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“You’re hurt again,” says a quiet voice from somewhere behind you - close, too close, you should have noticed his approach, why didn’t you notice? - but it’s only Abram, so you pretend you don’t flinch at the sound and he pretends he doesn't see it, instead holding a hand out expectantly for one of your stolen cigarettes.
You shake one out of the pack and pass it to him, choosing to not to grace his statement with a response. You can’t deny it, not when it's written so clearly onto your skin, onto your bones, when you had seen it yourself this morning while trying to avoid your own thousand yard stare in the bathroom mirror. Your black turtleneck is far too hot for July in California, but it does a good job of hiding the bruise on your collarbone and the fresh bandages under your too-long sleeves. You shrug, lighting your own smoke with unsteady hands.
Abram is a ghost of a boy, a little taller than you - not that it was much of an achievement, there are primary school kids taller than you - but stick thin, with badly dyed brown hair and a look in his eyes that says he’s cataloguing escape routes, that he could vanish at a second’s notice. You’re not sure Abram is even his real name. What are you running from, you want to ask, but don’t. There are truths that cannot be given away for free, and there isn’t enough of you left for you to start handing out pieces of yourself in exchange.
“I’d kill them for doing this to you, y’know. Whoever they are. If you gave me the chance.” Abram says, and his voice is so quietly intense that for a terrible moment you believe him, and the thought of this beautiful, impossible boy in proximity to Drake makes your blood run cold. You consider the offer for a beat longer than you should, anyway- consider the cost of blood on your hands against a world where you can sleep through the night, where you don’t have to wear long sleeves at the height of summer, where your body and mind are your own. You’d let him, you realise. What would one more mark on your soul be, at this point?
You haven’t cried in years, not by choice, not during the light of day, but suddenly you want to throw yourself into Abram’s arms and let him hold you while you sob like the child you never got to be. You want him to burn the world down while you watch. You want to run away with this boy made of lies and never look back, to kiss his lips and have it feel safe, to never again have to worry about men with hot breath and heavy hands and the pain that makes you feel like your whole body is burning from the inside out.
Abram coughs on his next inhale and the spell is broken, and you laugh at him like this scrawny kid didn’t just offer to commit murder for you, like you weren’t a heartbeat away from agreeing to it.