CHAPTER TWO — SAFE PLACE.
The clock hit 2 AM; Draven got out of bed, changed immediately, and headed to the usual apartment where he would trade his stuff and take care of his friends. He always does this, sleep-deprived and waking up early to be able to spend his time getting high before work. There is always a small prayer in every pill he takes and every drag he inhales that he overdoses.
But that never happened. He sometimes leaves his boyfriend unnoticed at midnight, and when he wakes up, it looks like he’s just gone very early, like most of the time. He’s good at being unnoticed and lying.
As soon as the door opened, no one was asleep, as it was a crime to take yourself some rest. Draven knew how loud their minds must be at this hour.
He looked around and found the familiar but hard-to-distinguish face, curled up on the couch with a broken spring, asleep. He was sleeping peacefully, dozing off, perhaps dreaming of beautiful things.
“The frat guy from a few days ago? What is he doing here again?” Draven asked, setting his work bag on the wooden table beside empty bottles of vodka.
Tracy walked out of her room once she heard Draven’s voice. She looked at him and the guy sleeping on the couch. “He said he wanted to sleep here just for the night.”
“He looked unwell, so we let him in.” She explained. As if that made everything better. Draven knew the poor guy would become more unwell if he spent the rest of the night here. This was not his place; he was too young to be here. He was too fragile to get himself into such trouble. He was a little too much, just like Draven when he was his age.
“What’s his name again?” Draven asked as he grabbed the work bag that he had been placed in again.
“Timothee.”
Draven walked to him and nudged his shoulder. “Timothee.”
The guy did not move. His face was turned toward the back of the couch, one hand hanging close to the floor. His breathing was slow, but not peaceful enough to convince Draven. He nudged him again, harder this time.
“Timothee, wake up.”
The young man groaned and opened his eyes. For a moment, he stared at Draven without recognition. Then he looked around the apartment, at the empty bottles, the stained carpet, and the people watching him from different corners of the room.
“Where am I?”
“Here,” Draven said. “Get up.”
Timothee pushed himself upright, blinking as though the movement had made the room spin. “I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not.”
Tracy crossed her arms. “He can stay until morning. It’s only a few hours.”
“I’m driving him back to his fraternity.”
The room went quiet.
Blasty, who had been sitting on the floor beside the coffee table, lifted his head. “You’re doing what?”
“You heard me.”
Chase stepped away from the doorway. “Draven, don’t start. He came here because he wanted to.”
“He came here because he didn’t know where else to go.” Draven picked up his work bag and slung it over his shoulder. “That doesn’t mean he belongs here.”
Timothee looked between them, confused and embarrassed. “I can call someone.”
“You can barely keep your eyes open,” Draven said.
“I said I’m fine.”
“And I said get up.”
Tracy moved in front of the couch. “You can’t just take him. What if he doesn’t want to go?”
“Then he can tell me when he’s standing.”
“Draven,” Chase warned.
He ignored him and held out a hand to Timothee. The young man stared at it before taking it. His fingers were cold. Draven pulled him to his feet, and Timothee swayed immediately. Draven caught him by the arm.
That small weight against him brought back something he had spent years trying to bury. The same unfocused eyes. The same stubborn insistence that everything was under control. The same quiet terror hidden beneath the need to look careless. Draven had seen it in mirrors, in bathroom windows, in the faces of people who had passed through this apartment and never really left it.
Deja vu settled over him like a warning.
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He knew what happened next if no one intervened. The first place became a second place, then the only place. A couch became a bed. A favor became a habit. Soon, the people around you stopped asking whether you were safe and started asking whether you had anything left to give.
Chase reached for Draven’s shoulder, but Draven stepped away. “This isn’t his safe place,” he said, glancing around the apartment. “And I’m not going to let it become one.”
He guided Timothee toward the door while the others watched, muttering behind him. Outside, the air was cold enough to clear the fog from Timothee’s face. Draven unlocked the car and opened the passenger door.
“Get in,” he said.
Timothee hesitated. Draven looked at him, seeing too much of himself in the boy’s silence. “Before you start believing you belong there.”
Timothee got into the passenger seat without arguing. He sat stiffly, one hand gripping the edge of the door while Draven closed it for him. The cold had followed them inside. It clung to their clothes and filled the car with the smell of damp pavement.
Draven walked around to the driver’s side and placed his work bag between his feet. For a moment, he stayed there with both hands on the steering wheel, staring through the windshield. The apartment’s windows were dark behind them, though he knew the others were probably watching from somewhere. They had always been good at watching someone leave without ever asking if they would come back.
Timothee lowered his head.
Draven started the engine.
The journey to the fraternity was long, but it was spent in silence. The city passed them in broken pieces: closed stores, red traffic lights, wet sidewalks, and the occasional figure moving alone beneath a streetlamp. Timothee did not ask where they were going. He did not ask why Draven cared. He did not even seem to notice when they turned onto the wider road leading toward the campus.
The boy’s face looked pale in the passing lights. He was awake now, but only barely. His eyes stayed fixed on his lap, where his fingers moved against each other restlessly. He looked like someone waiting to be punished for being found.
“Don’t ever go back there,” Draven said.
Draven tightened his grip on the wheel. “You hear me? Don’t ever come back. You’ll end up like one of us.”
Still nothing.
The quiet irritated him more than an argument would have. At least an argument meant the other person was listening. Timothee only stared down, accepting the warning as if it belonged to someone else.
Draven looked back at the road and felt the old recognition settle inside him again.
He had been like that once. Maybe he still was.
He had already been an addict when he was Timothee’s age. Back then, he had kept it quiet. He hid the pills in places no one thought to search and smoked where the smell could disappear into someone else’s clothes. Whenever people around him told him to stop, he smiled, lied, and promised he had everything under control.
They had told him not to depend on drugs. Not to make it the first thing he needed in the morning and the last thing he wanted at night. They had told him he was ruining his life.
He had heard them. He simply never replied.
There had always been another excuse, another reason to take something, another promise that he would stop after one more time. The silence had made it easier. If he never admitted what was happening, then no one could force him to call it a problem.
The fraternity finally appeared at the end of the street, its tall windows glowing with the remains of the night. Draven pulled over in front of it and turned off the engine.
“Get out,” he said. “And don’t make me bring you back.”
Timothee opened the door and climbed out of the car. He stood on the sidewalk for a moment, looking at Draven through the open door as if he wanted to say something. The words never came. He shut the door carefully and walked toward the fraternity, his shoulders hunched against the cold.
Draven watched him reach the steps. The tall windows above him glowed with a dull yellow light, and somewhere inside, people were still awake. Waiting. Timothee paused at the entrance and looked back once.
Draven raised his hand, not quite a wave. Timothee turned away and disappeared through the doors.
Only then did Draven let himself breathe.
He reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a cigarette. The pack was bent from being carried around all night. He tapped one loose, placed it between his lips, and lit it with shaking hands. The first drag burned down his throat. He held the smoke in until his lungs hurt, then released it slowly through his nose.
The cigarette tasted stale. He smoked it anyway.
The fraternity faded behind him when he pulled away from the curb. There was no reason to hurry back, but he drove as if the apartment was waiting for him. The streets were nearly empty. A bus moved through an intersection without stopping, its windows full of pale faces. A woman stood beneath an awning, staring at her phone. Somewhere in the distance, a siren started and then disappeared.
The journey back was as silent as he could imagine.
A strange loneliness settled over him. It came without warning, pressing against his ribs until breathing felt like work. Draven hated when he felt like this. He hated how quickly the feeling took over, how it made every part of his life look useless. The apartment. His work. The people who called him when they needed something. The boyfriend he left sleeping without saying goodbye. Even the car, the cigarettes, and the drugs he carried with him seemed like proof of a life he had failed to escape.
He had failed everything. The thought arrived plainly, without drama. He had failed himself first, then everyone who had tried to help him. He had failed at getting clean, at being honest, at keeping promises. He had failed at becoming someone who could leave the past behind. All he had done was learn how to carry it more quietly.
At a red light, he looked down at his hands. They seemed unfamiliar beneath the streetlamp, thin and tired, the knuckles marked by old scars. He wondered what Timothee had seen when he looked at him. A stranger? A warning? Someone worth listening to?
Worthless. Tired. Empty. He flicked the cigarette out the window and watched its ember vanish against the wet road. Then the light changed, and he drove back toward the apartment.
