Expiration || M.C

1 || The mess we have made

Spencer

Four more steps. Three more steps. Two- I hesitate. The air that I smelled almost every day for two years straight, is choking me. I turn my head to the ground. He probably isn't jumping up and down to see me either, but we have to. We need to.

I take a deep breath and feel like I'm living in slow motion. I knock on the door twice and take a step back.

When he opens the door, I feel like I can't breathe. He looks awful. His hair is way too long, it looks greasy and gross and it's hanging in front of his face.

He quickly pushes some of it to the side and looks at me with eyes that I had expected to be sad. But it's not sadness that I see, it's anger. So much anger. And it's probably -I'm pretty sure- hatred towards me. I swallow and decide to speak up.

"I-"
"Just come in, I don't want to talk."

He walks back inside the house leaving the door open. I slowly walk inside and look around. It looks the same. It's just quiet. I can hear the clock ticking. He is standing in the kitchen with his back towards me. I walk over to him.

"Look, I just-"
"I told you, I don't want to talk." he turns around and looks me in the eyes, squinting a bit.

"Let's just go okay, whatever." he says, taking off his glasses and rubbing his eyes. I nod. He starts walking upstairs and I go after him. When we're standing in front of the room, he turns around. I can see him thinking.

After a few seconds, he just lets himself fall against the door and puts his knees to his chest and rubs his eyes again. "I can't, why can I not?" he stars mumbling to himself and I sit down on the stairs. "Ashton, we need to do this, okay? I need this. We need this." He nods and slowly stands up. He puts his hand on the door handle and hesitates. He clenches the handle tight, and after a few seconds, he opens the door.

The room makes me smile. It's a mess, an organized mess, just how Michael likes it. I walk inside and smell the air. No one has opened this door since, it smells old.

I look at Ashton, who is still standing in the doorway. He ignores my glare and walks past me, starting to look through the drawers. I follow his lead and open his closet. We both don't know what we're looking for. Something, anything to explain this mess. How and why.

Frustrated, Ashton closes the drawers. "Fucking hell." he gets his glasses and puts them back on his face. He turns around to me. I shake my head. "Nothing." he sighs and sits against the dresser.

"There has to be something." I say, looking around. I look at his bed. "Maybe behind it?" I walk towards it and search behind his bed. Nothing. I check under the pillows, under the bed, and then I look in the sheets. I see a small notebook. My heart stops beating.

"Ashton..." I look over at him. He raises his eyebrows, and as he realizes, he rushes over to me, pushes me to the side and grabs the notebook out of the sheets. "You.. I.." he mumbles.

"Do you want to read it on your own?" I ask him. He shakes his head and hands it over to me. "I can't. You do it. Don't tell me if I can't handle it." he sits on the floor, rubbing his eyes again.

"You can let yourself out, right?" he asks without looking up at me. "Yeah... thanks." I said, turning around to leave. I close the door and sigh. It's not his fault, I know that.

-

I had been sitting on the couch for twenty minutes, debating wether or not to look. I don't know if I can. I wasn't sure if Ashton really wanted me to read this, either. With shaking hands I open the notebook and read the first page.

DO NOT READ IF YOU ARE NOT MICHAEL CLIFFORD!!!!
I'm serious. Without permission don't look. Please. C'mon. I'm a defenseless man.

I smile, but feel too scared to read it. I have to. But I can't. Scared of what I'll find. Will it even change anything? It might help. Closure, and all that. But is it worth it reading all this? All his thoughts, all his pain.

I close the book and rub my forehead. I want all of this to be a nightmare, a joke. A sick joke. I hesitate but open the book again. One page at a time. It's okay.

It's Michael. You know, the owner of this book full of my depressing days and depressing stories and hopeless crushes. And a load of bullshit.

January 2nd, 2016.
I dyed my hair today. It's blue. Multiple people have called me smurf and have laughed at me in the halls, but it's okay. They usually do, anyway. Spencer liked it. I didn't even tell her I was going to do it. When I saw her she just laughed and shook her head. But she liked it. I could see it. Maths was horrible, as always. I couldn't even focus. Recently my mind has been so full and clouded. I don't know how to get all of my thoughts to shut up. I can't sleep. That was part of why I dyed my hair. I couldn't sleep anyway, and dyeing your hair takes some time. I just spend my nights staring at the ceiling. I've felt so useless and miserable. I hope it's just a matter of time. I feel so tired. I can't study. I don't know how I'm passing every class. Probably because Spencer let's me look at her answers during tests. The only person I can actually count on with anything. I don't know what to tell her about this, though. Is there anything to tell? Hopefully my tired mind will get some rest soon.

I sigh and close the book. I miss Michael so much. I miss his laugh and his jokes and his singing for me in front of the fireplace in my house when it was so cold and quiet. I miss him being there for me when my parents were away.

I hated being alone. And now I'm alone all the time. And now there's no one to sing for me when there's deafening silence. I close my eyes, and I can hear the clock ticking as I fall asleep.