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i. l i n d s a y
She’s standing in another cold station. When she smiles at the man behind the ticket counter he notices the flecks of red between her teeth. He sees the chipped paint on her nails a moment later, and understands. She wears a heavy heart and anxious eyes to match. Here is a woman who knows how best to wear her own skin.
Another day, another city, another version of herself that she’ll eventually run from. This time, she leaves behind a mechanic. He’s good with his hands, but isn’t very gentle. She shares him with his ex-girlfriend, can smell her on his neck.
There’s something about train tracks; something about the promise of distance. A train rattles up to the platform, but it’s not for her. She’s waiting on another future; the 6:45 to Los Santos.
She’ll find something else there. Or somewhere. Until then she’ll keep leaving; she’ll keep on standing on platforms, one woman alone.
ii. r y a n
The metal is cold but the gun feels warm in his hand. The man on his knees in front of him is crying, his whole body shaking with the force of it all. He says it again and again, “you don’t have to do this” and Ryan knows, of course he does, and yet…
In the back of his mind he hears sirens, and the sound drowns out the other man’s sobbing. Until two hands gripping his ankles brings him back to the moment. The man is screaming please and Ryan can feel his mask slipping. Metaphorically, literally, his skin is slick with sweat and paint. The black water runs down his neck in rivulets, pooling at his collar bones. Panic grows in his throat, and settles in the space between his lungs.
Suddenly, it’s all over.
He fires two warning shots, except somehow, both bullets end up in the other man’s brain.
iii. g a v i n
It’s tough, being a kid with nowhere to go. His family love him, but the four walls of their house just don’t feel much like a home. He has no friends, not since they moved again.
They moved to the states before he could really make any memories back in England, but somehow he thinks it must have been better than this; running from a past that just kept on coming back.
He’s not very old, or all that smart, but he knows that his mother isn’t going to stop running. Not any time soon. So he settles for thinking about a time in the future when he won’t have to run anymore. A time when he’ll be able to put down roots, and make himself a home. It’s a long way off, he thinks, but one day he will have a new family, in a city that will welcome him with open arms.
For now, there is only time and distance. In the next room, he can hear his mum crying. She hasn’t stopped for three days.
iv. m i c h a e l
He’s surrounded by people who hate him, wondering what it is about himself that makes him want to run damn mouth so much. He’s rambunctious and it gets him into trouble almost daily, but this time might be one of the worst yet. He doesn’t know why he does it. It’s almost like he can’t help it, one wrong look and suddenly the words are dropping from his mouth. He balls them in his fists and throws them at anyone he can. His anger doesn’t discriminate.
There’s a group of them, all bigger and older than his 15 years. The sun is setting behind them, and he stares at a spot on the New Jersey skyline with his characteristic determination. He’ll admit to anything other than defeat. He is afraid though. This is probably going to hurt. “Who the fuck do you think you are Jones?” Honestly? He doesn’t know either.
His bones break as their fists make contact with his skin; the cracking sounds echoing in his ears. He passes out after punch number four.
v. j a c k
The house is cold and empty; not really fit to live in. Not that it matters, it probably won’t be their house for much longer. The bills keep coming, and there’s never quite enough money. The debts pile up and the men in suits knock at the door, again and again. First it’s the TV, then they take the sofas. The two of them sit thigh to thigh on the dirty carpet.
She’s trying not to cry again, wiping away stray tears on the bright fabric of their Hawaiian shirt. Their arms wrapped around her are the only thing stopping her from shaking. Jack is coming to realise that this is all that can be done for her now. They both silently hope that things will get better.
For now, this is enough. They press their lips to the tips of her fingers and thumb, five gentle kisses on soft pink skin.
vi. r a y
He’s lived in Los Santos for his entire life. The city stretches out beneath him, each street as familiar as the veins under his skin. There’s hundreds of thousands of people going about their lives around him. Ray sits on the rooftop and watches them all. He stays there until the sun sinks below the skyline, and the only light left radiates from the city itself.
This rooftop is one of his favourites. An old lady that lives in the building keeps a neat little roof garden. He manages to get four floors up from the inside alone, and then he scales the rest of the way on the mossy wall outside. When he gets up there, he sees that she’s left him some biscuits; a tradition born when she once caught him up there, pruning the roses.
It was an unspoken arrangement that worked out well for both of them. He had a nice place to hang, with a good view and relatively easy access, and she had someone who could do all the difficult gardening work, lifting the heavy watering can or pulling out weeds. He’s a useless street rat to most people, but never to her.
The roses aren’t doing so well this time of year. It’s far too cold. He climbs back down from the rooftop, goes back to the street below and wanders with a carefully constructed lack of purpose. On his way he passes a guy in a suit from whom he pick pockets some money. The guy gives him a dirty stare as he comes close but doesn’t notice the weight in his pockets get any lighter.
At the florists, the old man greats him with a wary stare, but sells him a decorative pot regardless. There are roses painted on the side: perfect. He lugs it back to the building, realising that he can’t carry it back up onto the roof for her. So he decides to leave it by her door instead. Burdened with its weight he begins the slow journey up to floor number six.
vii. g e o f f
He’s the most powerful man in Los Santos. Sometimes he imagines what it’d be like to hold the entire city in the palm of his hand, to make a fist around it and crush it into dust. The light above him flickers, plunging the room into darkness. Funny, how things always seem to look better in the dark.
His study is bare, besides a desk, a chair and a pathetic potted plant that is quietly dying in the corner of the room. There are no picture frames filled with smiling family photos, just him, alone. Unless he counts that anger that lives inside of him, which is almost a separate entity at this point anyway.
If he’s honest, he hasn’t felt anything other than anger for a long time. Perhaps, he thinks while downing another glass of whiskey, it would be better to feel nothing at all. So he tries.
There’s no one around for him to get mad at, other than himself, so this is how it goes pretty much every night. He builds up his empire during the day, then destroys another part of himself during the night. What good is having everything if you’ve got no friends to share it with?
He’s the most powerful man in Los Santos, but it’s lonely at the top. He pours himself another glass of whiskey, then another and another. He passes out seven glasses later, as empty as the bottle sat beside him.
viii. l o s s a n t o s' f i n e s t
They sit in the lounge, laughing loudly as the daylight dies around them. There’s stories being told, all layered on top of another, shouts by a cacophony of voices. Someone is crying, laughing so hard that they cannot contain themselves. A beer bottle is cracked open and the liquid fizzes from the top in a stream of bubbles.
The sky outside is dark and empty, there are no stars strong enough to challenge the halo of light that bleeds upwards from the city. Los Santos never sleeps, but as far as they’re concerned, the world outside is so quiet, it may have ceased to exist entirely.
Lindsay pours stolen champagne, red unchipped nails stark against the green glass of the bottle. Geoff raises a toast, to them, the finest crew in town. The room goes silent. Their glasses clink together.
They’re still drinking by eight the next morning.