‹ Prequel: Promise Me The Stars
Status: This story is on hold right now as i'm in the process of editing the prequel Promise Me The Stars. Check it out for better chapters!

Rocks Painted Gold

I Can't Help Her.

I stumbled down the street, my eyes heavy and sleep trying to drag me down. I was drunk, there was no doubt about that, and I really just wanted to lay down and sleep where I was on the dirty ground.

I had gotten drunk to forget about Kylie but everywhere I looked I saw her and it made me want to scream. I stumbled out of the bar and there she was smoking with some guy that had his arm around her. I was so pissed I nearly killed the guy but I saw that it wasn't her a second before I swung. I got pushed away, called a dirty drunk, and then I was left to wallow in my self pity, again.

I started to wish I had never met Kylie, I had never fallen in love with her or thought of her as anything more then some girl Forest knew. I just had to get involved with everything, and by doing that I had gotten hurt by the one person that could hurt me the most and I couldn't do anything about it because I was in love with the girl. And I hated himself for falling in love with her.

I passed another Kylie look-a-like and rubbed my eyes furiously ridding myself of her face as best I could. I walked down one road and came to a T in the road. Either left or right and there was no way I was going to decide rationally so I just let my feet take me anywhere. Which brought me to her. The worst mistake of my young real life.


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Forest was tired, his high from driving was wearing off, and Zacky was slowly coming to from his sleep of utter drunkenness.

"Where are we?" Zacky groaned as he rubbed his eyes.

"Still looking for Shadow."

"What time is it?"

"Nearly three, no four, in the morning." Forest mumbled as he stopped at a T in the road. He sat there a moment, wondering if he should turn left or right.

"Forest, I don't think we're going to find him tonight. We both need sleep so let's just head back to the house."

"No."

"Forest," Zacky began to argue but Forest cut him off.

"It's four in the morning Zacky, I know we're close to finding him and i'm not going home until we find him anyway. He's the only person i've had complete trust in for nearly my whole life i'm not leaving him on the street to choke on his own puke." Forest stated after turning right at the T.

"Fine." Zacky sighed and Forest rolled his eyes.

Forest drove on for a few blocks and nearly caused an accident when he spotted Shadow slinking down the street, his head down and his hands shoved in his pockets. Forest successfully parked the car and then jumped out to chase Shadow down as he kept walking.

"Hey!" Forest called grabbing Shadow's arm once he came into grabbing distance.

Shadow spun around, his arm poised to throw a right hook into Forest's face, but stopped when he saw it was him.

"Stupid..." he slurred before wrapping Forest in a hug.

"You alright man?" Forest asked quietly pushing Shadow away to look at him. Shadow shook his head and glanced around, looking lost and confused.

"I just want to go home." he said as he ran his hands through his hair.

"Dude what happened to you?" Forest asked his eyebrows furrowed at his friend acting ridiculously strange.

Maybe it was just because Shadow was drunk off his ass and didn't know his way around. But Forest didn't think so, he had never seen him so out of it like he was right now. He had seen him drunk and in a new place, Byte City, but he looked nothing like this person he was seeing in front of him.

"Can we just go home?" he asked, "Where's Kylie?"

"Kylie's at my house sleeping probably, it's four in the morning Shadow."

"Lets just go home." he muttered pushing Forest towards somewhere behind him.

"Car's over here." Forest mumbled as he tugged Shadow towards the car.

"Oh yeah..." he mumbled as he started to fall asleep as they both stumbled under Shadow's weight to the car.

Forest got him into the car somehow and then climbed back into the drivers seat, finding both his passengers sleeping. He sighed and put the car into reverse to start the long trek home where he hoped everything could be worked out.


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I woke up, my head aching, my stomach churning, and my whereabouts unknown to myself. I groaned as I slowly sat up and rubbed my head. My bones cracking and groaning with me. I felt like shit and I tried to remember what happened last night. That's when it all came back in bright white flashes that made me want to scream. The bar, stumbling around, Kylie being everywhere, and then her. Panic swelled in my stomach and I ran a clammy hand down my sweaty face, hoping no one came in at the exact moment I was freaking out.

I ended up stumbling out of the bed and realizing it was Forest's old room, nothing changed too much from the last time we were here. Sure everything was gone except a bed and a dresser, but the walls were still navy blue and there was still evidence everywhere that a teenager had lived in the room. Small holes in the wall from tacks, many disfigured areas on the smooth surface of the walls from where a hole had been punched in, patched, and then painted over. It had happened hundreds of times from Forest's days of controlling me and the lumpy walls were the proof of it, no one was really good at patching walls here.

The bathroom ended up greeting me with it's bright florescent lights and I grimaced at that and my appearance. I looked like death had done a dance on my face, I was paler then white and the lights didn't help any with my headache so my eyes were squinted and I'm pretty sure that's as close as Asian looking i'd get without closing my eyes.

"Fuck." I muttered leaning against the counter and bracing myself with my arms. I was about to pass out from the pain barring down on my head and the memories made me wish I would pass out.

I ignored all the pain and the memories and turned the tap on, water pouring out of the faucet and heading down the drain just as quickly. I cupped my hands together and shoved them under to fill up, glancing at myself one more time before I slammed the water onto my face.

After nearly drowning myself in all the water I gasped and turned it off while keeping my face angled down at the sink. Lifting my shirt to dry my face I realized it smelled horrible and I tugged it off instead and threw it somewhere in the bathroom, probably behind the toilet. I paused when I heard footsteps on the floor heading this way, my gaze was glued to the door as they got closer and eventually stopped in front of the door.

I tried to ignore the shadow under the door but it was weird, why were they just standing there like a freak and not knock or something? I decided to ignore them and turned the water back on, scrubbing my hands under the warm water to get rid of the dirt that had accumulated on them. And to think, I just rubbed water all over my face with those hands. Maybe that was the reason my face wasn't so pale anymore. Disgust filled my features and I went to work washing my face again, wasting more time in the bathroom so I didn't have to go downstairs and face all the people that would probably be down there, or the person just outside the door. Who, yes, was still standing there but they had moved to the wall next to the door.

After washing my face I grabbed a towel and started to dry my face before I tugged the door open and revealed the hallway. Stepping out I stopped outside the doorway and glanced to my left, seeing Kylie sitting there on the floor sniffing. She sat up and looked at me, tears in her eyes while my chest betrayed me and a twinge of pain caught in my heart.

"Shadow I..." she started but stopped as the sobs drowned out what she was trying to say. She stumbled up from the floor and looked at me. Her hand twitching as she contemplated touching me or not.

"I," she let out a sob then wrapped her arms tightly around me, her head resting against my bare chest as cold tears made me slightly shiver when they landed on my skin.

I didn't know what to do at that moment. I had never seen anyone cry as hard as she was right now and I really didn't know how to take care of someone crying that hard. I did the only thing I could think of and wrapped my arms around her.

"I'm.." she gasped lightly and I could hear her trying to draw back the sobs that were trying to get out, "I'm just a horrible person Shadow, but I love you and I can't tell you how sorry I am."

I stood there, holding her but saying nothing. I truthfully wasn't mad at her personally, but I didn't want to be around the person who had said those things to me. Why should I go and trust a person that thought of me the way Kylie said she thought of me. Being together was just going to be a burden to both of us and was useless in the end.

"I have to get dressed." I murmured, pushing her away lightly and walking back towards Forest's room where I had stored my things. I didn't look back but I heard her fall to her knees in the hallway.

"Forest!" I yelled, nearly imploding my head. He appeared at the bottom of the stairs chewing on something while he held half a Poptart in his hand.

"Take care of Kylie." I said trying to beg him to understand why I was just leaving her to cry on the ground.

Forest nodded and headed quickly up the stairs, passing me by and shushing Kylie quietly as I locked myself in the room.

"You fucking pussy faggot, stop being a little bitch and thinking about her." I hissed to my stinging heart. I stomped over to my bag and ripped it open to find new clothes to put on that didn't smell like vomit, booze, and half priced whores.

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I tried to look as normal as possible as I walked into the chatter box of a kitchen. And with the mood I was in I'm pretty sure I was looking just like I always did, pissed off and ready to fight.

"Hey Shadow." Maverix said brightly as he drank something out of a cup.

I grunted and headed for the fridge to find something to fill my aching stomach. Is that all my body was anymore? Some aching, sore, throbbing chunk of flesh that got majorly pissed off while all this was happening? Yes.

"Shadow," Forest said from the doorway. I looked over and watched him closely as he leaned against the doorway eating the last of his Poptart.

"You here to yell at me for leaving her crying?" I asked pulling out the gallon of milk that sat on the shelf in the fridge. I went in search of the pantry so I could find cereal that hopefully didn't have anything to do with bran.

"No, but I want to talk to you about that, along with other things." he said.

"Look, i'm hungover as fuck, tired, hungry, and just really pissed off. Can we hold this whole 'talking' shit off until i'm functioning as the partial human being I am?" I asked rubbing my forehead.

"Yeah sure." he said shrugging. I looked over at him and watched him for a moment as he stared at his breakfast.

"You're looking better today." I commented as I emptied out the box of Frosted Flakes into a green bowl.

"Yeah, I think I just wasn't used to the altitude or something." Forest shrugged and grinned at me before I rolled my eyes and sat across from Maverix who was silently reading the paper.

"Got anything to say about this?" I asked the man, listening as Forest wandered down the hallway and headed up the stairs.

Maverix folded down the corner of his paper to look at me, "I think the world has a strange way of pulling things together and making them right again."

I stared at the psycho Forest called his uncle with my mouth hanging open slightly and my spoon poised with a mouthful of cereal and milk dripping off it.

"You're a fucking whack job you know that?" I asked, sticking the spoon into my mouth and chewing on the flakes of tasteless mush they called 'generic Frosted Flakes'.

"I'm well aware of my mental status Mr...do you even have a last name? If you're going to make it in this world you're going to need a last name. And a social security number or else you're literally no one in this world. If you're one of those conspiracy guys you should probably just stay the way you are because you can live in the world without even knowing..." Maverix sat there spewing his conspiracy theory crap for another five minutes but I had tuned out and eaten the rest of my bran by the time he was asking if I was listening.

"Where would you go about getting all this crap?" I asked leaning against the counter, my back to the sink.

"Well I know some people that I could introduce you to." Maverix said.

"You know, if you weren't a drag queen you could be a pretty good mafia guy." I stated narrowing my eyes at him.

"Oh please honey, the only reason I know these people is BECAUSE I dress up like a woman." Maverix snapped his fingers at me and I could tell he was going into 'Aunt Maggie' mode. Which actually cheered me up because it was really ridiculous and funny to watch.

"Think you're admitting too much Aunt Maggie." I laughed and grabbed the milk I had left out then opened the fridge to set it back in.

"You'll know when i'm admitting too much, trust me sweetie." I cracked another smile and shook my head.

I ended up sitting on the counter, my legs swinging like I was a five year old or something, and talking to Mavrerix/ Aunt Maggie for over an hour. By the time we left the kitchen I was in a better mood and I didn't feel like a depressed fourteen year old that was going to go write poetry while listening to Marilyn Manson.
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So I was wildly contemplating updating this since i'm in the middle of editing Promise Me The Stars. And with that editing comes changed to the plot line so after this chapter this story is officially on hold so I can finish up with PMTS and then get into editing this story.

Sorry for the news but I really want to work on the prequel and eventually this one because I feel personally that I rushed through Promise Me The Stars and it's lacking things that could make it so much better. Like building the relationships more! So Promise just might have a new chapter or something!!

Anywho, anyone else like this chapter haha. It's been sitting in my drafts for awhile and I felt like finishing it up. Poor Shadow :(

Comment and subscribe and check out the new and improved Promise Me The Stars sometime!