The Night I Spent with Aubrey Fisher

The Night I Spent with Aubrey Fisher

CHRISTOPHER M. TANTILLO

The Night I Spent with Aubrey Fisher

Copyright © 2023 by Christopher M. Tantillo

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used, including but not limited to, the training of or use by artificial intelligence, or reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Contact Info: christophermtantillo.com

Cover Design by: Nicole Hower

Audiobook Narrated by: Eric Altheide

ISBN: 979-8-9867622-1-0 (hardcover) 979-8-9867622-0-3 (paperback) 979-8-9867622-2-7 (ebook) 979-8-9867622-3-4 (audiobook)

First Edition: May 2023

Second Edition: January 2024

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Contents

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Also by Christopher M. Tantillo

Author’s Note

Prologue

PRE

24 Hours Until

23 Hours Until

22 Hours Until

21 Hours Until

20 Hours Until

19 Hours Until

18 Hours Until

17 Hours Until

16 Hours Until

15 Hours Until

14 Hours Until

13 Hours Until

12 Hours Until

11 Hours Until

10 Hours Until

9 Hours Until

8 Hours Until

7 Hours Until

6 Hours Until

5 Hours Until

4 Hours Until

3 Hours Until

2 Hours Until

1 Hour Until

Epilogue

POST

Acknowledgments

Sign up for Aubrey & Gray’s Little Shit List!!!

Aubrey Needs Your Help…

If You Liked Aubrey Fisher…

Keep You

Tuesday, November 12th - Thirteen Years Prior

Present Day

A Bonus Story from the Aubreyverse

It’s Not Christmas Without Aubrey Fisher

7 Months Later

About the Author

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Also by Christopher M. Tantillo

The Night I Spent with Aubrey Fisher

Keep You

Praise for The Night I Spent with Aubrey Fisher

This book is honest, insightful, funny… a call to empathy that’s been needed for a very long time in this world.

MASON CARLISLE, AUTHOR OF      THE GHOST OF YOU

It addresses pain and mental health in a really truthful way that doesn’t feel sugarcoated. I’m grateful this book exists…

WILLIAM GRANT, AUTHOR OF     WITH YOUR FRIENDS

…because of this book, my heart hurts a little less… thank you, thank you, thank you for these words.

READER REVIEW

This book will sit in your bones and seep through your pores.

READER REVIEW

I laughed, I cried, I threw my book across the room. It was a roller coaster of emotions and I loved it!

READER REVIEW

Do yourself a favor and pick this book up, but be ready to cry and heal.

D. ALEXANDER, AUTHOR OF            THE MEMOIRS OF ELIKAI

Thank you to Christopher for writing this emotionally driven story that gave me all the feels!

SCOTT GARRISON, AUTHOR OF   FROM THE UNIVERSE TO ME

The writing is spectacular, the pace is spot on, and the story is beautiful.

READER REVIEW

…was an amazing read. It’s heartbreaking yet hopeful.

ALISHA GALVAN, AUTHOR OF   BITTER CROWN OF THISTLE

I have a new favorite book. I have a new author obsession.

READER REVIEW

I can see this book being turned into a movie that I would be first in line to buy a ticket to or stream.

READER REVIEW

Author’s Note

This book contains and implies scenes/themes related to abandonment, anxiety, body dysmorphia, brief mention of pedophilia and child pornography, bullying, child death, depression, drug use, mentions of grooming, misogyny, neglect, self-harm, sexual assault, suicide and suicidal ideation, survival’s guilt, underage drinking, and violence—all involving teens. Please practice self-care before, during, and after reading.

If you or anyone you know is suffering with thoughts of suicide or self-harm, please seek a professional as soon as possible. Or call or text 988, the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.

If you or anyone you know has survived any act of sexual violence, please visit https://www.rainn.org/. Or call the 24/7 hotline at 800-656-HOPE (4673).

You are not alone.

For everyone, like me, who need to get lost to find themselves

A storm is coming, and blood from the ocean wraps around my ankles. I’m planted on the beach; my feet stuck in wet sand that glues me in place like cement. There is no one around. No sound. No breeze. No atmosphere. The skies above are overcast and gunmetal gray. Ominous. A half-constructed sandcastle to my right remains unattended.

And he’s out there. The boy. Out in the blood-waves as the swell crashes into the rocky shore. I try to reach him, to call out to him, but I can’t. My voice won’t work, no matter how hard I scream. My legs can’t break free of the sand. Blood-water stains the entire beach.

Tears fall down my cheeks, and I’m suffocating. The waves get higher. Blood-mist sprays my face, and the boy keeps getting carried out farther with the tide.

From somewhere beyond, two faint glowing lights race closer, toward me, from out past the boy. Two round lights that force me to squint my eyes.

I scream as loud as I can, but my voice won’t work, like the entire world is muted. Only the sounds of the little boy screaming out my name over and over.

I can’t reach him, but the sky gets darker, the blood redder, and the waves bigger.

The two round lights closer.

But I just can’t reach––

PRE

FRIDAY, 6:29 AM

Sometimes it’s hard just to wake up.

I love lying awake in bed, one arm bent underneath the nape of my neck and the other extended as I wave it in and out of the prisms of light that seep in through the cracks of my blinds. Trying to catch the dust. This moment, the quiet signaling the pre-dawn in the mornings before school, is blissful. These are the moments I look forward to. It’s the one time when I can hold my breath, stare up at the blank ceiling in the dark, and just sink, hiding from the world. It won’t last long. But maybe it will be just long enough.

I roll over in preparation for my alarm clock that’s about to blare its ugly trumpet. I’m ready for it; I never give it the satisfaction of getting out more than a squeak before bashing it on the head like a whack-a-mole.

BEEP.

Roll.

BANG.

I swing my legs over the bed and hop down, stand on the balls of my feet until my ankles crack, and then move forward over the carpet. Before I touch the knob, I press my ear to the door and listen to the muffled buzzing of Dad’s electric shaver from the bathroom down the hall. I can hear the feathery slap of my mom shuffling a deck of cards in the kitchen downstairs, and I imagine her blue night robe draped around her as the tea boils on the stove.

It’s their morning ritual, and it never changes.

It’s been like this every morning for six months.

I peer over my shoulder at the last beam of light shining in and extend my hand, bathing in the golden ray. The particles seem to hover, almost trapped. They belong to the pre-dawn—just another thing that unnerves me about opening the door. The beauty will no longer belong to me. I won’t be able to control it in the real world.

My hands tremble as I flick on the light, shielding my eyes from the piercing white. I grab my phone from the nearby dresser and see a new text:

Unknown

i kno a secret about u…

liar

Chills.

I’ve never gotten a text like this before.

But they’re right.

After I clear away the screen, confused, the picture on my background comes into focus—me with an arm wrapped around my brother in a headlock. He is wearing the seashell necklace. We are in the tree house we built in the woods. My breath catches in my throat until I cough and throw the phone on my bed.

Goosebumps.

My heart pings and I clutch at my chest. A bead of sweat rolls down my forehead, and I undress for my shower. I suppose, my last shower. And that’s when it strikes me for the first time today:

My last shower.

I take off my shirt and stare at the purple bruise below my left rib cage. Run my hand over the bumpy surface and wince at the pain, but push harder to feel the pain deeper. It’s the only thing that feels normal. It’s exactly what I deserve.

With one last deep breath, inhaling the memory of my room, I place a hand on the brass knob of my bedroom door. It’s cool under my sweaty palm. Inside my head, the sirens’ wail echo their approach. Even today, months after everything, it tells me this is the only way.

I step into the dim hallway and jiggle the knob to another bedroom door on my left.

Still locked.

Breathe in.

Anybody in there?

Breathe out.

You can come out now.

My name is Grayson Falconi, but most people call me Gray.

I’m seventeen years old.

And today I’m going to die.

24 Hours Until

FRIDAY, 6:57 AM

Breakfast is the worst part of the morning. I make a bowl of off-brand cereal and sit down next to Mom at the kitchen table. It’s not that I don’t want to spend time with her––I do. But it’s hard when it’s her love for me that causes the most pain.

Like all mornings, my mother sits at the table and drinks tea, playing solitaire with the same deck she’s had since before I was born. She brings the white Mickey Mouse mug to her lips, blows at the steam, takes a sip, and makes her next move. She won’t win the game; she never does. One leg crosses over the other; her ankle bounces up and down to an inaudible beat.

I know she called in sick to work. Again. I look below the chair and shuffle my feet rhythmically over the kitchen’s white vinyl tiles. Trace a green vein from my wrist to my elbow with a finger until it disappears. Something so fragile yet exposed, just beneath the surface.

Morning, Mom.

She nods to the cards in response. Mom won’t look at me because of the bad memories. Mumbled that once in her sleep when she’d been up waiting for Dad and I went to turn off the TV. She’d been dazed on Prozac or Xanax or Ativan––her own personal cocktail. She was half out of her mind.

"Want to love you… eyes like his… all I see… never come out… stay away, Gray."

I never forgot it.

We sit opposite each other at the table, and I wonder if this particular cereal will taste different than before. If the empty spot to my left will ever feel less empty.

There used to be a fourth chair at the table.

Dad removed it a while ago.

I pinch the vein in my arm until the tips of my fingers turn white and my eyes water.

Were you awake when your father got home last night?

I don’t know, I lie. Look at Mom and want to wrap her in a hug. Remember when we went on that field trip a few years ago to⁠—

Well, he was asleep on the couch when I woke up. She sighs. He’s just going to do what he wants without a thought to anyone else. Isn’t he?

I chew the inside of my cheek. I don’t know, Mom.

She sighs again. I finish my cereal and go to rinse it in the sink––glance over my shoulder and see Mom reach for a crumpled tissue in her pocket. She dabs at the front of her face before re-crumpling it back into her robe. Her hands tremble as she blows at steam from the mug.

I know she’s going to talk to me again. About Dad. She never talks about anything else. Like maybe it’s the only topic that feels safe. That isn’t as painful.

I’m sure Dad was just swamped with work. A beat. You look beautiful today.

She swivels around in her chair and looks at me; her eyes glaze over. I look at her face, at the premature crow’s feet around her eyes that make her look decades older than she is, and want to tell her everything will be okay. That I love her.

But I don’t.

As I walk past the fridge toward the bathroom, I can smell my dad’s bitter coffee brewing from the counter as it plinks into a black mug. I look at an old Polaroid wedding photo of my parents taken in the church pews. I admire the way my dad leans my mom over, one hand caressing her lower back and the other cupping her chin while he plants a kiss on her lips.

My mom, as she often tells it, had me when she was seventeen and my dad twenty-eight. It was unplanned. A one-night stand. They married almost a year after I was born.

No one in our family likes to talk about it. My grandparents shunned Dad when Mom was pregnant with me, and rumors had been floating around the town for years about their taboo relationship. How my father took advantage of my barely legal mother. How he groomed her. People speculated; people gossiped. They still do. It’s a small town.

Gray Falconi: Illegitimate Bastard and Destroyer of Futures, Inc.

My dad trudges down the stairs and strolls over to the coffee machine in his pleated black pants and white button-up. The smell of his Old Spice aftershave wafts over to me in the bathroom next to the kitchen. I look out from the bathroom door––foam from my toothpaste still clings to one corner of my mouth––and watch the ritual: unplug coffee pot, take a sip and grimace at the heat, straighten the matching tie, wait by the toaster for bagel to brown just right, tighten black belt, and ignore Mom.

It never fails.

Gray, I know you have Brian drive you home, but I can’t pick up your brother today, she calls to me. Can you just stop by and bring him home from the elementary school?

I choke on the toothpaste and spit it out. My father drops his coffee mug onto the counter. When I step out into the kitchen, Mom realizes the error she made. It isn’t the first time, and it won’t be the last.

Mom?

Oh. She lets her cards fall on the table.

Dad curses out loud and coughs. Jesus Christ, Marie. What pills are you doped up on now? He whirls around, not bothering to clean up the spilled coffee. His eyes are like slits; they burn into the back of her head.

"Well, maybe if you came home, Robert, you wouldn’t have to worry if I was taking anything, she says monotone, not turning around. Some of us like to face reality."

Don’t start this again, he says under his breath before picking up the dropped mug and taking a napkin to clean the counter. Corporate is coming down to audit the store in the next few days. I can’t babysit you again today, and I can’t find my progress reports for inventory on the computer.

There’s a lot in this family we don’t need. But do what you want. I won’t stop you. She takes a sip. And if you’re referring to those documents on the hard drive, I trashed them Tuesday night. We needed to free up space on the computer. They didn’t look important. She hums.

I backed up the files to the external hard drive. I try to stop what I know is inevitable. At this point, they’re on autopilot. Nothing else exists.

Do they remember what tomorrow is?

Are you kidding me? he shouts, ignoring my comment. How am I supposed to take stock for audits?

Dad, I can pull up the files on⁠—

"Should have thought about that the last time you went out with your boys, Robert. And you’ve been cleaning up junk around the house, I felt I’d free up some of your junk from our computer."

After a pause, he whispers, Marie, please. I don’t want to discuss this anymore.

"And by this, you mean our son? The one that you refuse to acknowledge anymore?"

Once again, they are talking like I’m not here in the room. Like I can’t hear them. Just another regular morning in the Falconi household.

I clear my throat. Can you guys please st⁠—

Jesus Christ, all you do is nag all day. He throws his bagel in the sink. You’re poisoning yourself keeping useless junk that we can’t use anymore. I donate things to people who actually need them.

Dad—

You know what? she sobs. I really don’t care anymore. I really don’t. Just go to work. They need you there more than I need you here.

He throws his mug to the ground where it smashes. Mom and I jump on impact. I should have left this fucking prison a long time ago.

He looks at me, and for just a second, I think he’s going to hug me, say he’s sorry. There’s a flicker in his eyes, but it’s gone almost as quickly as it appears. Dad storms out of the kitchen and up the stairs. The bedroom door slams shut, vibrating the floor beneath my feet.

Mom doesn’t respond. I push at the pain in my chest and let his words resonate: he wants to leave. I know I should say something, but it isn’t anything new. He’s been like this for a long time now. After what happened, he just shut down. They both did.

Inside my pocket, my phone vibrates. I pull it out and see a text from Reefer:

Reefer

on way

got a story 4 u, Gray-Gray

luv u :-)

Classic Reefer. Always a goof.

Are you okay, Mom? I ask.

Gray, she says from the table as I bend down to throw out the broken pieces of mug. I just mopped the floors. Don’t get blood on them, please. I’m not in the mood to pick up after you. Okay?

I wince, wipe up the coffee with a rag, and stare at Mom. At her sandy-blonde hair that she used to dye with my grandmother every few months. She tried to conceal her age, look younger than she already was. But now she lets herself go. Sometimes skipping showers. Wearing the same clothes days in a row before washing them. Eating junk food with pills.

Dad likes to keep thin, running every other morning for a few miles. He took it up a few months ago. My mom and I, however, don’t. That’s why we have that little roll of pudge in the stomach we can never seem to get rid of.

I never used to be like this. I used to be fit, somewhat athletic, thanks to Kris. But then⁠—

Stop thinking about it.

My phone vibrates again.

Reefer

im here, hurry. we gotta go

im lit-er-a-ly DYING 2 tell u this story!!!!!!!!!!!!!

YO. HURRY UP

I slip silently past Mom and leave the sound of cards shuffling behind. My dad walks down the stairs and clears his throat, his eyes bloodshot. He stops in front of me and pats my shoulder before walking into the kitchen. That’s his way of apologizing.

It’s also the last time he’ll be able to do it.

I’ll never get to hear him say he loves me one last time.

To see his mouth form the words.

I want to stop and scream at them, want to wrap them both in a hug and tell them I love them and that I’m sorry for my carelessness, for what I took away. I pause as I reach the front hallway to put on my white sneakers. Take another look around the house, at the ocean blue carpets and white walls, the mini-chandelier hanging over the front entrance that casts a golden glow as the sun slowly rises to the full dawn.

At the bedroom door just above the stairs that my parents keep locked. Preserved. No one allowed to enter.

It’s going too fast, all of it. I want to slow down and take in all the details. But that kind of stuff only happens in the pre-dawn. Life doesn’t let you stop to appreciate the beauty of the small things like those prisms of light. Life doesn’t notice the tissue on my father’s nick from his morning shave, the red dot in the center of frayed white.

On the wooden hall table, where my parents place their keys and the week’s clipped coupons, is my report card still sitting in the white envelope addressed to them. Unopened. It’s been sitting in the same spot for over three weeks. But I know its contents:

D, C+, C-, C-, B-, F, C+

Just below the report card is the yellow pamphlet from school:

YOU’RE A SURVIVOR! NOW WHAT? KEEP STAYIN’ ALIVE!

Before I open the door, I look over to the living room at a photo of us taken when I was seven, playing and happy at the beach. The only one Dad never took down and stored in a box. The sky is a piercing blue, the edges overexposed from the camera flash. We are laughing as we look past the camera, squinting from the bright sun. I am posing on my knees, my pale, bony body swimming in green trunks. Mom looks young in her polka-dotted bathing suit, pointing at something in the distance while Dad embraces her from behind. The waves are frozen still as they crash against the rocks. If I close my eyes, I can almost hear the seagull cries and smell the salty ocean breeze.

And in my arms, curled up and wearing the seashell necklace, is Bryson.

The honking of the horn brings me back. My heart sinks.

You can order pizza or something, my mom calls. I won’t be home for dinner. Money will be on your dresser. Your father will be out all night trying to fill that empty void.

Yeah, I’ll be at the store all night, kiddo. My dad sighs. Your mother will be filling up her prescription bottle to take the edge off.

Did they really forget about tomorrow?

For a moment I think I will say it, just tell them I love them and that I wish we could turn back time to how everything was before.

I pretend the fourth chair is still seated at the table. When I open my mouth and form the words, it’s just a whisper:

I love you guys.

I inhale one more time before opening the door.

Before everything will once again change.

Forever.

Dude. Dude! Reefer pounds his calloused hands on the wheel of his gray 1997 Buick LeSabre––a hand-me-down he got when he turned sixteen. I never drive, so I always bum a ride for school. "I… I’m in love. Just straight fact. I, the Reef-a-nater, am in love."

Man down, we have a man down, I announce, cupping my hands over my mouth. This I have to force for Reefer. The pretending everything is normal. It’s a habit that I’ll miss.

I’m serious. This one fox in particular has me drooling the thirst. Just excreting the thirst from my pores. Ha-ha, I’m such a tool, and I just love it.

I still have no idea what thirst means, I say and kick at a three-week-old McDonald’s bag by my feet. But tell me about her.

"Mrs. Carmichael. She wants me so bad. She was practically asking for it when I was helping her get down a box from her garage. She literally smelled like an angel, Gray."

I look over and laugh. If anyone can make me forget about everything, it’s my best friend. We’ve known each other since the third grade when we played kickball in gym class. I kicked the red ball straight into his face, knocking him out. After I stayed with him in the nurse’s office until he woke up, it just clicked. We’ve been best friends ever since.

Reefer is the class clown, always joking and causing problems in school, which doesn’t always sit well with his dad––the principal. He gets detention more than anyone I know, but everyone finds him hilarious––even the teachers. He is stocky and broad-shouldered, an average height for our age. Some people call him overweight, but Reefer is just pleasantly plump––a term he embraced that stuck with our class. If you make fun of his weight, he will give it back in full.

Isn’t she widowed?

You bet your sweet cougar-lovin’ ass she is. And who best to help her grieve than this guy? He points to himself, beaming. If anything, I’m doing a public service here.

You’re highly disturbed.

This is true. It’s also why I’m currently single. At least we’ll always have each other. He winks, his face round and cheeks flushed.

He runs his hands over his buzzed head, scratches an itch, and slams on the brakes, almost ramming into a truck stopped at a red light. He laughs and turns up the volume on the radio to a country station.

I look out the window at the houses whizzing by in a blur as we pick up speed––the morning sky a beautiful orange and red hue. A few people jog past or ride bikes; they appear still as we cruise along. This street, like every other street, is lined with shingled two-story houses, most complete with basketball nets in the driveway––roads that usually have a dead-end. The town is too poor for a cul-de-sac.

An overweight middle-aged man my dad’s age lugs a ratty armchair to the end of his blacktop. I look around and think about how I should’ve said something before I left the house. My parents deserved better.

You’re thinking about her, aren’t you? Reefer screams over some twangy tune.

In truth, I haven’t thought about Kris as much as other mornings. Reefer knows what’s wrong, knows what this week means for me and my parents. But he’s smart enough not to bring it up.

She called me again last night, but I didn’t answer. I shake my head. She left a voicemail. I bite my lip. She hates me. She has every right to.

Stop. I don’t want to hear that garbage. And if she does hate you, which she doesn’t, I’ll kill her, cut her up into pieces, and bury her… maybe. He turns down the volume on the radio. Pretty sure my mom still has a bag of lime somewhere in the shed. He pauses, his eyes going wide. Oh… I didn’t mean that, bro. I meant… shit.

I force a smile and punch him in the arm. Memories come back. No, it’s fine. She’ll stop calling soon. You’ll see. I panic, afraid I’ve said too much. Choose to ignore and continue. It’s just Kyle and Tim, I recover. You know.

Reefer turns his head to me, silent for a beat too long. "Well, Kyle is a Neanderthalic dick. I mean him and Kris have that freaky twin thing going, so I get it. But I still think they can talk in their heads, you know? Telling secrets and casting spells. What’s that shit called?"

Telepathy?

God, you’re so smart, Gray-Gray. I could kiss you right now.

I’d prefer you didn’t.

What would you prefer? Talk to the Reef Machine… I’m an open book.

I’ve got nothing to say.

I can hear Reefer grind his teeth as he turns back to face the road. He lowers his voice. "Listen, Señor Falconi… I got your back against anything and anyone. He’s silent for a while, then he glances over and looks me in the eye. I’m serious… excluding demonic possession. Because, I mean, HELLO! Shit’s whack."

I chuckle, and the thought of Kris’s blonde hair flashes in my mind; her nearly perfect teeth gleam, and her coconut perfume teases my nostrils, lifts me up. And just like that, in a millisecond, I see her leg twist almost all the way around at the knee until it pops. She screams and reaches her hand out to mine. Blood runs down her cheeks. I breathe and nod my head toward the road to make Reefer pay attention. The thought drifts away.

Just want today to be normal, I tell him. No demonic possessions. No surprises.

Would you be surprised by that bloody Global II test we have today?

We have a Global II test today?

I don’t know. I was hoping that you were gonna tell me.

We don’t.

Good to know. Thanks, Gray-Gray. Should be no surprise then.

You make no sense sometimes.

Part of my charm. He cranks down his window to let the morning breeze in. I have some serious gas today, so you might want to roll down the window before I blow us outta here.

Reefer parks the car and opens up his door to leave. I sit still and will myself to unbuckle the seatbelt, but I can’t. I look around at the rows of cars, at the sun reflecting off the windshields one after another. Students file in from vehicles and buses parked in a row in front of the main drop-off circle. On the grass, next to the American flag billowing in the breeze, is the sign: Lee Falls Central High School. The only high school we have in town.

Kids swing backpacks over one shoulder and bob their heads to inaudible tunes from earbuds. Dozens of student drones march forward. Smiling faces. Scrunched faces. Stoic faces. Tired. Exhausted. Pained.

How long would it take to wash the blood off the front grill of the bus if you stepped in front of it? Would it smell like copper for days?

The pain in my chest swells, and I ball my hand into a fist until my knuckles turn white. Once again, the image of Kris reaching out and in pain comes to mind.

You coming or what? Reefer interrupts my thoughts.

I jump in my seat and turn, unbuckle my seatbelt. Yeah. Can you just give me a minute?

Want me to leave you the keys? He runs his finger over a premature pimple above his left eyebrow, but I can see the corners of his eyes focused on me.

Yeah.

He frowns and tosses the keys onto my lap before slamming the car door and walking toward the crowd of kids entering the school. He maneuvers his way between the cars, attempts to squeeze between spaces I can’t even fit through, then gives up and walks around until a wider gap presents itself. For a moment, a smile spreads across my lips. A few kids pass by on either side of his car.

I flip down the sun visor and look into the mirror, practice what I will say to Reefer and Jenna if they make plans for tonight. I think of saying goodbye to Kris and Kyle, but know they’ll be better off if I don’t.

Pulling out my phone, I access one of my personal accounts where I used to post videos. All my other social media accounts, profiles, blogs, etc., have been deleted or shut off. Even my photo account is disabled. This is the last one remaining. Mostly it’s of me being goofy with friends or reading a new poem or lyric I’d written. This was a video I’d posted eight months ago. I check it. 3,425 views, 465 likes, 37 dislikes. It’s only thirty seconds long, but I play it. Watch as I roll my computer chair onto the screen with a big, goofy grin on my face.

"Wassup, my Faclonians… yeah. It’s still a terrible name, right? Ha-ha. Wrote an idea for my most inspired work yet. Reefer, enjoy, bro! Want to test it for you guys. ‘Ode to the Throne: A Haiku.’ Here it is:

Chicken Alfredo

You make my stomach rumble

Toilet is my friend

After video-me stares at the camera for a while, I plaster another big goofy grin on my face and roll off screen before the clip ends. Below it are several top comments from friends who follow my videos:

Timmy420: so lame

ThatKyleKid: This totally happened to me too!!!

GrayFlaconianOG: (responding to ThatKyleKid) Twinning!

TheHyunEffect: Only you Gray could make me laugh and feel icky at the same time

TrackGirlKris: Does your girlfriend approve? :(

GrayFalconianOG: (responding to TrackGirlKris) After last night, I’d like to think so. :)

TrackGirlKris: (responding to GrayFalconianOG) Gray!Delete that comment right NOW! :(

Reefanation69: awe, Gray-Gray. u DO care :D

TrollzRule007: isnt this dude who brother is dead? Why is he posting bout diarrhea wifth a dead bro? #weird

JamesDeanFan: (responding to TrollzRule007) Your comment sucks. Think before posting, asshole. #Falconian4Life

The most recent comment:

JamesDeanFan: How come you don’t post anymore? Your haikus are funny as shit. Show us sexy Grayson. You’re smart, good-looking, and great with words. Even the gross ones. Don’t give up. Vaginas swell for you. ;-)

I close my eyes and wait for my heartbeat to return to normal. Stare up and out through the dusty window at the rising sun in the blue sky.

Traces of the dawn fully gone, I feel powerless. Nothing is in my control.

Bryson isn’t