There were rumors, but there always were. They just tend to be more outrageous when the charismatic singer of the most influencial band in the scene disappears abruptly. There were rumors to occupy the time that was freed up by Jesse's absence, the time that otherwise would have been spent seriously worrying. Because no one wanted to worry, they wanted to believe that Jesse could take care of himself and pretend they never noticed the way he sometimes looked at the end of the night, like some citrus fruit that had all the juice forcibly drained from it.

Or maybe they hadn't noticed. Maybe Lint was the only one, and that's why Jesse had clung to him so fiercely in the first place. It could have been a bit annoying if he hadn't been so damn endearing, and if he hadn't been one of the few people who could keep up with Lint's overabundance of energy. So maybe other people just joked about monks in Tibet because they didn't know that Jesse was screaming silently for help. Lint was the only one who got a glimpse of the reality.

And he was the only one dealing with the reality now. Jesse had vanished suddenly, but not without a trace as so many people suspected. There were traces all over Lint's life. Traces in the short note, written in magic marker on the wall, which explained nothing; traces in the five hundred dollars Lint had to come up with to break their newest lease. The reality was dealing every morning with the absence by his side. Finding a worn notebook stuck between the edge of the bed and the wall, filled with lyrics that would never see a recording studio, and only being able to read over two lines before the anger consumed him and he stuffed it into a box with everything else. It was being left with this fucking mess and nothing else, nowhere to go, no one to go there with.

Sometimes Lint hated him, for a second or two, one time for ten whole minutes. Ten minutes after Matt called him at work and asked if the door to the apartment was open so that he could get the amp Jesse'd borrowed, then explained that Jesse didn't need it, why Jesse didn't need it. Work had become the last thing on his mind and Lint had found his way out the back door, screaming into the alley.

It had taken three days to convince himself to go back to that apartment. He knew he had to move out before the end of the month, or he'd have to pay more than the lease termination fee, and he didn't know how he'd come up with that as it was. He'd stared out the window of Matt's car the entire silent ride there, hating Jesse every second of it, hating him as he walked into the house and thought about how much work he was going to have to do. Hated him as he found the note, hated him right up until he walked into their room and saw that shirt draped across the matress.

He couldn't hate him after that. It was like Jesse had known that the last two nights Lint tossed and turned, wishing he knew why, praying he didn't already know why and longing for something to remind him. Now, buried between open boxes and pieces of furniture wearing that shirt, he loathed how many reminders Jesse had left. He wished vanishing without a trace was a human possibility, he wished he could convince himself that Jesse had left because he'd be happier somewhere else.

But Lint knew the reality of it and he could never hate Jesse now, not as much as Jesse hated himself.