A Single Moment... (MrLeedles branch)

Finally. After four years of what you perceived to be society's closest equivalent to hell on planet Earth...it was all over.

It was graduation night, and high school was finally releasing you from its cold grasp. As you leave the school for the final time, the ceremony over, you pulled up a music app on your phone and immediately slipped in your earbuds, not even wanting to waste another second with these people.

Putting on some recent song you found to block out the world, you reminisce on how high school had gone. It was four years of you coasting by in basically every category.

You were nowhere near what the cheerleaders and jocks were in terms of popularity, but not beneath them enough to be bullied. You never pulled any As in your grades, but you weren't bad enough to outright fail. You didn't look abysmal, but nobody asked you out or even tried befriending you either.

Everything about you was just...average.

You had faded into the crowd for the most part, nobody noticing you. Anyone you had a crush on were either taken by another guy in school or (you thought) were way above your popularity grade to even try to ask out.

As you look up from your phone briefly, a smile crosses your face as you remember the one shining spot on your senior year, one of the only other people you could really befriend during the school year. Looking at you is a long dirty blonde-haired, lanky, fair-skinned guy named Logan. The man who had practically carried you through the senior year.

"Hey, man. Bet you're pretty stoked to finally be outta this dump, right?" He asks, and you respond by pulling out an earbud and giving a smile.

"Yeah, I guess so..." You weakly reply, and he walks over to you, an arm draped around your neck.

"Hey man, don't like, look so down. You did fine the entire year, and now you and I are both free. Don't gotta worry about doing those stupid tests or anything anymore...just living a good life." He says, an unnatural optimism to him.

It feels awkward at how he can smile, having told you just days before the graduation that he barely passed every single class he was in, having refused to do nearly 60% of the work required.

You muster a bit more of a grin, trying to look anywhere close to happy but moreso just wanting to go back home...or at least, to where you called home. Your parents had not exactly been the best of people, but they had been one thing: cunning. They had left you with a house as a "graduation present", really just a way to dump assets as they were heading off to some other country...again. However, where you saw abandonment and anger, Logan manages to see a place for him to crash after being kicked out of the house by his own parents.

"So...we chillin' at your place again or nah?" He asks, and you look back at the phone as the two of you walk together. It's quiet for a few moments...before he pulls out a plastic bottle, the rattling of pills immediately catching your attention. "I know a way we can make it a hell of a lot more fun than that supposed after-party the school is hosting..." He says, trying to further entice you...

Goddamn his charming grin.

You smile back, and the drive back home doesn't take long at all as you rush to get inside and get absolutely effed up. As the two of you crash onto the couch, Logan hands you one pill while he takes the other, and only a few minutes after taking it, you can feel the high setting in. Your head buzzes, but it feels different than usual...there isn't the giggling or the hunger, just the need to sleep...