“Leo...” you hear Justin’s voice echo behind you. Turning to look at the eagle, you’re a little surprised to see him still asleep; after all the times he’s crashed at your apartment you’d never heard Justin sleep talk . “...don’t ...die.” OK, you are slightly more surprised by that.
Walking over to the eagle, you carefully check his temperature. He’s tossing and turning, obviously in the throes of a nightmare, but he doesn’t have a temperature. “Leo... don’t... die,” the eagle hazily reiterates in his sleep. You frown before turning away; you didn’t like to see him suffer, but it was just a nightmare. It will pass, and then he can get some sleep.
You head to your dresser to start to gather some things for the day so you can leaves these three to sleep off their booze. Justin continues talking in his sleep, with the rather disturbing mantra of “Leo... don’t... die,” over and over again. It’s only just when you’re ready to leave that his tune changes. “You... don’t... have... to be... a hero...”
You freeze dead in your tracks, ice running through your veins. Justin has said that many times to you in the past, though normally in a more jovial mood as he tries to cheer you up over all your failed life choices. Normally you just roll your eyes and shrug if off, at least publicly, but aside from being private... this almost felt like a dire omen.
With morbid curiosity, you walk back to Justin’s bed to better hear what he is saying.
“Don’t die Leo,” Justin says, at least after you mentally edit out the excessive amount of eclipses. Further thrilling epitaphs include, “Don’t be a hero. It’s too dangerous. You can’t save them. You’re going to die in there.” All repeated over and over, with just a little bit of randomization of the order. It’s certainly a little creepy, but overall not any more revealing that his first sentence.
Checking the time, you see that you need to start getting ready for your day, so you head out of the room with your change of cloths. As you quietly close the door behind you, Justin’s words of “Leo... don’t...” follow you before the insulation of the door provides a little bit of silence.
Breathing a sigh of relief, you toss the change of cloths on the couch of the small kitchen slash living room area, and then head back outside real quick to drag in your sled and skateboards before some frat boy thought they were the coolest thing ever just to snag... or worse, the landlord notices them.
He was a nice enough ram, but whoever actually owned the building set some strict rules about how many overnight guests were kosher at one time and the fact that this wasn’t really overnight didn’t really matter to the bureaucracy. Landlord was much nicer, but he still warned you about being blatant with it.
So the evidence gets stowed away in the foyer and no one but the actual wise are any wiser.
That said and done, you set about making yourself a quick breakfast of one eyed toast. While it’s frying you also mix up a large three gallon pitcher of generic electrolyte sports drinks for the three soon to be very hungover best friends.
Heh... best friends. Sometimes you find it a little hard to believe. I mean, nothing really had to happen after that one day in the hallway. You bumped into them, fell, and twisted your ankles. Later it would turn out it was just sprained, but it hurt so bad you thought it was broken. Sure, it was a problem, but they wouldn’t have be bad people if they just walked away. Hell, in this day in age they would have been saint just to have called campus staff and waited for help to arrive.
But Max? Max carried you to the army recruiter.
Army recruiter promptly tossed you out for being too small much less a cripple, but that wasn’t the point.
Point is that despite being a party animal and a total mooch, Max also had the biggest heart you knew. Max goes out of his way for both strangers and friends in the most over the top manner possible, and on top of that attends multiple charity events and activist rallies. Most of which he drags you to, which might be giving him tunnel vision on your virtues.
Justin was just the same way, with his ‘You don’t have to be a hero’ line he spouts every time your efforts to be a soldier, or doctor, or fireman, or police man, or...
You’re pulled out of the self destructive line of thought by the smell of the toast almost burning, and quickly snatch breakfast from the cusp of being blacked soot. Pouring yourself a glass of juice, augmented by a shot of five hour energy, you sit down and have a decent breakfast... now where were you?
Oh, right, Justin. The eagle who constantly told you you didn’t need to be a hero, while he himself had his engineering degree paid for in part by the air force ROTC. Once this year was over and he filed for graduation, he’d be off to boot camp. And he was excited for it; in many ways he was a true blue american hero... as long as you weren’t a spider, or a roach, or a mouse, or lightening and thunder... bird was the biggest scaredy cat for the smallest things.
And Terry, just not to leave anyone out... well Terry was the smartest guy you knew. He speed reads, appears to have an eidetic memory as he only reads the books once and aces all his classes, is fluent in three languages (English, Chinese, and Persian), and is also buff which technically makes him a renaissance roo. Of course, he’s also the stupidest person you know, coming up with all the hijinks that land you all in awkward situations over the years.
Case in point, the current blender the three of them were on. Partying every single week of their senior year? Sure, it would make it memorable... if they could remember anything through all the alcohol induced brain damage they were inflicting on themselves. You went the first time, and for once just called Terry’s crazy idea what it was and never went again. And so began this new weekly ritual.
Speaking of weekly rituals, you check the time again as you put your plate into sink and see you should have enough time to make the bus if you put things into overdrive. Rushing over to your change of cloths you switch into the fresh smelling fabrics as you apply a liberal layer of deodorant, seeing as the one person who didn’t get a bath was yourself. Then it’s brushing your teeth at the kitchen sink, because of course you keep a toothbrush there just for moments like this, and then it’s out the door with just a quick pat of your pockets to make sure you have your wallet and keys.
Out the door with a bounce in your step, the early bird bus to campus arrives just as you. There weren’t any classes on the weekends, but there were plenty of other school activities going on despite the school board trying to save money by shutting down as many services as possible during the weekend. So you aren’t alone as you find a free seat, though no one on this bus was part of your project. As for what that was...
Terry studied law, Justin was an engineer, and Max was political science. All of them had bright futures were you just failed at one thing after another... and then you noticed that no one seemed to notice how much it was all tearing you down inside. Everyone seemed to believe the mask of determination and optimism you wore, despite the depression and envy building up inside every day. Maybe you could do something that.
So, you switched gears one more time to theater, and it’s actually been working out for you. You did well in the literature courses, and your instructors for practical performance caught on fast at how well you were at just projecting different emotions on demand. You still haven’t been the main on a leading role, but you’ve had two supporting roles, and this time you’re an understudy for the main.
Yes, you did still felt a little depressed about the broken road it took to get here, and when you get sleep deprived like this it was easy to look yourself in the mirror and think that even if you became a famous actor you wouldn’t make a difference... and yes, you did feel envious of your best friends on so many levels you sometimes felt like a monster for feeling that way...
...but, objectively, your life was good right now. It might not be the life you want in the past, but you’ve finally found something you were good at. You had friends who cared for you when they didn’t have more alcohol in their system than blood. And things were looking on track for you getting into the grad program for theater... with Terry moving onto a law school, Justin to the air force. Maybe Max would hang about for graduate studies, but...
You shake your head to clear your thoughts, followed quickly a shiver goes up and down your entire frame as someone walks over your grave. Right... sleep deprivation induced depression. You’d think after so many month’s you’d learn to take better cat naps. You have rehearsals today, though, and no pity party nor ominous nightmare omen was going to get in your way of taking another step forward. Fake it until you make it...
Lost in your thoughts, you almost don’t notice as the bus arrives on campus. You hurry off, heading directly towards the theater auditorium with just the slightest of polite nods to the bus driver. Today was just another day. Nothing bad was going to happen like...
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