The Fragility of Hope (Mavi)

Chapter 15

I cried when I wrote this. I've never cried while writing before.

***

His wrists burned.

The whole day was just a struggle to not scratch at his wrists painfully, though he'd already let himself do so a few times already. Ugly, red scratch marks welted up on his skin, no matter how many times he tried stopping himself. It was like his brain had already associated the action of scratching his wrists with thoughts of suicide, even though he'd only barely scratched himself that one time before tonight. He tried to block away the thoughts by laying in his bunk and jamming headphones into his ears, but it just resulted in him staring up at the ceiling and not feeling anything at all, which was somehow worse than feeling sad. The only thing playing in his ears was a staticky white noise he found on YouTube that was supposed to block out the chatter of the loud bus around him, but it wasn't nearly a good enough distraction.

His chest didn't really hurt anymore. It just felt... heavy. His entire body felt heavy. He was tired, but not in a way that sleep could fix. He was just... tired.

He was tired. He was very very tired and he didn't want to feel that way anymore. He was tired of being tired of being tired, and he knew there was only one way to fix it.

He balled up his hands into fists and dug his fingernails into the palms of his hands. No. He wouldn't let himself go down like this. Not without a fight. His throat tightened with a dulled anxiety -- he never expected it would get this bad.

He told himself he would talk to Mitch if it did get this bad, right? But now that conversation was way out of the question. To be fair, the Avi of however many months ago never anticipated falling in love and sleeping with his last resort when he made himself that promise. Didn't he make a mental list of people to talk to when shit went way downhill for him? First on the list was Mitch, and then who was it...?

Scott. It was Scott.

Without really thinking, he slid out of his bunk and forced his body to calm its violent shaking with deep breaths, though it didn't work as well as he was hoping. He blinked hard for a few seconds and nodded to himself, fighting away the tired feeling in his bones. His feet dragged him along to the front lounge, where he was only slightly relieved to see Scott relaxing on the beaten down leather couch.

Problem was, he was cuddled up next to Alex while they watched an old Disney movie on their iPad, and it was obvious they were having an extremely precious moment.

He should honestly change his mind and walk away before they saw him so he could suffer in silence without being a bother, but he shook his head and forced himself to take another step forward. If he didn't do this now, then he would be dead by morning, and he knew that.

"Hey, Scott?" He asked casually, even though he was burning up and melting down and screaming loudly on the inside. He was proud that his voice sounded at least somewhat like it should in a situation like this, but he couldn't tell very well with the way his ears were ringing.

Scott quirked an eyebrow and turned to him with a straight face. "Yeah, Avi?"

His self confidence went flying out the window. Usually Scott would smile and greet him in a goofy way like Scott was so great at doing -- never like this. But he forced himself to stay strong, even though his voice was a little bit more broken than he meant for it to be. "Can I, um, talk to you about something?"