(Really depressing story, just a heads up.)

“You shit!” Connor yelled from his beanbag chair.

I couldn’t help but laugh as my car veered around his and I won the race. It was always the running joke when Connor and I played Mario Kart. I always won races out of nowhere when Connor was ahead.

He always wanted to prove it wrong though, insisting we play one more and pushing video game conversations into a round of Mario Kart. He couldn’t help it, he was a competitive person. It was something I loved about Connor yet it could get obnoxious at points.

“Hey, hey hey…” I swooned. “Guess who won this time, and the last and the last…”

I was cut off abruptly. There was a playful smile on my face, yet I noticed there was no such expression on Connor’s.

“You fucker!” He yelled. “You win all the goddamn time, you cheat!”

Even for Connor, this was unnatural. He usually grinned and shook it off. He usually made fun of himself for it, never me and my unpolished skills and bag of luck.

“Whoa Connor, chill out,” I responded insistently. “You want to play something else?”

I tried to change the subject, but it felt like the cold air in my basement had suddenly become heated. Before I knew what was happening, Connor was rushing up the stairs and I could hear the slamming of the door. There was a small hint of realization on Connor’s face before he got up, but it faded quickly.

Connor usually never talked much about his life outside of school, sport and video games, but I needed to know now more than ever. Something was definitely wrong. I never knew that this information would hit me so hard.

I texted Connor constantly, even though the notifications were silenced. The impression that he would look anyway fueled my urgent actions to get his attention. He was my friend and I wasn’t going to forget that nothing happened.

It was a little past 10 when I came to the conclusion that he wasn’t responding. He hadn’t even looked at any texts since he had left my house at 5:30. I closed my eyes, and drifted to sleep.

Dust. Cigarette smoke. Alcohol. The smells woke my senses up, but it wasn’t me that woke up physically. It was Connor.

I could feel the thump of his heart, the texture of his hands sliding on his bed sheets. His eyes were weary and there was the crust of dried tears under them. I could feel, hear, smell and see everything, yet I couldn’t exercise free will.

The bed creaked as Connor slowly left his bed. I could feel every part of the motion once again, and it freaked me out. There was nothing I could do but experience it though. It was alike someone had turned on bright floodlights in a room and locked the door.

Down the stairs Connor went. His stomach was increasingly knotted and there was no way it would let up. Then I realized why.

There was a sleeping man on the couch, or at least a husk of one. Connor’s father. The couch was stained and misshapen and the putrid smells of smoke and alcohol wafted throughout the room stronger. There were beer bottles littering the floor, and there was a spilling ash tray in the corner of the room. It was awful, and I it showed me the truth of why all these years I had never actually been to Connor’s house. I could hear the constant excuses now, pitched so casually to me.

“Let’s go to the park instead, play some soccer,” he had said a few months ago.

“Come on, you have more video games than I do, you’ll be disappointed,” he always brought that one up.

Now it all made painful sense, and I couldn’t look away.

Connor was the boldest person I knew and it was one of the reasons I respected him as a friend so much. Yet, he acted timidly. His steps barely touched the floor so he didn’t wake his father. There was an intense focus to every movement he made. He wasn’t the lovingly brash person I had come to know, but a scared, young boy. It haunted me.

A sweating hand latched onto the side of the fridge, and slid the door open. The food was cluttered inside, similar to the overflowing sink of smeared kitchenware. There was the stench of rot that filled my senses but Connor didn’t flinch, and slowly reached forward for a jug of milk. I could feel his heart drop as his grip slipped in mid-air. It felt like the whole world was at a stand-still. Everything was in stasis. And then there was the crash.

There was milk everywhere by the time the clatter stopped. Connor’s father groaned, but soon his eyes were lifted from drudgery. I couldn’t take it, I could tell what could happen next. There was also nothing I could do to stop it.

Connor’s silence was devastating to my understanding of him. His heart burned with anger, yet he couldn’t find his voice. He only did so yesterday, like it was some kind of shock reaction. He needed to let something out, but I could now tell it wasn’t enough. His father got up, and his fierce expression was drawn instantly to Connor and the mess. He was taller than I had originally perceived and his frame was brutish and unwelcoming. Connor backed up and made an uneasy stance to defend himself. And then suddenly, I was back in my body.

My eyes were wide open when I was transported back. I was more shocked by what had just happened to Connor than what had happened to me. I instinctively jerked out of bed like I could still see Connor’s father glaring. I could hear my mother calling me for breakfast, but it felt distant. I was sort of in a shock myself and I stared vacantly at the wall.

Connor and I had felt so close, yet now we were two separate islands. Polar opposites that had been drawn into each other in some bizarre circumstance. It felt like I knew nothing about Connor, yet I had labeled him my best friend since elementary school. I was 16 now, and it stung opening your eyes for the first time. Connor was floating away, sinking even, and it felt like there was nothing to do to stop it.