Justin is sketching, nothing but random squiggles from her vantage point, but it’s the first time he’s picked up a pencil in weeks so she’s grateful even for doodling. She’s loathe to disturb him, almost walks away, leaves him alone to fill the room with the scratch of his pencil and the warmth of the bright afternoon sunlight filtering through the windows. She’d leave him alone, like she’s been alone, except not at all the same because he’s got light and vision and power, and all she had for the two longest motherfucking days of her life was fear and worry and heartache. Two goddamn fucking days until Brian -- Brian! -- thought to pick up a phone and tell her that Justin was alright, he’d turned off his cell to avoid Cody the psycho but he was alright, thank God he was alright.

And curled up now in her living room, scribbling idly away, not a care in the fucking world.

“Justin!” she says, and her voice is sharp and clear and… furious. What a fantastic word, furious. Full of fury. And that’s how she feels, watching her best friend glance up casually, not even really looking at her, mumbling a distracted “hmm” almost under his breath.

“I found this.” She snaps the pink muscle shirt, and the crack is not as loud or strong or furious as she’d hoped. “In the trash.”

Now Justin meets her eyes, but not before his gaze lingers on the piece of material dangling from her fingers.

“Well?”

Justin shrugs, and she fumes. He frustrates the hell out of her, always has, ever since that time in kindergarten when he’d insisted on mixing together all the Play-Doh colours instead of keeping them separate as they were clearly meant to be.

“Do you want it, or what?” Daphne snaps the fabric again, lacklustre crack again, and doesn’t notice that her knuckles have turned white or that her fingers are ice cold.

“It was in the garbage, wasn’t it?” Justin finally says.

She grits her teeth. She remembers a time when they shared everything. And then something changed, and it had nothing to do with Justin being gay, even though for a while she thought it did. It had nothing to do with Brian, though everyone else was perfectly willing to put the blame on Kinney. She thought it might have had a lot to do with the missing puzzle piece labelled “Prom”, but Justin had made it perfectly clear that that topic was not acceptable, had walked out on her on more than one occasion when she brought it up.

So they are left with half-sentences and unfinished stories, and words that hang unspoken in the air.

She turns on her heel to return the shirt to the trash where it belongs, bumping into the chair as she passes, and if tears come to her eyes she blames the jolt and rubs at her knee because that’s all it is. She’s a klutz, always has been, she was the one who spilled the finger-paints, who fell off the top of the slide and bled like hell, she still remembers Justin’s ashen face as he called to the teacher, and --

“I made him apologize.”

She stops and turns, and it feels like she’s moving through paste, like that Elmer’s Glue they used in school.

“On his knees. I held the gun to his head and I made him apologize.”

The glue was white, she remembers. They’d let it dry on the pads of their fingers and then peel it off, marvelling at the resulting fingerprints. They’d horde the prints in their pencil cases and play Detective after supper every night.

“I put the gun in his mouth. I…”

And Justin makes a gurgling noise in his throat, and Daphne has dropped the shirt, the filthy disgusting shirt, and slumped to her knees and brought her arms around him. She feels his body shake, and only clutches him tighter. He doesn’t cry, but oh she wishes he would, cry and let it all out and go back to being that little boy again, the boy who smiled at everyone and carried crayons in his pocket and did cannonballs into her pool every Saturday.

Daphne knows she’s not first, anymore. He’s got Brian now. She’s okay with that, as long as he knows she’s second. And as long as he knows he’s got a first and a second, and doesn’t have to carry this shit around alone.

She might murmur some of this, cradling her best friend in her arms. Later, she can’t remember. She only knows that they threw on jackets, and went for ice cream, and walked home arm in arm, and talked for the first time in forever. And she feels better than she has in a long, long time.