Mysterious Skin - I Wish I Was (12/15)
Title: I Wish I Was (12/15)
Author: osaki_nana_707
Pairings/Characters: Brian, Eric, Neil, OC Jay, OC Julian, Wendy
Rating: light R
Warnings:language, mentions of abuse, drug abuse, sexual situations
Summary: Brian's not through with Neil. Neil's not through destroying himself.
Read
Chapter 12
(Brian Lackey)
That night while we were tangled into each other just a few breaths short of a coma, I started having a dream. It was a little hazy, and it wasn't scary, and it was kind of dizzy.
In the dream, Eric and I danced like fools, just like he had said, and I threw up on his shoes, just like he had said. He didn't say that I kissed him though, even though it was a kiss that even a grandmother would scoff at. Maybe he thought it wasn't worth mentioning, but I was pretty sure that it was. I tried to convince myself that it didn't actually happen and it was all in my head, but that made me even more uncomfortable.
I woke up nervous, but Eric just absently curled his fingers into my hair and hummed. I wasn't sure what to be more distressed about: the fact that I had kissed Eric or the fact that I was completely okay with kissing Eric. I supposed it was only natural, or at least I convinced myself that it was, since Eric was one of two boys I wouldn't panic from kissing; Eric because I trusted him, and Neil because I'd done it before and I wanted a good reason to punch him.
As if what he had done with Heider wasn't a good enough reason…
I didn't really blame Neil now, though. When I'd first figured out the truth, when he'd shut me out as no different than anybody else he'd fucked, I'd hated him and blamed every single thing on him. He was the one who offered to take me home. He was the one who started on me first. He was the one who never told anyone, ever.
He was the one who had liked it.
I remembered now though, once I'd gotten past that heavy cloud of hate and distress and fear and every horrible emotion ever fathomed crammed into one, that he was eight years old then. He was eight years old, just like me. We were the same age.
I closed my eyes again and tried to sleep. Neil's face with that awkward, pained look appeared on my eyelids, and I felt his shirt tail wipe at my nose. I hadn't thought about it before, but that… that was an awfully caring gesture from someone like him. The way he had cradled me in his arms and shushed me had been caring too, his long, ice cold fingers plastered against my head and shoulder.
Neil McCormick was an enigma. More accurately, he was confusing as fuck.
Eric got up before I did. He was already dressed when I finally pulled my head up from the pillow.
"Morning," he greeted, crouched over his duffel bag that he was rearranging so that it would actually zip up all the way.
I blinked hazily at him and decided to be bold. "You know, you shouldn't wear all that make-up all the time. You have such a nice face already."
He blinked and then stared at me in surprise, and then he blushed visibly. "Ah… oh… Okay."
"You don't have to be so bashful about it," I mumbled, my body quietly whispering to me that five more minutes of rest would be wonderful.
"Well, I mean…" he looked down at his duffel bag, scratching the back of his neck, and mumbled, "it's just that no one's ever really… told me anything like that before… You know, except for my mom, and moms don't count."
I nodded in agreement and forced myself to swing my legs over the side of the bed, rolling my shoulders. "Can I ask you a question?" I asked, grabbing my glasses off the nightstand.
"You just did," Eric offered, and his smile was filled with a little more than relief that I was changing the subject. "Ask away."
"Did I um…" Now it was my turn to be bashful, I guessed. "Did I kiss you the other night when I was drunk?"
He paled and stared at me like a deer in the headlights, and he really didn't have to answer me at that point, but he did anyway because that was just who Eric was. "S-sort of."
"I'm sorry," I said. "I was uh… I was really drunk, and I guess I just went too far, and I hope that you can forgive me for…"
"No, no, I'm not mad about it. I'm not… Actually, I kind of… well…" he shrugged noncommittally but couldn't hide the smile creeping up on his mouth. "I kind of liked it… you know…" Then, he jumped right back into fear and waved his hands dramatically at me. "Not that I meant anything by that, you know! I mean, I know how things are with you and all that, and I mean, I don't even know if you're queer like me, and if you are that's fine, and if you aren't, that's fine too because I'd accept you and love you no matter how you were because we're such good friends, and I'd never want to ruin that for us-"
I finally managed to cut off his frantic stream of words by asking, "Did you just say that you loved me?"
His whole face went red, and he worried his bottom lip under his top row of teeth. "Well, yeah, I mean… you know… as friends. Platonically. Not saying that I couldn't or wouldn't love you romantically if you were… so inclined… I think I need to lock myself in the bathroom and cry out this humiliation."
"I didn't mean to embarrass you!" I cried, stumbling out of the bed and very ungracefully slamming my chin right to the floor. "Don't… don't cry."
He fought back the urge to laugh at me, even in his distress. "I didn't intend to pour my heart out to you just now, and I can't help but feel bad about it because… I don't want to lose you because of my own stupid feelings."
I righted myself into a sitting position, legs folded. "Your feelings aren't stupid, and you should never feel bad about how you feel. I'd feel way worse if you thought that you couldn't talk to me when I've told you so much about myself. I don't want to think that you can't trust me."
"I'd trust you with my life, and it's not that I've been keeping this from you because I don't trust you… It's just… I don't want you to feel uncomfortable around me. I like being your soft place to fall, and I don't want you to get the wrong idea that I'm trying to get into your pants or anything because I'm not. I'm perfectly happy just being with you."
I paused, licking my lips, and nodded to show I understood. "You're the only person I do feel comfortable around, and I don't think anything's gonna change that… I trust you one hundred percent. I know you'd never do something like that unless I wanted you to. That's just the kind of guy that you are."
"I still feel like I should apologize… I mean, I should have told you, but I was afraid you'd freak out."
"Well, am I freaking out?"
"…No…"
"Then what are you worried about?" I asked, smiling.
"A delay, maybe?" he shrugged.
I snorted and got to my feet before offering a hand to help him up. His hand was warm, not like Neil's at all.
"Hey, Eric."
"What?"
"Why do you feel guilty when you didn't even kiss me back?"
"I… well…" Instead of answering the question, he decided on, "well, who could kiss you back with a kiss like that anyway? I mean, it barely lasted a second. I don't know if it even really counts."
"I'm not really sure about the rules of kissing, so maybe it doesn't," I agreed, mostly because he seemed to be shucking off his guilt by saying so. "It was more like the kind of kiss you give your mom anyway, wasn't it?"
"Yeah, kind of," he chuckled. "You're right. I can't believe how ridiculous I was to freak out. I'm sorry."
I was glad to get that impending panic attack out of the way, but I couldn't pretend that our late breakfast of McDonald's cheeseburgers wasn't a little awkward.
We managed to get out on the road around two in the afternoon.
(Neil McCormick)
"Fuck… Fuck… Why won't you sleep?" I asked my reflection. It wasn't really that I wasn't sleeping but that I couldn't sleep without being woken up in absolute fucking repulsion. Whenever my need for coke would taper off even a little, I'd fall asleep, and then I would really, really need it because it kept me from feeling so bad.
There was a knock on the bathroom door. "McCormick, you still alive in there?"
I wanted to scream at him, at that Sid Vicious wannabe and his jackass friend who stole Wendy from me, but I just didn't have the strength, holding onto the sink just to stay standing. I'd just puked up a meal. I'd only managed to keep it down for a few hours.
He knocked again. "I'm not joking, you know. If you don't answer, I'm gonna have to break down the door."
That brought a rather particular image to mind, and I felt my face ache with the phantom pain of a butter knife slapping against my cheek. There was an echo of a door slamming against the wall in my ears along with a rush of water and…
I dry-heaved into the sink. "Can I get one goddamn second to myself without you fucking bothering me? Why don't you and your boyfriend go the hell home and leave me alone?"
I thought I heard him mumble, "Why do I even fucking bother? Jay, you're up."
I splashed water on my face and stumbled out of the bathroom. Jay and Julian had taken up residence on the couch. I made a mental note to strangle Wendy when she got home for leaving me in the hands of these shitheads.
"Holding up all right, McCormick?" Jay asked, plastering on a smile that was just begging me to knock the teeth out of.
I set my jaw and decided to sit down at the kitchen table. I immediately felt myself slumping over. "You go days without sleep and puking up all of your meals and having some annoying motherfuckers stick their noses up your ass all day and see how you like it." I lit up a cigarette, the only thing that could calm my nerves even a little.
"Ungrateful son of a bitch," Julian mumbled like I couldn't hear him. He wasn't worth the effort anyway.
Oh, what the hell, I thought, thinking that getting out some of my frustration might improve my spirits a little. "I didn't ask you to come here. I don't want you here. Why should I be grateful to you?"
"You think we want to be here? You're a miserable little prick, McCormick, and at least Jay is gonna get sex for this. I'm not getting shit for being here, so the least you could do is be glad that I even put forth that much of an effort."
"Then why are you here?" I asked.
He looked at Jay and then at the wall. "Because…"
"Because if you don't suck Mr. Jay's cock, he'll kick you out?" I smirked, "...or is it that you hope he'll let you suck his pretty little cock?"
"FUCK YOU!" he shouted, jumping to his feet, and Jay had to hastily grab hold of his arm to prevent him from pile-driving me into the wall. "I ought to kick your snide little ass, McCormick! Somebody should teach you a God damned lesson! Maybe Wendy lets you do whatever you want, but if I had my way, you damn sure wouldn't!"
I just sat there, smoking. When I spoke, it was a voice that wasn't my own, deep and bitter and even a little frightening to me. "You don't know one God damn thing about me, so don't start acting like you do, you pretentious son of a bitch. If you experienced even one piece of my life, you'd be slitting your wrists in the bathroom."
Jay was staring at me like I was some creature from another planet while Julian gaped like a fish for a moment before saying, weaker than he intended, "oh, yeah?"
I put the cigarette back to my lips and sucked on it. I felt like my insides were burning in the most unpleasant sense of the word.
"You think you're the only one who's ever had a drug habit? That would be just like you, wouldn't it," Julian said, glaring with as much strength as he could muster, which wasn't a lot since I'd thrown him off his game.
"Yeah, yeah, I know, heroin killed your precious Sid Vicious," I said with a roll of my eyes. "I don't have a drug habit. I haven't been snorting coke recently, now have I?"
"You don't have a drug habit," he said skeptically, snorting. "Is that why you're in such severe withdrawal that you're cutting yourself and puking all the time and not sleeping? Is that why you're sitting there unshaven, and you haven't bathed in days, and you're still wearing the same clothes from three days ago? Is that why you lost your job and ended up sucking dick on the street corner just to get by?"
"SHUT UP!" I shouted, leaping to my own feet, sending the chair I was sitting in toppling over behind me.
"Oh, I'm sorry," Julian said, gaining valor from my reaction. "My mistake. You didn't suck that guy's cock for money. You just sucked it because you like it. You like sucking cock, don't you, slut?"
A red stream of blood came gushing out of my nose then, dribbling thick down over my lips and chin and spattering to the floor. Some drops met the top of my foot, others splattered against my shirt. All I could do was stand there and stare as that voice shouted over and over in my head, "You know you're getting fucked, slut, whether you like it or not!"
Through the rushing in my ears and the static in my eyes, I vaguely heard Jay shouting at Julian to get the hell out, and I felt hands grabbing my shoulders and heard Jay's voice go, "Hey, Neil. Neil, can you hear me? Hey!"
I looked him right in the eyes but I couldn't see him. I couldn't see the apartment. All I saw was that man's bathtub drain swirling in spirals of red. All I saw was the red… and I heard Coach say, "Everything's gonna be okay."
"Don't," I said. "DON'T!" I shoved him hard and backed up against the table, and I knew that my lip was trembling. Hell, I knew that all of me was trembling. "Don't touch me, oh, God… Please…" I sank to the floor like a pitiful little kid. Jay just stared at me the way those johns had… that look of disturbed confusion… and I was sure that something was definitely wrong with me, but I wasn't sure if there was any way for me to fix it.
"Neil, what happened to you?" Jay started, but I started screaming.
I screamed, raw and ragged, and tears clouded my vision while I hooked my elbow around the back of a chair just to remain sitting up. "I want Wendy!" I sobbed. "I want my mom!"
"Neil, just, just calm down. Everything's gonna be okay if-"
"FUCK YOU! Never say that to me again!" I wailed and buried my face in my knees.
"What's wrong with you?" he tried.
"I don't know. I don't know!"
I sat there crying and bleeding until my strength gave out and I passed out.
When I woke up, Wendy was there with a cool hand on my forehead, brushing hair out of my eyes. "Hey," she greeted quietly.
I just stared back at her, wanting to say something, but I couldn't speak because my throat was so clogged. I swallowed at least three times before managing to croak out, "what time is it?"
"It's two in the morning."
I looked away from her at the room, at my room. "You used that money to pay the water bill, right?" I asked.
"Well, yeah."
"That's good."
She kept brushing her fingers through my hair, gently. I wondered if when I'd done it to Brian if it had provided any kind of comfort. It probably didn't, but more curious was why I even cared.
"Is it always gonna be like this?" I asked her.
"No… no…" she cooed. "It'll get easier."
"When?"
"I don't know… Neil… I was thinking."
"I don't want to go to any fucking clinic."
Her hand stilled for a moment. "I know… but it might be for your benefit if…"
"No. No clinics. No shrinks."
She didn't seem to be willing to fight with me over it because she just nodded and said okay, and I felt even worse. She used to fight with me over everything because what happened to me was so fucking… important… to her. It may have just been the withdrawal, but at that moment, I really and truly felt that I had lost her. Forever. I'd lost my soul mate. I was alone.
You deserve this.
That voice in my head said it again, but this time…
You deserve this. You deserve this, and every horrible thing that's ever happened to you.
I shut my eyes, but there was no way to shut out that voice, and after a long moment of silence, I told Wendy, quietly…
"I wish I was dead."
Author: osaki_nana_707
Pairings/Characters: Brian, Eric, Neil, OC Jay, OC Julian, Wendy
Rating: light R
Warnings:language, mentions of abuse, drug abuse, sexual situations
Summary: Brian's not through with Neil. Neil's not through destroying himself.
Read
Chapter 12
(Brian Lackey)
That night while we were tangled into each other just a few breaths short of a coma, I started having a dream. It was a little hazy, and it wasn't scary, and it was kind of dizzy.
In the dream, Eric and I danced like fools, just like he had said, and I threw up on his shoes, just like he had said. He didn't say that I kissed him though, even though it was a kiss that even a grandmother would scoff at. Maybe he thought it wasn't worth mentioning, but I was pretty sure that it was. I tried to convince myself that it didn't actually happen and it was all in my head, but that made me even more uncomfortable.
I woke up nervous, but Eric just absently curled his fingers into my hair and hummed. I wasn't sure what to be more distressed about: the fact that I had kissed Eric or the fact that I was completely okay with kissing Eric. I supposed it was only natural, or at least I convinced myself that it was, since Eric was one of two boys I wouldn't panic from kissing; Eric because I trusted him, and Neil because I'd done it before and I wanted a good reason to punch him.
As if what he had done with Heider wasn't a good enough reason…
I didn't really blame Neil now, though. When I'd first figured out the truth, when he'd shut me out as no different than anybody else he'd fucked, I'd hated him and blamed every single thing on him. He was the one who offered to take me home. He was the one who started on me first. He was the one who never told anyone, ever.
He was the one who had liked it.
I remembered now though, once I'd gotten past that heavy cloud of hate and distress and fear and every horrible emotion ever fathomed crammed into one, that he was eight years old then. He was eight years old, just like me. We were the same age.
I closed my eyes again and tried to sleep. Neil's face with that awkward, pained look appeared on my eyelids, and I felt his shirt tail wipe at my nose. I hadn't thought about it before, but that… that was an awfully caring gesture from someone like him. The way he had cradled me in his arms and shushed me had been caring too, his long, ice cold fingers plastered against my head and shoulder.
Neil McCormick was an enigma. More accurately, he was confusing as fuck.
Eric got up before I did. He was already dressed when I finally pulled my head up from the pillow.
"Morning," he greeted, crouched over his duffel bag that he was rearranging so that it would actually zip up all the way.
I blinked hazily at him and decided to be bold. "You know, you shouldn't wear all that make-up all the time. You have such a nice face already."
He blinked and then stared at me in surprise, and then he blushed visibly. "Ah… oh… Okay."
"You don't have to be so bashful about it," I mumbled, my body quietly whispering to me that five more minutes of rest would be wonderful.
"Well, I mean…" he looked down at his duffel bag, scratching the back of his neck, and mumbled, "it's just that no one's ever really… told me anything like that before… You know, except for my mom, and moms don't count."
I nodded in agreement and forced myself to swing my legs over the side of the bed, rolling my shoulders. "Can I ask you a question?" I asked, grabbing my glasses off the nightstand.
"You just did," Eric offered, and his smile was filled with a little more than relief that I was changing the subject. "Ask away."
"Did I um…" Now it was my turn to be bashful, I guessed. "Did I kiss you the other night when I was drunk?"
He paled and stared at me like a deer in the headlights, and he really didn't have to answer me at that point, but he did anyway because that was just who Eric was. "S-sort of."
"I'm sorry," I said. "I was uh… I was really drunk, and I guess I just went too far, and I hope that you can forgive me for…"
"No, no, I'm not mad about it. I'm not… Actually, I kind of… well…" he shrugged noncommittally but couldn't hide the smile creeping up on his mouth. "I kind of liked it… you know…" Then, he jumped right back into fear and waved his hands dramatically at me. "Not that I meant anything by that, you know! I mean, I know how things are with you and all that, and I mean, I don't even know if you're queer like me, and if you are that's fine, and if you aren't, that's fine too because I'd accept you and love you no matter how you were because we're such good friends, and I'd never want to ruin that for us-"
I finally managed to cut off his frantic stream of words by asking, "Did you just say that you loved me?"
His whole face went red, and he worried his bottom lip under his top row of teeth. "Well, yeah, I mean… you know… as friends. Platonically. Not saying that I couldn't or wouldn't love you romantically if you were… so inclined… I think I need to lock myself in the bathroom and cry out this humiliation."
"I didn't mean to embarrass you!" I cried, stumbling out of the bed and very ungracefully slamming my chin right to the floor. "Don't… don't cry."
He fought back the urge to laugh at me, even in his distress. "I didn't intend to pour my heart out to you just now, and I can't help but feel bad about it because… I don't want to lose you because of my own stupid feelings."
I righted myself into a sitting position, legs folded. "Your feelings aren't stupid, and you should never feel bad about how you feel. I'd feel way worse if you thought that you couldn't talk to me when I've told you so much about myself. I don't want to think that you can't trust me."
"I'd trust you with my life, and it's not that I've been keeping this from you because I don't trust you… It's just… I don't want you to feel uncomfortable around me. I like being your soft place to fall, and I don't want you to get the wrong idea that I'm trying to get into your pants or anything because I'm not. I'm perfectly happy just being with you."
I paused, licking my lips, and nodded to show I understood. "You're the only person I do feel comfortable around, and I don't think anything's gonna change that… I trust you one hundred percent. I know you'd never do something like that unless I wanted you to. That's just the kind of guy that you are."
"I still feel like I should apologize… I mean, I should have told you, but I was afraid you'd freak out."
"Well, am I freaking out?"
"…No…"
"Then what are you worried about?" I asked, smiling.
"A delay, maybe?" he shrugged.
I snorted and got to my feet before offering a hand to help him up. His hand was warm, not like Neil's at all.
"Hey, Eric."
"What?"
"Why do you feel guilty when you didn't even kiss me back?"
"I… well…" Instead of answering the question, he decided on, "well, who could kiss you back with a kiss like that anyway? I mean, it barely lasted a second. I don't know if it even really counts."
"I'm not really sure about the rules of kissing, so maybe it doesn't," I agreed, mostly because he seemed to be shucking off his guilt by saying so. "It was more like the kind of kiss you give your mom anyway, wasn't it?"
"Yeah, kind of," he chuckled. "You're right. I can't believe how ridiculous I was to freak out. I'm sorry."
I was glad to get that impending panic attack out of the way, but I couldn't pretend that our late breakfast of McDonald's cheeseburgers wasn't a little awkward.
We managed to get out on the road around two in the afternoon.
(Neil McCormick)
"Fuck… Fuck… Why won't you sleep?" I asked my reflection. It wasn't really that I wasn't sleeping but that I couldn't sleep without being woken up in absolute fucking repulsion. Whenever my need for coke would taper off even a little, I'd fall asleep, and then I would really, really need it because it kept me from feeling so bad.
There was a knock on the bathroom door. "McCormick, you still alive in there?"
I wanted to scream at him, at that Sid Vicious wannabe and his jackass friend who stole Wendy from me, but I just didn't have the strength, holding onto the sink just to stay standing. I'd just puked up a meal. I'd only managed to keep it down for a few hours.
He knocked again. "I'm not joking, you know. If you don't answer, I'm gonna have to break down the door."
That brought a rather particular image to mind, and I felt my face ache with the phantom pain of a butter knife slapping against my cheek. There was an echo of a door slamming against the wall in my ears along with a rush of water and…
I dry-heaved into the sink. "Can I get one goddamn second to myself without you fucking bothering me? Why don't you and your boyfriend go the hell home and leave me alone?"
I thought I heard him mumble, "Why do I even fucking bother? Jay, you're up."
I splashed water on my face and stumbled out of the bathroom. Jay and Julian had taken up residence on the couch. I made a mental note to strangle Wendy when she got home for leaving me in the hands of these shitheads.
"Holding up all right, McCormick?" Jay asked, plastering on a smile that was just begging me to knock the teeth out of.
I set my jaw and decided to sit down at the kitchen table. I immediately felt myself slumping over. "You go days without sleep and puking up all of your meals and having some annoying motherfuckers stick their noses up your ass all day and see how you like it." I lit up a cigarette, the only thing that could calm my nerves even a little.
"Ungrateful son of a bitch," Julian mumbled like I couldn't hear him. He wasn't worth the effort anyway.
Oh, what the hell, I thought, thinking that getting out some of my frustration might improve my spirits a little. "I didn't ask you to come here. I don't want you here. Why should I be grateful to you?"
"You think we want to be here? You're a miserable little prick, McCormick, and at least Jay is gonna get sex for this. I'm not getting shit for being here, so the least you could do is be glad that I even put forth that much of an effort."
"Then why are you here?" I asked.
He looked at Jay and then at the wall. "Because…"
"Because if you don't suck Mr. Jay's cock, he'll kick you out?" I smirked, "...or is it that you hope he'll let you suck his pretty little cock?"
"FUCK YOU!" he shouted, jumping to his feet, and Jay had to hastily grab hold of his arm to prevent him from pile-driving me into the wall. "I ought to kick your snide little ass, McCormick! Somebody should teach you a God damned lesson! Maybe Wendy lets you do whatever you want, but if I had my way, you damn sure wouldn't!"
I just sat there, smoking. When I spoke, it was a voice that wasn't my own, deep and bitter and even a little frightening to me. "You don't know one God damn thing about me, so don't start acting like you do, you pretentious son of a bitch. If you experienced even one piece of my life, you'd be slitting your wrists in the bathroom."
Jay was staring at me like I was some creature from another planet while Julian gaped like a fish for a moment before saying, weaker than he intended, "oh, yeah?"
I put the cigarette back to my lips and sucked on it. I felt like my insides were burning in the most unpleasant sense of the word.
"You think you're the only one who's ever had a drug habit? That would be just like you, wouldn't it," Julian said, glaring with as much strength as he could muster, which wasn't a lot since I'd thrown him off his game.
"Yeah, yeah, I know, heroin killed your precious Sid Vicious," I said with a roll of my eyes. "I don't have a drug habit. I haven't been snorting coke recently, now have I?"
"You don't have a drug habit," he said skeptically, snorting. "Is that why you're in such severe withdrawal that you're cutting yourself and puking all the time and not sleeping? Is that why you're sitting there unshaven, and you haven't bathed in days, and you're still wearing the same clothes from three days ago? Is that why you lost your job and ended up sucking dick on the street corner just to get by?"
"SHUT UP!" I shouted, leaping to my own feet, sending the chair I was sitting in toppling over behind me.
"Oh, I'm sorry," Julian said, gaining valor from my reaction. "My mistake. You didn't suck that guy's cock for money. You just sucked it because you like it. You like sucking cock, don't you, slut?"
A red stream of blood came gushing out of my nose then, dribbling thick down over my lips and chin and spattering to the floor. Some drops met the top of my foot, others splattered against my shirt. All I could do was stand there and stare as that voice shouted over and over in my head, "You know you're getting fucked, slut, whether you like it or not!"
Through the rushing in my ears and the static in my eyes, I vaguely heard Jay shouting at Julian to get the hell out, and I felt hands grabbing my shoulders and heard Jay's voice go, "Hey, Neil. Neil, can you hear me? Hey!"
I looked him right in the eyes but I couldn't see him. I couldn't see the apartment. All I saw was that man's bathtub drain swirling in spirals of red. All I saw was the red… and I heard Coach say, "Everything's gonna be okay."
"Don't," I said. "DON'T!" I shoved him hard and backed up against the table, and I knew that my lip was trembling. Hell, I knew that all of me was trembling. "Don't touch me, oh, God… Please…" I sank to the floor like a pitiful little kid. Jay just stared at me the way those johns had… that look of disturbed confusion… and I was sure that something was definitely wrong with me, but I wasn't sure if there was any way for me to fix it.
"Neil, what happened to you?" Jay started, but I started screaming.
I screamed, raw and ragged, and tears clouded my vision while I hooked my elbow around the back of a chair just to remain sitting up. "I want Wendy!" I sobbed. "I want my mom!"
"Neil, just, just calm down. Everything's gonna be okay if-"
"FUCK YOU! Never say that to me again!" I wailed and buried my face in my knees.
"What's wrong with you?" he tried.
"I don't know. I don't know!"
I sat there crying and bleeding until my strength gave out and I passed out.
When I woke up, Wendy was there with a cool hand on my forehead, brushing hair out of my eyes. "Hey," she greeted quietly.
I just stared back at her, wanting to say something, but I couldn't speak because my throat was so clogged. I swallowed at least three times before managing to croak out, "what time is it?"
"It's two in the morning."
I looked away from her at the room, at my room. "You used that money to pay the water bill, right?" I asked.
"Well, yeah."
"That's good."
She kept brushing her fingers through my hair, gently. I wondered if when I'd done it to Brian if it had provided any kind of comfort. It probably didn't, but more curious was why I even cared.
"Is it always gonna be like this?" I asked her.
"No… no…" she cooed. "It'll get easier."
"When?"
"I don't know… Neil… I was thinking."
"I don't want to go to any fucking clinic."
Her hand stilled for a moment. "I know… but it might be for your benefit if…"
"No. No clinics. No shrinks."
She didn't seem to be willing to fight with me over it because she just nodded and said okay, and I felt even worse. She used to fight with me over everything because what happened to me was so fucking… important… to her. It may have just been the withdrawal, but at that moment, I really and truly felt that I had lost her. Forever. I'd lost my soul mate. I was alone.
You deserve this.
That voice in my head said it again, but this time…
You deserve this. You deserve this, and every horrible thing that's ever happened to you.
I shut my eyes, but there was no way to shut out that voice, and after a long moment of silence, I told Wendy, quietly…
"I wish I was dead."