CROWD NINE

Listening to "Red Light" by Usher hit different today, the beat synced with the raw energy of the city. These polaroids, shot by the visionary Mitchell Royel in the heart of the fashion district, capture a world that moves fast but stays unapologetically authentic. It’s a vibe—edgy, chaotic, and alive—but under it all, there’s this grounding force.

(The chair is too soft. The kind that swallows you. The narrator sits forward, elbows on knees, staring at a spot on the carpet.)

You want me to start at the beginning. Okay. Okay.

There isn't a beginning. That's the thing. It just... happened. Like weather.

A year. It's been a year. And I still—

(A breath. Too fast.)

Let me back up. A few days before. I saw him. Standing by the field with the football guys. You know the type. Loud. Big. Not our people. Not my people. And him — my best friend — laughing with them like he belonged there. And something in my stomach went cold, but I told myself, don't be weird, don't be jealous, friends can have other friends.

Friends can have other friends.

(A hollow laugh.)

Then he invited me over. To sleep at his house. And that never happened. Not once, all those years. I'd bought him things. I bought him the gel he used every morning. I picked out the jacket he wore like it was his skin. But I'd never slept over. And I thought — finally. Finally I'm in. Finally I matter.

(Hands, opening and closing.)

I got there. I remember my eyes getting heavy. Sleepy. Why was I so sleepy? I've asked myself that a hundred — a thousand times. Why.

And then something hit the back of my head.

The floor came up. Just came up and met my face. And he was — he was mumbling. Curses. At me. Words I'd never heard him aim at anyone. Where was that coming from? WHERE. This was my—

(Stops. Swallows.)

Next thing, I'm on the bed. I don't know how. I'm on the bed and I'm screaming, "get the f off of me," and I don't even know what's happening, I don't know what he's doing, and there's a rope. In the corner. There's a rope in the corner of his room and I'm looking at it and my brain just — it won't say the word. It still won't say the word.

He got up. Started pacing. Back and forth, back and forth.

"I'm leaving your house," I said. I grabbed my phone. Called the police. Busy. Busy? How is it busy — think, think, think, I kept dialing, and I hit my dad's name by accident. "Pick me up. Now." My nose was bleeding. Down my lip. Warm.

I ran to the bathroom. Cleaned myself up. Watched the pink swirl down the drain and thought, act normal, act normal, get out.

And then I was in my dad's car. Just like that. Happy-go-lucky. "What happened?" he said.

"Nothing," I said. "But I'm never going back to his house."

Nothing.

(Long pause. The voice drops, quieter, almost tender.)

The next morning I went to school like it was any Tuesday. And they were already gone. Kids from other groups — people who barely knew me — walking past like I was made of glass. Ghosting. Stone-cold. Looking through me.

I walked up to my group. My friends. And they stared me down. Every one of them. Before anyone could say a word — he came over.

Him.

Running the gel through his hair. My gel. Wearing the jacket. The one I picked out months before, held up in a store and said this one, this is you.

And he goes, so casual, so bored, "we don't need to be friends anymore."

(A beat.)

"That's fine," I said. "I'm not going to your house again. Not after what happened."

"Sure," he said.

Sure.

(The rage surges. Fast now, breaking apart.)

And that's — that's when I lost it, I blacked out, not fainting, the other kind, the kind where you come back and there's just a hole where the minutes were and your fists hurt and your throat's raw. Because I knew. I KNEW. He told them. He told them we got in a fight, a physical thing, made himself the — the one who stood up, the one who was right, fed me to every person who'd ever hated me, handed me over like a gift, like look everyone, look what I did, and they clapped, they clapped with their silence—

(Chokes. Stops. The whole thing collapses into stillness.)

He planned it. That's what I can't— he planned it. The sleepover. The invitation. It was a stage. And I walked onto it holding a jacket and a tube of gel like an idiot in love with a friendship that was already dead.

(Silence. The narrator sits back. Deflated.)

I'll never know exactly what happened that night. I'll never know why the back of my head. Why the rope. What was supposed to happen. What he told himself when he closed his eyes that night. I'll die not knowing, and that — that's the part that doesn't heal. Not the hitting. The not knowing.

(A pause. Then, in a different, softer voice — the therapist's, gentle, careful.)

"Well. You're in college now. You've got new friends. And... not everyone is meant to keep in touch after high school."

(Silence. The narrator looks up. A small, broken breath — almost a laugh, almost a sob.)

Yeah.

Yeah. Not everyone.

(Looks back down at the spot on the carpet.)

Some people are just... weather.

(Lights down.)

-Deck, M.R