"Okay, seriously don't do that." I tell Brendon. He's standing in front of the mirror hanging on his wall, looking at his tongue like he's trying to find gold or something. "There's a v-"
"A vein that I could potentially hit and bleed to death. I know." Brendon glares at me through the mirror and then goes back to looking under his tongue. "I don't have one right in the middle of it. I've gone to a piercer to get it done when I was fifteen and he almost did it until the woman working at the counter rushed in and told him I wasn't eighteen and I didn't have a parent or guardian come in with me. So they kept my money for making them open the equipment. I got kicked out."
I shake my head at him, half in disbelief, the other half in amusement.
"Oh well." He shrugs and walks back to his bed to pierce his tongue.
"Are you sure you wanna do this?" I ask again, and Brendon groans in frustration.
"I. Am. Positive." I sigh and sit in front of him on the bed. He hands me a mirror with a handle on it. "Hold this and be very still." He instructs. I hold the mirror in front of him and he takes the clamps in his hand, closing it on his tongue and it takes forever for him to be satisfied with the position of it. Brendon reaches over, taking my free hand and making me hold the clamps while he picks up a piercing needle.
He's getting ready to open it, but the knock on the door makes it fall from his hands and he jumps and removes the clamps from his tongue.
"Brendon, open the door." His foster mom says. Brendon is hurrying to put everything away, so I start helping him, and then he's shoving it under the bed. "Brendon."
Brendon rushes to the door, unlocking it and opening it. His foster mom is standing in front of him, arms folded.
"I told you to keep this door open, especially when you have people over."
"Sorry, we were just -"
"I don't want excuses. The door stays open or it comes off."
"Kay." She walks away and Brendon comes back to his bed, sitting back in front of me.
"What was that about?" I ask, furrowing my eyebrows.
Brendon shrugs.
"She doesn't like me having the door closed."
"Yeah, I can see that. But why?"
"Reasons."
I lower my eyes at him out of frustration and he glares back at me.
"Fine. Don't tell me. I'm just a nobody that you just met. I've got no reason to be in your business." I shrug a shoulder and put my head down. Brendon sighs.
"I tried killing myself." He says, like it's not a big deal. I look back up at him with my eyes widened. He's staring back at me, no expression on his face. "Well, kind of. I found a rope in the basement and thought hey, why not, so I started looking for something I could tie the rope to, and I found this big hook that I hammered into the ceiling up there," Brendon points up to the ceiling, and I look up at the hole that's present. I'd never noticed it before, probably because I wasn't looking for it. "then I tied the rope around the hook and stood on my bed with the other end around my neck."
I keep staring at him, speechless, and he's acting like this is just another day in the park or something.
"Are you stupid?" I blurt out, and Brendon purses his lips.
"The hook came out of the ceiling when I stepped off the bed. I fell on the floor and the hook hit me in the head,"
"Serves you right."
