Staas' giggles ended there, though he still managed a rueful smile for Ira. "Yeah," he confirmed. "My life, right?" He got up then and rounded the couch, pulling down a framed picture from a bookshelf. Him and Carey, smiling at the camera, arms around each other's shoulders, hips bumping. Young and happy. He came back to the couch and passed the picture over to Ira with a small smile, then sat, a little closer to his friend than he had been earlier.
"Carey. We met in the first few weeks of freshman year at high school." Though Staas looked like he was all of twelve in the picture, he'd actually been fifteen when it had been taken. "We bonded over classic punk bands and became inseparable. Heroin got him at twenty-one. But I think it was being closeted that really killed him." He worried his lip between his teeth and rubbed the heel of his palm against one eye. "His parents were uber-Republicans. Religious, anti-poor, anti-black, anti-Mexican, and definitely anti-gay. His first rebellion was music, his second was drugs." He reached out with one hand and tugged the picture lightly, just to get Ira to tilt it his way a little more so he could see again. "I don't know when the drugs got so bad that those two switched priorities. I wasn't paying enough attention." He had to pause again, swallowing, though this time it didn't stop the moisture from forming in his eyes. He refused to let it fall though.
"I was the only one he told. I don't think anyone else ever knew, save for the random hookups he made. Until I kind of hurled it at his parents the day after his funeral." To this day, he wasn't sure whether or not to be proud of that. If it had been getting much deserved vengeance for his friend (and finally making sure the Hortons knew who their son really was) or if it had been defying what Carey had wanted, and causing his parents unnecessary burden and grief.
Either way he was not proud of the screaming, crying, wretched way he'd delivered the information.