*Jack's POV*
Things seemed to be coming full circle for us. First it was me needing all of the support, and now it was Alex. He couldn't even stand up in the shower right now. I'm sure he could have if he felt like he had the mental drive to, but he didn't. He was in an episode, plain and simple.
After I was done rinsing myself off, I flipped the plug and turned the shower head off, turning the tap on instead and letting the tub fill with water.
I sat against the back of the tub and pulled him against me, cradling him against my chest.
He closed his eyes and just laid there against me. I wondered if this is how I seemed to him, broken and completely lost. I remembered the first few weeks I'd spent with Alex. Terrified and quiet, hardly speaking to anyone other than him. Hell, I hardly spoke to him unless I was crying at first.
Seeing this through brand new eyes had me really thinking hard.
I'd have to get better at learning how to help him. I know there wasn't much I could do, because I don't live in his head, hear what he hears, see what he sees, or the thoughts that his mind comes up with, but I can be here for him.
"My parents think I'm insane." He mumbled.
"I don't think that they think that." I said quietly, rubbing his back, then reaching out with my foot to turn the tap off once the tub was full.
"They told me once...I got really bad and they told me if I couldn't calm down, they'd call emergency services because they didn't know what to do. AKA get me admitted." He traced his finger up and down my chest.
"Well, should they have?" I asked, kissing his wet hair.
"Probably." He muttered, "I wanna go to bed."
*Alex's POV*
I was spiraling and I didn't know how to get out of it. Jack had seen one of my worst breakdowns, but he also helped fix it. This wasn't something he'd seen before. This was a whole different thing. I felt completely disconnected from myself. My head wouldn't shut up but I didn't know what it was saying. I wasn't sure that this was something he could fix. My head was ringing. It was buzzing. There was no consistency. Lately, I hadn't let it get this far for Jack's sake, but this time, I had no choice in the matter. I couldn't stop what was happening.
So I wanted to go to bed, except I really didn't at all.
Jack helped me out of the shower, and I lazily dried off and got myself dressed, I didn't care what I wore. It was shorts and a t shirt.
I laid down in bed and pulled the blanket over my head.
Jack joined me after a minute, wrapping his arm around my waist and pressing his back up against mine, making me the little spoon. It felt good.
"Do you want me to put something on or do you just want to lay here?" He asked me.
I wasn't about to stop him from putting something on for himself, but I couldn't guarantee that I'd watch it. In fact, I'd bet my entire savings account that I wouldn't if I had someone to bet against. Maybe my own stupid brain.
"You can put something on." I whispered, staring at nothing in the dark.
I got wrapped up in my own thoughts.
Why were people like this? What chemical imbalance caught people so off guard? Why were so many people so happy, exhilarated, feeling on top of the world one minute, just to get hit by a tidal wave and have it all come crashing down? Who made that happen? What got so screwed up in humanity's gene pool that this became such a problem? Did it all stem from the panic and anxiety the first humans must have had being around big predatory animals all the time, not knowing if they'd be catching a meal or becoming the meal? Was it just a fault in the DNA? How did that fault happen though? Was it just like a puzzle that came missing one piece? A crucial one at that? Were people really born with this, or did so much trauma just happen that it was developed? I got told I was born this way, and I hadn't had much trauma until the screaming happened and then the death. I thought about that too, I'd had trauma my whole life, all because of the screaming. So maybe I did develop it? It didn't much matter in the grand scheme of things. Either way, I was fucked up beyond belief and beyond repair. At this point, I truly was damaged goods. I deserved to be rotting in a landfill rather than being here.
Sometimes I wondered what it would be like to simply disappear.
To trade away the torture for a never ending future.
To feel so free, I could fly.
Even if it meant that I had to die.
Death is meant to be painless.
That's a lie.
It's painful for the ones you leave behind.
Thinking this way, like your end is nigh.
Truthfully, I yearned for the feeling like I could fly.
I'd hover over the clouds and watch the world float by.
Not a single thought in my mind.
All because I chose to simply disappear.
Would it be easier though? If I followed my own advice? No, that would make me suicidal. I really didn't want to die. Sometimes the thought was easier though. At least easier than trying to find a way out of this mess.
I had to bring myself back to earth somehow.
Breathe. Remember its just chemicals.
Breathe. Remember its just chemicals.
Breathe. Remember its just chemicals.
I was shaken from my thoughts by Jack who accidentally nudged me with the remote while he was getting a little more comfortable.
"Sorry" He said quietly.
I shook my head, "No it was probably good that you did that. I was drowning."
I turned to face him.
"Drowning?" He asked.
I nodded, "Drowning. I guess that's the only way that I can explain it....I got way too buried in my thoughts." I shook my head.
"Wrote a poem in my head about death, and I can still remember it word for word." I sighed.
"You wanna tell me?" He asked, propping himself up on his elbow.
I shrugged, "What can it hurt?"
"Sometimes I wondered what it would be like to simply disappear.
To trade away the torture for a never ending future.
To feel so free, I could fly.
Even if it meant that I had to die.
Death is meant to be painless.
That's a lie.
It's painful for the ones you leave behind.
Thinking this way, like your end is nigh.
Truthfully, I yearned for the feeling like I could fly.
I'd hover over the clouds and watch the world float by.
Not a single thought in my mind.
All because I chose to simply disappear."
I just looked at him once I was done, and he looked at me in a way that I couldn't quite comprehend.
"Wow, that was really deep Alex." He said gently.
I shrugged, "It's just what my brain came up with."
"It talks a lot about death." He pointed out.
I sighed.
"Yeah, it does." I chewed on my bottom lip, hoping he wouldn't take it a certain way.
"Do you think about that a lot?" He asked me, looking somewhat nervous, but I had to be honest with him.
"Daily." I whispered.
"Lex..." He started.
"I'm not suicidal." I cut him off, "Please don't think that I am...Just sometimes...The idea sounds nice...It's just my anxiety though and the demons that try to hurt me...I also reminded myself in my little trance to breathe, and its just chemicals. So...Before you freak out, no I'm not suicidal...I'd just be a liar if I told you that death didn't sound like a really, really nice escape. The easy way out I guess." I sighed.
"I don't really know what to say." He responded.
"I didn't expect you to." I mumbled quietly and closed my eyes. I felt like this conversation was finished, what more was there to say? I was getting angry and he didn't deserve it. He wasn't doing anything wrong.
"Alex, I just...That whole thing worries me." He was trying to be gentle, but I was irritated.
"Why? Does it look like I'm tying a noose?" That came off harsh. I know it did. I could hear the venom in my voice.
He scooted back from me and sat up. I sat up too.
"Alex..." I cut him off again. I was being an asshole.
"No, stop it. I said one thing. It was stupid. I shouldn't have told you because I knew you'd overreact or whatever. I'm not going to off myself Jack. Stop freaking out." I got out of bed and paced my room.
"Alex, stop cutting me off. I'm not judging you or overreacting, and I'm not freaking out...I just...I never knew you thought like this. I saw you during that panic attack one time, but you overcame it and you never talked to me about you feeling like this before...I kind of feel like it's an entirely new part of you that I've never met." He looked at me when I knew that he wanted to look away, he should've gotten up and left honestly, or punched me in the face.
"Because you've never met this side of me. I've been pushing so much of it back because you needed me more. In the bathroom though, I'd let a little go, little by little...Bits and pieces...Then I'd force myself to pull it together before you could ever notice. I had to help you first." I looked him right in the eyes. Telling him I held it back for him was a low fucking blow, because I really didn't. I held it back because I didn't want to scare him off because of my own fucked up head. In a way, it was true. I thought I needed to help him first, but that honestly was an excuse to not face my own feelings.
"So...You're telling me that you hid a huge part of yourself, lied to me essentially, because my pity party was more important than your own mental health?" He looked angry. He looked sad at the same time.
"I didn't lie about shit. I just didn't show you. You didn't have a pity party you idiot. You had a legitimate trauma and quite frankly, my mental health never mattered before. Why should it now. Let me flip the fuck out and get over it." I hissed as I looked away. Really, he should throw me out the window.
"Alex..." He started again.
"No, you know what? Just stop. Just stop it Jack. You don't get it. I was born with this shit. It's not going to go away, there's no magic cure, no magic coping process, I've done therapy, multiple times. For me, it's bullshit. I'm glad it helped you, but for me all it did was teach me that I couldn't be fixed, that nothing would change me, because the fucking fucked up chemicals in my brain told me so. You don't get it." I stood up and started pacing my room again.
"So then help me get it Alex!" He shouted at me, "Quit cutting me off and be honest with me for once! There's an entire half of you that I don't know! Is that not important to you? Because it's sure as hell important to me."
"You want to know the other half of me? It's this. It's me, the me who thinks about how much easier things would be for me if I was dead, because that would be it. I would be dead. No anxiety. No manic depression. No panic attacks. No wishing that I knew how to make myself better without contemplating mutilating my skin and then refusing to because I'm so god damn vain that I'd hate myself even worse and not be able to look myself in the mirror and face what I'd done. So I don't. It's right here. I put on a good show, Jack. Until now though, I never had a reason to let my stupid walls come down, and I don't even really have a reason now, but here I am, spiraling and I fucking know that I'm doing it. I can't stop it anyway, so here it is all laid out for you. I got attached to you for more than the fact that you needed someone. You very quickly became my anchor too. Because of this," I gestured up and down to myself, "Because I'm a god damn mess and I'm good at hiding it until I'm not, and now I'm not. I don't know what you want me to tell you, that I'm sorry for hiding it? I'm not. How would we both have handled any of this if we were both constantly freaking out? We wouldn't, and we'd both probably be alone and terrified still. So no, I'm not sorry for hiding shit, because you're seeing it all now, and I'm sure you'll keep seeing it. So yeah, Jack. I think about dying constantly. I wish it was as simple as going to sleep and not waking up, but it's not, and I'm not selfish enough to take myself away from the people who love me, but god damn it, I'm selfish enough to think about it every single day. I won't apologize for that either Jack. I'm fucked up. I can accept it. My best friend has to tell you how to babysit me and make sure I don't rip every strand of hair out of my scalp. Why would I have ever wanted to show you that before?" I glared in his direction as I paced my room back and forth, a hand instinctually flying towards my head. I laced my fingers through my hair and just tugged. It felt good. It was a form of self harm, I supposed. A mild one.