Dear fellow humans, literature lovers and darlings,
This new chapter was very lively in my head, very lucid, but I'm afraid I have not been able to deliver it that way. So I think you have to let your imagination take you places.
But best of luck in reading it (?)
and enjoy :)
Chapter 21 – You break my neck, I break your heart part 2
The way human mind works is strange.
If you know something and it is too much for you to carry, tell someone.
But we don’t, because we think we can handle it, and we will crumble. We will destroy ourselves and those around us. Whatever hope we have, we will burn it, or lose it in the process. And we can’t retrace the steps, because then we’d have to live everything through again.
Pain wakes us up, but not in a way we want to. Pain makes us think mostly for ourselves. Pain begs for pity.
And fear shuts us down, unless it’s a critical situation which dictates whether you’ll live or die.
I am not in that kind of a situation, so I am shutting down. Everything.
I am shoved against the wall, and I hit my head. It was already hurting before. The book falls to the ground, open. I hear laughter, and I recognize it.
“Why are you wearing only black?” he asks. “You should embrace who you are!” he throws his hands in the air and walks backwards, so he can look at me. “No one is going to judge.” He winks. “Call me ‘no one’.”
I spend the next twenty minutes in the nurse’s office. My book is on her desk. I am holding a cold bag against the side of my head.
I would like to lean back, rest my head against the wall, but it will hurt, and it will remind me of what happened. The throbbing pain is already doing that. It comes in waves, and echoes, until I think it’s gone. It’s is silent and unpredictable. It knocks me off my feet. I don’t trust myself.
“You say you fell?” she asks when she returns. I don’t know where she went.
“Yes, I’m clumsy,” I reply. I don’t want to drag anyone into this. I will throw a punch if needed. And I will say his name and I will blame him, but not yet. I am not going to surrender to his childish ways.
“Clumsy?” she raises her eyebrow and looks at me.
“Yes, my feet failed me.”
“Okay. I believe you.”
She doesn’t.
“What’s my diagnosis?” I ask, bored. I want to go away. I want to sell the headache on a black market and never look back. But things don’t work that way, do they?
“You hit your head,” she shrugs. “It’s going to hurt for a while. Take the pills every four hours with water. Unless the headache has stopped.” She hands me my book. “Other than that, even though you might want to hear otherwise, you can go to class.”
“I did want to hear the other version,” I mumble and roll my eyes at myself. I am not going to get away from Lorcan. No matter what. No matter that I have just hit my head against the wall. I will still have to face him.
“Don’t we all want to get away?” she smiles. She’s young. Compared to the professors. “But think about how proud you will be after. That even though you were suffering, you made it through the day.” She stares at the ground. She seems sad. “The lies we tell ourselves.”
“So, my diagnosis would be ‘keep away from walls, they might hit you’,” I try to joke. She looks at me.
“Yes. But I think you should apologize to the wall also,” she says. I grab the door knob and am ready to leave, when she says, “And when you’re ready to tell me what really happened, I’m here.”
I told her I fell. Then I told her I hit my head against a wall. The lies we tell ourselves, and others.
There are two more notes when I get back to the dorm. I’m supposed to go to class, but instead I thought I should...feel safe? And my dorm is probably the only place I somewhat feel that way.
Now, even there, it’s not okay.
The notes are hurtful, and dumb. You would think someone like Lorcan might put some more effort into bullying. He doesn’t. He has even made a spelling error.
As much as I want to tell myself that he’s being silly and rude, and can’t even spell right, I am still aching. Not just in my head, my whole body. Even my soul - that is if humans happen to have one. I am not so sure.
I sit on the bed and stare at the wall. The cracks run along the surface.
Isn’t it funny how you seem to find details to relate to when you’re sad? Like how you think the wall is you, and how your bully is dragging lines across your skin, your mind, your heart making you crazy. You see the lines but you just can’t seem to find a way to fix them. A wall can’t fix itself, right? That’s you. You are a wall.
And it would be easier to get out of the bully’s way, but you can’t. You’re a wall.
Then you close your eyes and you think about dreams. Then you switch to nightmares. And suddenly you think that your life is a nightmare.
You are trying to run. But your feet are heavy. And even if you seem to move, you don’t. And even if you think you are getting away, you will fall.
And hit your head.
Then you realize that, in fact, you have hit your head. Because of someone who didn’t matter a day or two ago.
He used to be a face you didn’t recognize, and now it’s like he’s taped on the wall. There are hundreds of photos on the wall, layers upon layers. And it feels like he has been tattooed to your skin, definitely to your memory.
Breathe.
Nothing has happened yet, I tell myself.
You imagined it, I tell myself.
And then I go to class, apologize for being late, and sit at the desk where I thought about Anton, now I think about Lorcan, then Anton.
I think about how Lorcan is going to hurt him. I don’t like that.
I will do anything to stop it.
So I go to him. This needs to stop.
“Next time, send me some painkillers, also,” I say. He turns around, a grin on his lips.
“Are you in love with me or something?” He raises his eyebrow. I want to make that eyebrow bleed.
“You’re the one sending me love letters,” I shrug. “By the way, my favourite colour is blue.”
“Wow, you must have a really low self-esteem if you think those are love notes,” he rolls his eyes and laughs. His hands are in his pockets and he walks closer. The one he was talking to looks at me with surprised eyes, but is stuck on his spot. I wish he’d leave. “I guess that’s why you ran to Anton.”
“Leave him out of it!” I snap. I clench my fists and try to suppress the anger.
“Don’t worry,” he shakes his head. “I’m not going to steal him from you.” He laughs. He looks at me as if I were nothing. As if I was someone unnecessary.
“He wouldn’t want you anyways,” I say, more to myself, because I wonder what if...Stop! Stop wondering, I tell myself.
“Thank god!” Lorcan breathes in relief. He puts his hand over his heart. He’s being dramatic. “Is he taking good care of you?” He points at his head. “Bet that one is hurting, isn’t it? It was quite a thump you made there. For a moment I thought the wall got a new crack in it.”
I am the wall.
“You’re just looking for a fight,” I shake my head and try to be rational. I unclench my fists and start to walk away.
“I am looking for a way to tell you that you need help,” he says. He fakes his sincerity. “That is what I am looking for. Do you even understand that you are underdeveloped, a freak? A castaway? We don’t want you here.”
The guy behind him is nervous. I bet he doesn’t know what Lorcan is talking about.
“It’s hard to tell whether you are envious or just a moron,” I say as I glance over my shoulder. “We have done nothing to you. Why do you keep messing with something that doesn’t influence you?”
“I don’t want to see damages be together. You know, you don’t complete each other,” he draws a heart in the air. “You are abnormal. You are bad for everyone. I don’t want to see dudes kissing, or hugging. Do you think the rest of us will approve?” He raises his eyebrow and steps closer.
I am aware of every movement he makes.
I am also aware that he doesn’t know how to insult.
I am also aware that there is something I don’t know about him.
“You hurt Jocelyn. And you still think you deserve her,” I reply calmly. I’ve hit the nerve.
“You know nothing about that!” he yells and for a moment I think we’re trapped in a small room, when in fact we are in a long corridor. But it’s like his voice is the only thing existing in the world. It’s like I have headphones on, and it’s his voice that I hear, on maximum volume. “Don’t you dare compare me to you! She doesn’t know what’s good for her! She doesn’t know!”
“You’re good for her?” I ask and sigh. “You’re mad.”
He punches me.
“So, you fell again?” the nurse asks me as she cleans the cut. The school’s ring is not such a good idea. We should break the tradition, because it just cut my eyebrow.
Isn’t it ironic? I wanted to make his eyebrow bleed, and instead, the ring on his finger did that to my eyebrow?
I did punch him back, but he moved away and slammed me against the wall.
There is thunder in my head, the lightning hitting the same spot every time.
They left me lying on the floor. I held onto my head. Somehow, I managed to get up and walk, slowly, to the nurse’s office. He was laughing when he left. He was satisfied.
“I should’ve taken the advice and kept away from the walls,” I laugh. She presses a cloth against my brow. “Shit!” I curse. It hurts. It’s probably alcohol.
If I throw it in Lorcan’s face, will it also clean his soul? That is, if he has one.
“They hit back?” She smiles.
“They hit first,” I say.
“Was there a particular reason why it hit you?” She goes to the cupboard and searches for bandages. I close my eyes in the hopes of the pain going away. It doesn’t.
“Because I’m different. Because it hates abnormalities.”
“Yeah, those walls...They hate humans,” she agrees. I should come here more often. I think she’s the only reasonable person here. I could spend all of my time here. She’d probably let me sleep here, and if someone came asking, she could say that I wasn’t feeling well. “It’s probably envious that you have something it doesn’t. A face, maybe.”
“It’s jealous,” I correct her. She raises her brow. I would too if it didn’t hurt. I switch my eyes to her and smile. “I first thought it was envious, too. But I think my aching head has put everything into place. And the blood running down my face and nose really gave me a clearer vision. Envy is when someone wants something they don’t have. Yes. But he’s jealous. Because he’s afraid I’ll take something from him.”
“He?” she asks. I look away.
“It’s just a theory. I haven’t figured out what it’s afraid of losing, yet. I just saw the fear in his eyes.”
My head hurts, I can’t think. I need to sleep. I ask her if I can rest here. She says yes. She gives me painkillers and tells me to take them regularly. It won’t heal my head, but they’ll stop the pain.
So I sleep, barely. When I wake up, she’s gone. She has left a note. My mind immediately jumps to conclusions and I step back when I see it, but then I tell myself it’s okay. It’s not the same handwriting. It’s not Lorcan’s.
It says not to forget the painkillers she gave me, and to not worry about waiting for her to come back. People rarely come to her office. Usually when someone’s sick, they just stay in their dorm and sleep it off.
PS: The wall hit first.
I snort. I grab the painkillers from her desk and go home. This weekend it’s Piper’s birthday. I still have some time. I will paint her a picture.
My headache won’t let me concentrate. I go to sleep. I hear Anton’s voice, his concerned, but I am too tired to wake. He lets me sleep until morning. I’m scared. I would drink, but it would only make me sick. And I am already dizzy from the pain.
But he doesn’t even wake me in the morning. And when I do, there’s no point in going to class.
I was supposed to be good here. College was supposed to be the answer. Truth is, it’s even more complicated.
It’s always complicated.
I sit at my desk when Anton comes in.
“Hey, you didn’t wake me,” I say as I turn around, but I freeze immediately.
“Good thing I didn’t,” he says as he violently removes his jacket. His lip is a little bloody. I see his knuckles are red. “You would hate me.”
“What happened?” I stand up and go to him. He shakes his head and steps back, but I grab his wrist and stare at his hand. I run my finger along the bones and stop where the blood begins. It is barely audible, but it’s there. The skin in broken.
“Might as well ask you the same,” he looks at me, a faint smile playing on his lips. His kissable lips. But I’m afraid to do so.
“His aim was off,” I shrug. “All he got was my eyebrow. The rest of my face is intact.”
“Painkillers?” he asks.
“My face is okay,” I repeat. “I might’ve hit my head twice, though.”
He takes my face in his hands. His broken knuckles...He looks me in the eye, then slowly brings himself closer, until our foreheads touch.
“I beat him good,” he whispers.
“Who are you talking about?” It can’t be that he knows.
“The dude who hit me out of nowhere, he got what he was asking for,” he says, but he doesn’t mention Lorcan. “And the other dude as well. They will both remember it. And the school board will also. I told them that if they mention me, they will need an ambulance. Then I told them to tell the nurse that they got into a fight. With each other.” He laughs. “This might be the most brilliant idea I’ve ever had. Let them taste their own medicine.”
I smile. “You are tough guy,” I say.
He plants his lips on mine, and I can feel his blood. “Fuck! Sorry,” he pulls away and quickly wipes the blood away with his thumb. “I forgot for a moment.”
“How can you forget you got a beating?” I speak while he tries to wipe the blood off.
“Because I got lost in your eyes, babe,” he replies. I roll my eyes. “I kind of killed the romance, didn’t I?” He drops his hands.
“I mean you wiped your blood off my face. It’s pretty romantic,” I say. His eyes light up.
He washes his lip. It swells a little, but not that much. Then he washes his knuckles with cold water. I see how his skin turns white. The icy water must be numbing the nerves.
I get to the dorm before Anton. There is yet another note. I take it before he sees.
It’s just the beginning.
I have connections. Your boy won’t make it with only a split lip the next time.
I crumble it and shove it in my pocket.
So it was his idea, Lorcan’s. It was his friends. But he beat them, he told me he was fine.
But when Anton’s already sleeping I see something less nice. The blanket isn't covering his torso. There is something red there, bruises. I walk over to him and lift his shirt. There are bruises, many of them. His right side is red. That’s why he has kept his distance. That’s why he told me I needed to rest, that otherwise he might accidentally hurt me in his sleep. That my head needed rest, that we needed to sleep separately.
He was thinking of himself too. He was also thinking about not hurting me.
What if he won’t stop until Anton ends up in a hospital bed? It’s better for both us if we do as Lorcan says. If I do as he says. I will take the fault. I will take the blame. It will be okay.
It has to be okay.
I make an excuse that Jocelyn needs me. I tell him that she’s afraid of being in that house alone, and that Emma can’t be the one, because then they’ll only be scared together. I tell Anton that the only reasonable solution is for me to move in with Jocelyn.
He understands.
He even helps me move my stuff. And when he asks why I’m taking all of it, I say that you never know what you might need, that I could return at any moment.
Truth is, I don’t know when I’ll return.
But I am heartbroken. Heartbroken before I say goodbye.
I already know what is going to happen, but I want one day of happiness. A couple of hours of happiness.
I walk Anton back to our dorm. I tell him I’ll see him at school. I tell him we’ll meet during lunch. I tell him we’ll go to Piper’s birthday together.
I lie.
After, I find Lorcan. And I tell him the truth.
I tell him to shut up and listen. I tell him I am breaking up with Anton. I tell him that he better stop what he’s doing. I tell him I’ll do anything to keep harm from my friends.
And he tells me he needs to see it for himself. He tells me that for now, he won’t do anything, but that if I should lie, then there’d be consequences.
I ask him why is he doing this. I plead him why.
He walks away.
As if setting an example of how I should walk away from Anton.