Warnings:
-Underaged usage of alcohol + drugs

Clay's POV

I pushed the door open to go into the living room of Ivan's house, a heavy smell of smoke hitting me right as I breathed in. I knew it wasn't only because of my friends, because Ivan's family didn't care about anything Ivan did, smoking even worse than we did.

I walked in and saw a few of my friends look up at me. I chuckled when I saw multiple bottles of alcohol on the table and grabbed one of them to drink.

'Dude, I invited some girls,' Ivan announced with a chuckle, pointing at Iris, Latasha and Matilda in the back of the room. 'I know Iris has an eye on you, mate.'

I nodded slowly and breathed out as I lifted the bottle of alcohol up to my mouth. I wrapped my lips around it and took a big sip, the alcohol stinging in my throat. However, I didn't mind and drank a few more big sips, turning to Iris who was looking at me.

'Isn't she going out with Austin?' I asked, a deep frown in my forehead. 'And why isn't he here?'

'I don't know, she might be, but who cares?' Robbie questioned, rolling his eyes. 'Don't be so innocent, we know you would do it with her if you got the chance to.'

'Yeah,' I replied quietly, looking around me. My eyes stopped when I saw Allen in the back of the room. His eyes were turned to the floor, a sad glance in them. I walked closer to him and saw his arm on his lap with a lot of bandages around it, more than yesterday.

'Hi,' I greeted him as I knelt down next to his wheelchair to look him into his eyes. 'Are you okay? You look so sad and your arm is bandaged again.'

He shrugged and breathed out as he prepared to say something. 'CRPS is actually just killing me... It's the worst pain I have ever had and keeps getting worse.'

'Have you taken your medication?' I asked as I sat down on the floor, drinking more of the alcohol in the bottle I was still holding.

'Yeah, obviously,' he scoffed, grabbing the bottle of alcohol from my hands. He lifted it up to his face as well and drank from it with a gulping sound.

He pushed the bottle back into my hands and glanced in front of him. 'You can better go to the others. I don't want you to be my slave again and stay around me all evening because I'm disabled.'

'It doesn't feel that way to me, Allen. I know you're disabled and don't want my, or anyone's, help, but you do need more care. Next to that, I'm not just hanging around you because I want to help you right now, I like to be with you.'

His eyes turned to angry, something I didn't expect after I was trying my hardest to be kind to him.

'Of course you like to be with me!' he yelled out. 'You're just saying that because I am disabled, not because you genuinely like me for ME. It's always just about my amputated leg, my paralysed legs from my waist and down, my CRPS... It's not about Allen, the person I am.'

'Okay, I understand how difficult this is for you, but if you wouldn't have mentioned your CRPS, I wouldn't even have known how to spell it, alright?'

'As if you ever know how to spell something,' Allen said with a harsh voice, the feeling as if he was stabbing me right into my heart.

I was lost for words and stood up again, walking to Iris, Matilda and Latasha. I sat down next to them and looked at Iris who immediately grinned as she saw me.

'Hi, Clay...' She wrapped her hair around her pointer finger and smiled softly, scooting closer to me. 'How are you doing today?'

'Fine...' I mumbled with an awkward voice, not knowing how far I should go because I knew she was the girlfriend of one of my friends.

'You know, Clay,' she started, her hand going down to my leg. I knew I shouldn't get along with it because she was cheating on my friend, but I wasn't going to push her away either. Getting along with something a girl wanted was good for my reputation to look straight and masculine.

'I have some... pills for you if you want anything...' Her hand went up to my thigh, softly rubbing it from my upper thigh to the inside of it.

'Okay, great. Give it to me,' I demanded, holding my hand in front of me. 'And give me some stronger alcohol.'

'I've got some strong alcohol for you, but you can't take too much from it because you'll be completely knocked out if you do. Guess we can let the party get started!'

I nodded and raised my gaze when I heard the door open again, Austin walking into the room followed by Lucas. Iris immediately moved away from me and acted like she hadn't been near me at all, quickly pushing a pill of, likely, ecstasy in my hands.

I stood up, almost feeling the pill burn inside of my sweaty hands. I knew I would be the only one next to some of the girls to be on drugs again today, something that was so much more frequent than I told anyone it was.

With the bottle of alcohol in my hands, I put the pill in my mouth and swallowed it with the vodka, Lucas staring at me in silence. He cleared his throat and walked away from his friends, going up to me with a questioning look in his eyes.

'Clay, dude. I saw that,' he started, his eyes changing to worried. A worried look that Sapnap also had in his eyes whenever I didn't want him to have one. One that made me angry most of the time, frustrated because I knew he was smarter than me and was right whenever I was doing something stupid.

'Okay? So what? You're literally showing up to some party that includes drugs and alcohol, so what makes you feel like you have the audacity to control me?'

'Clay, this is the third time this week...' he replied. 'And I'm not controlling you, I'm looking out for you. You need to start seeing the difference between love and getting involved in things.'

'I already swallowed it, so... Bye Lucas. Go to your brave friend, Allen, who decided to be an absolute dickhead to me.'

The words I spoke out sounded softer and painful, something Lucas realised straight away.

'What did he say? Because it hurt you...'

'Nothing important,' I started, the hidden insecurity and pain inside of me stronger than my tough mask. 'That I can never spell anything right... But I always try so hard, but I just- can't.'

Robbie moved closer to us and glanced at Allen for a second, his hand lifted up to my shoulder. 'I wasn't trying to listen, but heard what you said and that's just rude. He's going through a lot, but shouldn't have said such a thing. You have a lot of other talents.'

'Such as?' I shouted, insecurity turning into anger. 'Nothing, I have no talents at all! Yeah, I'm great at drinking too much and watching porn all day, great talent!'

I walked to the couch and sat down in the corner of it, my feet lifted up and my head on a pillow. No one knew this was all just an escape from the pain inside...

1272 words