MARCH, 2009
Dan
I lay in my bed, watching the ceiling swirl and gripping my arms so I don't fall off.
I am weak and pathetic for just lying here but whenever I start thinking about how pathetic I'm being, I just curl into myself even more, hiding my head under my crumpled blankets.
I wish I could drown in them.
My cheeks are wilted and puffy, eyes tired and itchy, and the knowledge that it'll all happen over again later when I'm less dried out makes me eternally tired, the kind that never goes away.
I knew deep down that Phil would never love me. I did, I really knew it. But for some reason, the small part of me that dared to be optimistic had overwhelmed my common sense, made me think I could figure out how to love someone, to figure out what it feels like to be loved. And I hadn't even stopped to think about whether or not he'd have felt the same way, had just charged in stupidly, blindly. At least I couldn't do it, was too pathetic to go through with it, because hearing him tell me he didn't feel the same would have made me throw up.
I've turned into a disgusting, miserable monster that locks itself in its dark room and refuses to speak to anybody, refuses to lick its wounds and get back up, and I hate myself for it. I'm hurting Phil, freaking him out, and it's not his fault, not something he can control, but I'm just not brave enough to look him in the eyes. He's constantly knocking on my door, trying to draw me out, and each knock claws at my skin and my heart and I wish more than anything I was strong enough to put on a show for him but I'm not and I can't so I lock my door and sit in the dark.
I hadn't been to school, hadn't left my room other than to hide in the bathroom, terrified of seeing Phil, of seeing his eyes his face his frown. I was stuck with nothing to do but relive memories. Feel every bruise, the smell of alcohol, the peeling walls of that house, the words, so many words. I was 12 again, spitting blood into the sink and shaking. I was back in that house, Gabe's hands around my neck, sure I'd never leave those walls again as he vacuumed the air out of my lungs. I was 14, counting bruises in the mirror after he'd knocked me out in one of his fits of rage. I was 16, scared to walk in the door, scared to walk out, terrified of all the bad hands, too tired, so tired. I remember the hiding, the pleading, the sound of his fists against my skin, the way my bones sounded when they cracked. I remember every time I'd go to school with black eyes and Ryan would kick my knees out from under me, the sound of his laugh when I threw up from the pain.
All alone in this room, there's nothing but memories.
I roll over stiffly, wincing as my shredded skin brushes against bare mattress and prickly blankets, claw marks on worn leather skin that sting in the night.
Everything hurts.
Waves of red hot pain press against my lungs, thumping to the beat of my heart.
I roll myself out of my bed.
Blue scribbles worm their ways around my eyes but I make myself strong and float on.
Stumbling, I trip my way across the room to my door, and tiptoe out, only after making sure that there was no black there was no blue or worried eyes or question marks.
Every groove in the floor threatens to pull me down, and the few footsteps it takes to get me to the bathroom feel like a million.
With fumbling fingers, I lock the door and look up, staring at the boy in the mirror. I remember a time when my eyes were wide and curious, back when I was a little kid, when the bad was just the monsters under my bed. Back then my head was filled with stories fed to me with silver spoons and the sound of my mother's voice and the taste of butterscotch and the way the sky felt on my skin. Back then I thought things got better.
My skin is even paler than usual, so pale that when I squint my eyes I can see the blood pumping under my skin, see each one of my hollow bones. Translucent. My hair is a rumpled mess, and I know that underneath, my skin is a painting of black and blue and red, a sadistic finger painting.
I'm disgusting.
I force myself to tear my eyes away from the mirror, and instead focus on clumsily splashing water onto my puffy face. My skin is too hot and the cold water turns to steam when it touches me. I pat my face with a towel tiredly, so tiredly, and open the bathroom door, too pre-occupied with warding off unconsciousness to be cautious. I step out and lean back onto the wall for a brief moment, trying to stop the spinning behind my eyes, but a few steps away from the doorway I feel a pair of eyes burning holes into my skin. I look up to find Phil, frozen, his pretty blue eyes wide with surprise, one hand half reaching out, frozen in place, as if the sight of me had caused him to forget what he was doing. A fresh wave of misery and panic is clawing its way up my throat and I turn to run but my feet won't move can't move fast enough and all I can feel is soft fingers wrapping themselves around my wrist, captured.
"Please don't hurt me."
I am 10 years old again. Still afraid.
I can feel the fingers sliding slowly off my wrist.
"Oh Dan, no, no, I would never.
When I open my eyes, I see his face. Surprised and worried and sad.
It's been too long since I've seen it but not long enough and I am starving and I take it all in every line every edge every bit I am terrified and I missed him and I'm falling down down and I can still run it's not too late but I don't know if I want to.
His arms fall over me like a blanket, pull me close, hold me tight to his chest. I am stiff and frozen in his arms because this is the best and the worst place in the world.
"Please, just tell me what's wrong. I'm so worried about you."
His voice is a whisper like he's afraid to break me and the smell of cinnamon makes me shiver.
"Nothing."
"Dan."
He isn't going to buy any of my shit.
"I..I just was going to tell you something and I thought you might care but then I decided not to and I just kinda thought you wouldn't care, and ... yeah."
He is so close and his hands hold me steady, grip my shoulders, cool whisps of breath whisper across my face, sad blue and dark black it's everywhere in my throat in my lungs. It takes every last drop of energy to keep my heart from showing on my face.
"I will always care, okay?"
I nod.
He doesn't.
He gives a deep sigh, thinking hard. I can see gears turning in his head.
He comes to a decision.
"I'll drop it, but only if you promise not to shut me out again."
I let his words roll around my head until I can taste them on my tongue. Everything could go back to normal. That would be okay. I nod, slow, and then fast.
I am too tired to resist anymore.
I let myself melt into his arms, let my head fall onto his chest, close my eyes and just breathe.
"Now, I'm going to go make you food and you can go wash up, okay?"
I nod, dizzy, obediently stumble to the bathroom, and he disappears into the kitchen to make me food that I know I won't eat.
I strip down and step under the water, watching as it drips down, rivulets turning red at my feet. I watch as I swirl down the drain. I step out and pull on some clean clothes. Clean feels foreign on me. I make my way downstairs, gingerly lowering myself into a chair at Phil's command. Jamie sits at the table across from me, and the look of hatred he gives me gave me chills, straight down to my glass bones, but I'm too tired to breathe, too tired to comprehend it, so I just blink down at the table.
Phil slides a plate in front of me with a smile.
"Eat up, Danny bear."
Jamie's glare deepens to impossible levels of hatred, and I reach over to the fork next to the plate, picking it up slowly. It's heavy, too heavy, and my fingers shake as I force myself to chew, swallow, chew swallow, down half of the plate. My skin bubbles and swells and I wish more than anything that for once my eyes wouldn't be broken. I force a smile onto my face when Phil looks over at me.
My stomach is churning.
I excuse myself to the bathroom.
Shakily, I stand up and flush down my dinner, tasting bitter disappointment, tasting pink and clean and empty.
Back in the kitchen and I lower myself into a chair slowly. Phil and Jamie were deep in conversation, too fast for me to hear or understand, so I sit there,watching Phil talk, watching the way the sunlight outlined his jaw, filled his eyes with fire. And then Phil gets up.
"I'm gonna go shower, and then we can go, okay Jamie?"
Jamie smiles at Phil, and Phil's face crinkles into one of his adorable smiles before he walks out of the room and disappears.
As soon as the bathroom door clicks shut, Jamie turns to me and grabs my wrist, locking me into place, grip not loosening no matter how hard I twist.
"What?"
"Listen here, you little shit," Jamie hisses in my face. "I see the way you look at Phil. I'm not an idiot, and I've let it fly, but you should realize it's never, ever going to fucking happen. He doesn't care about you, he just feels sorry for you. If you think your little stunt this week is going to change anything, you're an idiot. It was just pathetic."
He spits his words, fingers digging into my arm, and I choke out a tiny cry.
And then Jamie's hand isn't his anymore, it's another hand, twisting mine above me, and that drunken voice fills the kitchen, echoing off the walls.
"Please, no, don't make me go back."
Jamie is gone, the walls, the floor, and I am no longer here, no longer among the living, back inside those crumbling walls.
I hear a door open, far away. Bad hands and bad words swirl in my head in my hands and I want so desperately to scream, but I can't, I can't my brain and my body are no longer the same. Phil is in front of me, kneeling, panicked, but his skin is made of static and his mouth only lets out garbled gibberish.
"Dan? Dan?? Oh my god what happened??"
"I...I don't know, we were just talking and then he started freaking out."
Phil clenches his fists.
"Dan? Dan? Can you hear me?"
A hand shakes my shoulder but my mouth isn't working and my body isn't working nothing is working.
"Dan?"
Slowly, the peeling wallpaper and splintered floors fade away, back to the sunlit kitchen in Phil's flat, and the bad starts to leak away. Even as the shadows fade, my heart twists inside it's cage of bones. I am not safe.
"I.. i'm...it...he was... I'm sorry."
My tongue is thick and my face is cold and my hands are shaking. Violently.
"No, no, it's okay, are you okay?"
Phil's words bleed together with worry.
I nod, my tongue thick.
He pulls me in between his legs and wraps his arms around me, holding me close and stroking my hair as I shiver against his chest.
"Are you alright? Do you want to talk about it?"
I shake my head.
This is just him playing pretend.
"I'm just tired."
Phil nods quickly, and helps me up, leads me to the couch, pulls a thick blanket up to my nose.
"Just get some sleep, okay?"
Not even a hundred blankets could keep me warm.
-
a/n thingy: quick update that is very shit whoops