TRIGGER WARNING: MENTION OF SUICIDE
Aurora
"This ain't a heartbreak anthem, I don't care what happened but I ain't got no time to dwell on it. Don't wanna throw a tantrum, you did what you had to, no, I ain't got no time to dwell on it," I sang to myself as I finished washing my dishes, placing the last plate in the drying rack. It was a song that I had been working on for a couple of weeks now but I couldn't write any lyrics passed the chorus, which was annoying when it was constantly stuck in my head.
My phone buzzing brought me from my reverie and so, I quickly dried my hands in the tea towel that had been strewn across the kitchen island and pressed the accept button, bringing the device to my ear. "Hello?" I answered.
"Rora," Harlow's voice bled from the speaker. There was a hint of something in her tone that made my stomach flip nervously but I pushed it aside.
"Harls?" I frowned as I made my way over to the sofa and sat down. "What's the matter?"
"Have yer listened to it yet?" she asked quite urgently.
"Listened to what?" I inquired, the confusion seeping into my words.
"The song," she told me quietly but it only added to my bewilderment.
"Song?" I asked as the crease between my brows deepened. "What song? Harls, you're really starting to confuse me."
"Sam's song," she blurted. "The new one?"
Shit. I had completely forgotten about it. I had seen on the boys' Instagrams that they were releasing a new song, Dead Boys but I had been so lost in my own world the past couple of days that I hadn't realised it had been released. "No, not yet," I admitted. "You're really concerning me, y'kna."
"I just wanted to check up on ya," she told me earnestly.
"Check up on me... because of a song?" I frowned.
"Didn't... the boys didn't tell you what it's about?" she asked meekly.
"Why would they need to?" I questioned.
"It's about suicide, Rory," she choked. "Male suicide."
"Oh," I swallowed thickly as memories of Tyler came rushing back. January would mark six years since our friend took his life and still not a day passed where I wasn't reminded of him somehow. Whether it be a stranger's infectious smile that reminded me so much of his or the song he was always humming as I passed him in the corridors at school playing on the radio. "No, they didn't."
"It's a canny song," she whispered. "It's a tough listen the first few times though. S'why I called. I didn't want yer to be on your own, even if the only thing I can do is phone."
"Thanks, Harls," I smiled softly. "I'll give it a listen and phone yer back reet?"
"Okay," she agreed, reluctantly saying her goodbyes before ending the call.
With a heavy heart, I pulled up Sam's Spotify and pressed play on the latest release. The voice I hadn't realised I missed so much flooded the room and echoed off the walls of my flat, sending shivers down my spine.
The anniversaries are short-lived but they come back around at a breakneck speed.
The first line hit like a shock to the system. I wasn't prepared to be hit with such realness but then again, Sam always said things plainly. The anniversaries really did come back around at a breakneck speed. In just three short months, it would be six years of life without Tyler. It seemed like just yesterday I was messaging his mother well wishes and telling her she was in my thoughts.
My world spins so fast, the centrifugal force keeps me stuck in the middle.
I was forced back to the Low Lights, where we first learnt of Tyler's passing as a group. Forced to remember the breakdown Sam had following and the mental state I had to drag him out of. It was a dark time I never wished to go back to and I found myself deep down hoping that wherever Sam was, he was coping.
We close our eyes, learn our pain. Nobody ever could explain all the dead boys in our hometown, all the dead boys in our hometown.
I took a sharp intake of breath as fifteen-year-old Sam's words rang in my head, telling me of the number of people he knew who had taken their lives. And as we got older, the death toll only seemed to rise. It was like an endemic, only there wasn't some magical cure like there was for the likes of other illnesses and diseases. No. People were forced to sit and suffer in silence instead, burdened by the threats of toxic masculinity.
We all tussle with the black dog, some out loud and some in silence.
I wondered briefly if the 'we' included Sam but I was quick to suppress the thought. It was pointless really. Of course, it did. I knew it did, Sam belonging to the latter category. I knew he struggled with suicidal thoughts in the past, especially when he got ill and as much as I tried to support him, I felt as though there was nothing I could say or do to help him. I was just glad he hadn't been pushed from the precipice to become the very subject of his own song. Even if it had been almost two and a half years of radio silence on both our behalves.
Everybody around here just drinks, that's our culture.
He wasn't wrong. It seemed that almost all of our peers at school spent their weekends sneaking into pubs and clubs from as young as fifteen, some deciding rather to get their dose of alcohol in fields after the sun had set or at shit house parties.
I hadn't even realised I had been crying until the song came to a close, my quiet sobs disguised by the guitar tune. I had to give it to him, it was an incredible song, both lyrically and musically but I was left feeling like my heart had been torn from my chest.
Steadying my breath, I reached for my phone once more and redialled my best friend's number. "Hey, Harls..."
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Drop Dead | Sam Fender
Fanfiction'Did you come around here just to start a fight? Drop dead.' Sam's difficulty with relationships stems all the way back to his adolescence. He hasn't had it easy growing up in the Northeast of England but he managed to escape his teens unscathed. Mo...
