Finn's words reached him distantly, sounding foreign and out of place to Josiah's swirling mind. He didn't even notice the hand in his hair until a minute later as he felt himself drawn back from his own edge. He ducked away from Finn's touch, pulling unsteadily to his feet in the same motion, like he didn't mean anything by putting distance between them. Like it was just a natural result of standing. But it wasn't.

Bitterness, so much bitterness in his mouth and it wasn't all bile and alcohol, though he couldn't put words to it. He couldn't voice his emotions and make them more real. Had to pit on his mask, but it just broke, sending his mind and his stomach reeling until it landed him here. It finally hit him that Finn said, 'be okay'. Just what did he mean by that? Hazel eyes focused on the party that still carried on without a care for the two standing on a far corner of the shadowed lawn.

"I'm fine," Josiah muttered, his voice hoarse and half choked. He still kept his careful distance from the other boy. "Just the alcohol." A lie. He repeated it again. "It's....just the alcohol, okay. I don't know why-" His voice strangled away again and the sentence hung there in the heavy air, silence falling between them again.