BoyxBoy Oneshots

When Going Gets Tough Grab An Emmett

WARNING: mentions of depression/mental illness, dark thoughts, self harm, and suicide

Hanley

  The urges were powerful today. It might have something to do with the fact that I haven't given into them for more than a week. I thought that if I tried to forget, if I tried to resist, if I tried to be normal, then maybe things would be better, but things only got worse.

  The most recent cuts had only just healed but the overwhelming compulsion to make more was almost all-consuming by now. I needed, no I craved, that slight pain that I got from it. I needed it to distract me from the greater pains that I felt everyday.

  Each step I take always feels harder, like my legs are just begging for me to give up, to stop moving, to stop living. Not that I am living much as it is. Sometimes I really do feel dead. No one looks at me in the halls, yet the fact that no one sees me seems to contradict how easily everyone walks around me. I feel like a ghost, and to them maybe I am. I have never had many friends, and as the years went by, "not many" quickly became zero. No one talks to me. It's like I'm not even here.

  All of my thoughts stop as somebody else's shoulder bumps forcefully into mine, forcefully enough that my books are thrown out of my hands and I stumble backwards slightly.

  "Jeez, I'm sorry, Hanley. Are you alright?" I don't need to look up to know who is speaking to me. It wouldn't be the first time that he "accidentally" ran into me, and I'm pretty sure he is the only person left at this school who still knows my name, which I find extremely strange since he just started attending this school a little over a month ago.

  "I'm fine," I mumble to Emmett. My voice comes out deep and smooth, people always seem surprised when they first hear me speak because of how deep my voice is when I'm so small. I'm skinny, and I stand at a meager 5'5," nothing compared to Emmett's most likely over 6 foot frame. It is no surprise that he can almost knock me over with a simple bump to the shoulder.

  It didn't take long for me to realize shortly after Emmett started going here that he was bumping into me on purpose. I don't know why though, since he isn't doing it in a malicious way like some annoying jocks used to during freshman year before they started getting bored when I never reacted to their bullying. I have no idea what Emmett accomplishes from these annoying meetings that he has a way of concocting between us.

  I lean down, Emmett doing the same, to pick up my fallen books.

  "I really am sorry," Emmett says in that quiet and calm voice that he always possesses.

  I roll my eyes as I take my last book from his hands and stand. "Sure," I say and quickly walk away.

*

  I don't like going home on the school bus and as much as my brother would plead, I don't like driving home with him and his friends either. Everyday, at the last bell, I collect my things, go outside and sit on the stadium bleachers until about 4:30 when the city bus makes a stop at the corner of the street the school is on. Today is no different.

  As the final bell of the day rings throughout the school, I quickly stand from my seat and rush out the door, pushing my ear buds into my ears as I go. A loud stream of music blasts into my ears as I enter the crowded hallway, blocking out the multitude of teens' loud chatter. I grab my back pack from my locker and escape the halls in record time as I use the back entrance to exit the school and make my way to the football stadium.

  When I enter the stadium, I go to the Home bleachers and trudge my way up to the top row. I pull my ear buds out of my ears and opt to listen to the chirping birds and the mundane sounds of Coach Sanns blowing his whistle at the football boys and of the taught leather of the football slapping against the boys' hands as it's passed around.