A story in one page.

“You’re fuckin’, like, bitter, man”
I didn’t have to take that kind of shit from him. The man treated drugs with a devotion usually reserved for religious fanatics. His internet browser was almost inevitably open on porn. Which he would watch, with the volume on, and loud, whenever he felt like it. He lived in a stain covered New England Patriots Jersey, stolen from a box we’d found abandoned at a roadside, one piss-poor summer about two years back. We could’ve taken the whole box. Made a killing on eBay. Spent it all on reconfiguring our biological chemistry. It was cold, wet, and three o’clock in the morning. We could barely be bothered to drive, let alone contemplate fleecing the stuff. In the end, he took one, and we left the rest. Some other poor bastard could take it. Hell, they’d probably be traced anyway. He had no interest in American football whatsoever, aside from the fact he knew it’s real name, Grid Iron, and would bring this up at every given opportunity.

I put my fag out on the wall of his dorm room. At this point, it was so stained with smoke, and god knows what else you could barely see any mark I might’ve made. I dreaded opening the door. The smell of the room was making me sick, but the only light I’d seen for the past three hours was straining desperately through the smoke yellowed curtains, and my sunglasses were lying, trodden on in some field somewhere. The smoke was thick, and acrid. My eyes already weren’t happy. I would take a deep breath, burst out of the room, and get the shades on my crash helmet down as fast as possible. Hopefully, that excuse for a machine outside would start. It was practically held together with wire and tape at this point. The left wing mirror had been reattached several times at this point. The petrol tank was scratched beyond recognition. The exhaust had a huge dent in the side. Damnit, I loved that machine.
“I’ll see you later, I’ll come back, but I need to go”
“You’re leaving?”
“No”
I grabbed my helmet, my jacket, and the chewed up packet of cigarettes I’d been trying not to smoke.

I burst out of his room, shoved the cigarettes into one pocket, with one hand, whilst fumbling for my keys with the other, in the other pocket. My helmet hung from my arm. I smacked it into the doorframe as a left the building. And just as I was fumbling to pull it over my head, I saw her. She lived two doors down from him. She couldn’t stand him, but she took to me. I didn’t take to her. Too much money. Too bubbly. Too.. Too much, I guess. She was pretty good looking, in that kinda standard men’s magazine kinda way. I’d been told to go for it with her God knows how many times, but I just couldn’t. She just got to me. She got five hundred a month from her parents. I got squat. She spent most of it on clubbing, cheap alcoholic drinks I can only really describe as date-rape-ade, and getting her hair done.
“Hey! I haven’..”
“Sorry, I can’t, I gotta”
“Oh, fine, ok”
I barely even heard the last part, I didn’t stop, just barged past, pulling the helmet down firmly over my head, and flicking down the sunshade. She cared too much about what people thought of her. He didn’t give a damn. And he really didn’t. So many people say that, but you know what? He really didn’t.

That was a week and a day ago. He was found, swinging from a rope, from his lightshade. And all I could think of was “Damn, I guess he did care what people thought of him”. That, and how strong the light fitting in his room was.