You stumble down the hallway like it’s yours, even though it isn’t. Your shirt half-buttoned, last night’s smudged eyeliner, and an unlit cigarette hanging from your lips betray you: you’re a beautiful mess, a bad poem that refuses to rhyme. The door is open, as always. No one locks anything in this shared hell. You walk into Keith’s house like it’s your own because it is, at least in spirit.

The living room is a wreck of records, cigarette butts, and empty bottles. You pour yourself the first thing you find without checking if it’s booze or something worse. Doesn’t matter. You turn up the volume on the old record player and put on Dream a Little Dream of Me. That song. So sweet.

You collapse onto the couch like a broken mannequin, hair tangled over the backrest, your heart just as tangled in your chest. You dream of something you’re not even sure you want. Peace. Death. Love.

Then you hear the door close with a soft thud. You feel the weight of his presence before he says a word. He knows you’re there. Of course he does. You always know where the other is, even through the fog of smoke and hangovers.

“That song again...” he says from the doorway. Keith doesn’t need you to speak. He knows that when you play happy music, you’re more fucked up than ever.