrives.

She looks at my face, holding my chin with her long, cold fingers. Her nails are chipped; I can't remember if she ever had a manicure, or if she ever wore any rings. Like those on the nurse who hands her some papers, pointing where to sign with her pink index finger with neatly rounded blue-polished nail. Mom quickly scribbles her name on the dotted line, and I'm off to a white room filled with the strong smell of anesthetics. It makes me dizzy, but they sit me down before I drop.

As they start stitching my forehead and chin, I feel nothing. I feel almost weightless, and it's kind of nice. Not that I want to repeat this experience.

Back in the waiting room, there's Tanner again. "Your mom had to go, so I said I'd take you home. She left money for a taxi."

I extend my hand, "I'm fine. I can take the bus."

But Tanner doesn't give me the money, grinning instead.

"Come on," I urge. "You know I need it."

Reluctantly, he places the bill in my hand. "But you owe me," he says.

That goes without saying. But aloud I say, "Thanks."

Tanner gives me a sidelong glance and heads for the exit.

***
Ugh... Tanner was right; we should've taken a taxi. The bus ride was nearly endless, and my head started pounding as soon as we left the hospital grounds. On the bus, I caught a lot of glances, but I was more focused on holding back waves of nausea, afraid I might throw up right there. When I finally got home, my room and bed felt like heaven. I fell asleep as soon as my head touched the pillow. But sleep didn't make me feel better.

I lie awake, feeling numb. Too lazy to do anything, too tired to get up, but too bored to stay like this. I find my phone in the folds of the blanket and check my messages. Mom texted that she took another shift, so she won't be back home until tomorrow. Rory sent me some funny stuff, but it fails to even squeeze a smile out of me. Rory's sense of humor is... different.

I didn't bother going to school today. For once, I actually have a real reason, not some made-up story that no one believes anymore.

Slowly, I climb out of bed, but as soon as I get into a vertical position, it feels like a hammer hits my head. I squint and grit my teeth as if that would help. The body does strange and useless things sometimes.

On the table, there's a bag they gave me at the hospital - it contains pills. I hope they're painkillers. My stomach joins in the general discomfort, and I wander to the kitchen, making a quick stop at the bathroom along the way. My face is still bandaged, and I was told not to remove the bandages, but I'm curious... So I peel off a part of the bandage on my chin and see a strip of skin with stitches. It doesn't look too bad. Yesterday, with all the blood, I thought it would be worse.

In the kitchen, I eat the last two pieces of pizza from two days ago, wash it down with hot water, and then swallow the pills. I head back to my room and lie down on the bed when the doorbell rings. I'm tempted to ignore it - I'm not expecting anyone. But the ringing is persistent. Reluctantly, I get up to answer it.

"Well, what's up, Scarface?" Tanner asks. Without waiting for my answer, he walks inside and heads straight to my room, taking his usual spot on the floor, leaning against the side of the bed.

Only now do I notice that he looks a bit ruffled, with flushed cheeks and labored breathing.

"What happened?" I ask, sitting beside him.

He smirks and opens his backpack. "Troy got busted," he says matter-of-factly.

I don't offer much of a reaction. Partly because of my condition, partly because I don't really care about Troy or any other local drug dealer. Still, I ask, "How do you know?" to keep the conversation going.

"I was there! I had to jump out of a second-floor window!" Despite the risk of being caught by the police, Tanner doesn't look upset or afraid; he seems upbeat. Adrenaline junkie. "But before I left, I grabbed something to... help a friend," Tanner grins and pulls out a baggie from his backpack.

"You took his weed?"

"The police would've taken it anyway, and Troy would've been in even more trouble. So I'd call it my good deed of the day," he cackles. "Plus, I thought you'd appreciate my help. Because I could bet that your mug hurts like hell." He glances at my bandaged face.

Well, he's right about that. The pills haven't kicked in yet, and the pain in my head is throbbing.

Tanner quickly rolls a joint. "Your mom's not here, right?" he asks before lighting it.

I shake my head, "She won't be back until tomorrow."

Tanner bares his teeth and flicks a lighter. The joint catches fire, quickly fading to an orange glow that consumes the thin paper and dry weed, emanating a funny-smelling smoke. Tanner takes the first drag, holds his breath, then exhales.

"That's good shit!" Tanner says, taking another puff. "Much better than he sold to me, fucking weasel."

Tanner offers me the joint, but I hesitate. It never worked for me like it does for others. The same goes for alcohol. I've started to think that all this talk about the euphoria of drugs or the lightness from alcohol is just commercial bullshit. But Tanner's gaze seems to put physical pressure on me, even though his face relaxes more with each passing second. Maybe he's right, and the issue was that I never tried the right shit.

Just as I reach for the joint, Tanner quickly pulls it away. He takes a drag and motions for me to move closer. I shift, stopping with my face inches from his. Tanner still holds his breath, his lips curving into a smile as he moves closer until his mouth meets mine. He breathes the smoke into my lungs but doesn't pull away, and it turns into a long, wet, breathless kiss that makes my head spin in a different kind of way. Tanner pauses to take another drag.

"I heard this helps with the pain too," he smiles and kisses me again. He pushes me down until I'm flat on the floor with him over me. He wastes no time and his hand is already on the elastic of my pants.

"Ngh," is all I can produce, but Tanner stops.

"What? I need to blow off some steam, and you need to dull your pain. You know how it works," he smiles, pulling my pants down.

Yeah... I know how it works well... So well that Tanner's hand around my cock doesn't throw me off; on the contrary, I want more.

"Do mine," he whispers hoarsely in my ear and pops the button on his jeans. I unzip his fly, but Tanner is impatient. He lowers his jeans and underwear, and his hard-on presents itself.

While we're doing it, Tanner is as bossy as ever. "Hold tighter... yeah... slower, fuck, slow down... squeeze the top... yeah, like that..."

His blabbing isn't bad; if anything, it usually makes me hornier. But it's also distracting, so I don't come too quickly. That, and the fact that Tanner isn't very gentle. He knows what he's doing, of course - it's not rocket science - but I can't tell him what I want...

The first time it happened, we were drunk. Well, Tanner was drunk. I drank as much as he did but didn't feel the same effect... or so I thought. It was about three months ago. Tanner had broken up with Tricia for who-knows-what time and rambled about it non-stop. All the other guys left. And then it happened.

Out of the blue, he kissed me. It was short and intense, but I didn't even flinch. Then Tanner backed off. I remember his wild eyes on me. He waited for my reaction, and when there was none, he went down on me, and our lips locked again. I let his tongue in, his hands groped and teased me in all the right places. Maybe that was the alcohol effect, I don't know, but I'd never felt that horny before. We jerked off to each other a few times. The next day, it was gone. We never talked about it. And probably never will.

But once in a while, we just do it, as Tanner puts it, to blow off some steam. It's harmless fun, considering all the other things we get up to. And... it's kinda the most pleasant one. Our muffled moans mingled with hot breaths and our almost simultaneous shudders from climax are solid proofs of that.