Chapter Twenty-Four- There's A Corpse In This Bed [Part Two]

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Outside I lit up a cigarette and looked around. Cars and people littered the environment, going about their daily lives with an annoying sense of purpose and I found myself envious of them. What the hell was I supposed to do with myself now? To my knowledge the band wasn’t booked into anything for a while and I was so intensely mad at myself for not remembering the vast majority of our first tour. I silently prayed that someone had thought to bring along a camera to document the event otherwise the blackout was going to turn into one of my biggest life regrets- and I really couldn’t afford to have any more self-loathing occupy my brain.

 I was disgusting. I was a grotesque excuse for a human being. Words began to swarm my brain and no matter how hard I tried they wouldn’t go away…

 Pathetic: depressed: idiotic: dependent: anxious: paranoid: skinny: ugly: horrific: horrifying: twisted: sick: crazy: mental: useless: miserable: fearful: bitter: irate: shameful: selfish: indecisive: destructive: guilty: boring: repetitive: uninspired: bland: sadistic: weak: dejected: disheartened: disenchanted: obsessive: possessive: empathetic: apathetic: incapable: insensitive: paradoxical: skeletal: emaciated: hideous: perverted: dishonest: corrupted: inadequate: despondent: terrified: incensed: regretful: egotistical: pessimistic: tiresome: insipid: brutal: heartless: irrational: ignorant: abusive: broken: overemotional: unresponsive: shallow: jealous: conceited: numb: polluted: derisory: dead.

 Well, nearly dead.

 The words cycled in my brain with a sense of rhythm, like they were meant to flood my mind until they became so crushing I ceased to exist. The stillness of my world began to speed up, intensifying and confusing my thought. Sickening images flashed past my eyes in time with the cars and the people and the noise and the humdrum of life and all the bad things that came with it until I couldn’t take it anymore and I just closed my eyes to it all and ignored the lump in my throat and the fact that I couldn’t breathe…

 I yelped in pain.

 Air rushed into my lungs and my eyes snapped open. The cigarette between the index and middle finger of my right hand fell to the ground and I stared at the new bright mark on my left wrist. Had I done that on purpose? I couldn’t even remember. The smell of singed flesh hit my noise and I felt abysmal.

 “James, why would you do that?”

 My face began to burn red as my sight landed on Bex. She was standing a few metres away and in my moment of insanity I hadn’t noticed her approaching. Oh god, she knows I’m crazy, oh god, oh god, oh god

 For all the words that had consumed my brain moments previously, I couldn’t think of a single thing to say just then. Bex was viewing me with a look of complete disappointment and confusion, and I felt so ashamed. It had been an age since I had last intentionally hurt myself, and I’d just thrown it all away. Of course someone had to bear witness to that, I couldn’t fuck my life up in private, oh my god… I just opened my mouth. And then closed it again.

 She sighed and looked away. “Is it okay if I sit with you for a moment?”

 I felt my expression change into a look of bewilderment. “Why wouldn’t that be okay?”

 “Oh, let’s see,” she spoke with a sarcastic tone as she walked forward to perch on a window sill. “maybe because I made a total fucking fool of myself at your tour?”

 What the hell was she talking about? And where had all this brazen confidence come from? There’s no way the normal Bex would talk to me like that. Bex was quiet, Bex was timid. Bex was looking at me with an expression I couldn’t read.

 “You don’t remember?”

 I shook my head.

 “James, I… I totally went for you. Like, threw myself at you, tried to kiss you… How can you not remember that?” she asked.

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