The Sharpest Lives

Chapter Thirteen: The End.

[Frank]

It's my fault. I caused this. If I hadn't so badly wanted to die, if I hadn't…

Mikey would be alive right now.

He wasn't dead yet- he was still clinging on to whatever thin threads of life he could find- but he was so close to it, he almost didn't have a hope. He was completely messed up. Or so I believed. In between the sound of screaming metal, the horror at what I was doing, my phone ringing, the car overturning, the intense pain, the blood- I couldn't tell. He could have already died and I wouldn't know. I was teetering on the edge of a coma myself after all.

And apparently, from the news I'd heard from the voices around me, if I gave in to that coma, there was a very slim chance that I would make it out of it.

So this is how my life ends. A suicide attempt, as punishment for my failures, my coward's way out, that killed my lover's brother and my lover himself.

In trying to get away from myself, I'd killed us all.

I'd managed to convince myself that I'd be better off dead. I'm not sure how I did it; maybe my being a hypocritical prick and buying a can of beer while I was out was a part of it. I didn't drink much. I just drank enough to want to die.

I'd stopped at a random corner on the road, right in the path of the next car.

How was I supposed to know that next car would be Mikey's?

And what, if it'd been anyone else who'd hit me, if I'd killed someone else instead of Mikey, it'd all be okay?

I'd still be a murderer either way.

I can't help being disappointed by my ending. I thought I'd die terribly old, with the mind of a twelve year old, with tattoos covering every inch of my body like ad space or something. I'd have accomplished something, changed at least one person out there, made another 50 thousand albums with this band, other bands, had…a family?

The funny thing about dying – which I was pretty sure I was doing- is the fact that suddenly the most important thing is that you're going when you haven't accomplished anything yet. Most of my last thoughts were about who I hadn't said goodbye to, what I hadn't said, hadn't done…

Had I changed someone? Or had I just died for nothing? Had I wasted everything, possibly someone else's life, to exist here and achieve nothing?

I might as well have never been born.

So I've resigned myself to dying, too into it all to be upset anymore about who I'm leaving behind, starting to get worried about  what death will be like…

And then there's his voice calling me back.

And his tears…I feel them on my face.

But I can't move.

I'm so close. I could go back.

But I've given up. It's too late for me. It's over.

I'm pulled away from him, from the only thing I knew since I was born.

Now…where do I go?

Hey. Don't think I didn't kick Death's ass while I was down there.

Ieros do not go down that easily.