#can u imagine having literally zero room to mourn. to grieve. to even talk about it because everyone else's doing the talking for u

[kylejsugarman]

actually the immediate aftermath of the news breaking is just as fascinating in a sad, twisted way. jake has to come back home and go back to school like everything’s normal, even though his entire city and eventually the whole country can’t stop talking about the chemistry teacher turned meth distributor and his presumed dead junkie accomplice who spent his final months living in a hole in the ground. they’re still showing photos of the cage (furnished with shackles, slick with his brother’s blood) on CNN when jake walks into homeroom. his parents are smothering him at home, but there’s a glaring space now between himself and everyone else. a few of his teachers take him aside, ask him how he’s doing and if he’s ok; other teachers look at him strangely, as if trying to determine from jake’s face alone his criminal potential. does it run in the family?? a few students greet him normally, but some whisper behind his back or tag him in facebook and twitter memes about the crime as a cruel joke. some of his friends start avoiding him altogether, later messaging him to admit that their parents told them to stop talking to jake. like it’s contagious. like it runs in the family. jake’s brother is gone in every sense of the word, only he’s everywhere, from the untouched bedroom next to his to the comments about what the nazis might’ve done to jesse under every post. “he got what he deserved.” jake wants to be completely alone, away from all of this for just a fucking second. he unknowingly sits in the same place under the back porch that his brother did a few years ago to smoke, listening to music and trying to sink into the dark. there’s a plastic bag of blue rock candy taped to his locker the next day.