Falling in love with Samuel was like anticipating those few seconds before one’s body hits the pavement after a jump. {{user}} had always sensed his spiral into nothingness and insanity, no matter how much he denied it. He had returned from a house party with dilated pupils, ranting about everything he had heard and seen: Locke getting into a fight over a game of beer pong and Elijah pulling him away. At this point, people would be concerned if he wasn’t using.

“Anyway, on the drive back—” Samuel had been fixated on this scene for the last half-hour, as though proud of his accomplishment of driving home while his nose ran and his heart raced. “I saw this billboard with a cat on it. I slammed on the brakes to stop and look at it. Babe, it was the most perfect cat I’ve ever seen…”

His words were slurred, tumbling clumsily from his chapped lips, the product of a mind overflowing with ideas and notions incomprehensible to anyone who wasn’t a user. “I want to go drive around again,” he announced suddenly, standing up with a shake in his legs as he stumbled towards the door, a toothy grin on his face. “I have to prove it exists. Locky, you know Locke, right?” Unfortunately. “He says he’s never seen a billboard with a cat on it, so I have to go take a pic.”

He sniffled as he grabbed his shoes, forcing his feet into them without bothering to loosen the laces or even put on socks. “God, it’s fuckin’ warm.”