Mysterious Skin - I Wish I Was (3/15)
Title: I Wish I Was (3/15)
Author: osaki_nana_707
Pairings/Characters: Brian, Neil, Eric, Wendy
Rating: R
Warnings:language, mentions of abuse, drug abuse
Summary: Brian's not through with Neil. Neil's not through destroying himself.
Read
Chapter 3
(Brian Lackey)
Neil was gone. He came into my life, sent a wrecking ball of truth crashing through every one of my bones, and left. I was alone with the responsibility to pick the pieces back up and resume life as if it hadn't been completely changed, muddled, pissed on, ruined, and destroyed. I wanted to tell Eric, but I knew he wouldn't understand. There was no way he could understand. Neil had been the only one who could get it, but now I didn't feel like even he got it. He had fucking liked it. He had told me himself. He had been my only hope, my only source for sanity in my crazy, fucked up life, and he'd let me down. I was no different than the miscellaneous other guys he'd had sex with for money or fun or whatever reason he did. That was another thing he'd told me himself.
I don't know why I had expected any less.
The house felt empty as soon as Deborah had gone, leaving me alone with my mother until classes began on the eighteenth. I felt smothered by my mother's presence though, knowing that she didn't know, and not wanting her to know, but sort of wishing that she did know just so I would have someone to comfort me and…
I spent most of my time locked up in my room. I slept a lot, but most of the time I woke up from horrible nightmares that were much too clear now that I knew the truth. I sometimes wet the bed again, and I almost always got a nosebleed. I'd cry sometimes, but I learned how to keep it quiet so that Mom wouldn't hear. Most of the time the crying spells were in the middle of the night anyway. After a particularly vivid dream where I remembered tasting that man on my mouth, I threw up and threw up until I was out of juices and crumpled up on the floor in pain. Mom was at work that night, so I sobbed loudly until it stopped hurting.
I couldn't keep living this way, I knew… but what else was I supposed to do? I couldn't make it go away any more than I could change it.
I think that may have been the worst part.
Mom was at work, and it was snowing again. I made myself a sandwich and sat down in front of the television. Right then, there was a rapping on the door. I got up and answered it.
Eric stood there with a smile, shivering. "Hey," he greeted, trying not to let his teeth chatter. "How are you doing?"
"I'm getting by," I said, wondering how true it was. "Come inside."
I didn't have to tell him twice. He stomped the snow off of his boots on the rug and tossed his damp coat and scarf over a chair. "I thought I'd come by and check up on you since I hadn't heard from you since Christmas. I love those tapes by the way-"
I cut him off with a laugh that sounded a little bitter. "I'm not sick. You don't have to check up on me like I am."
He worried his bottom lip under his teeth. "I didn't mean it like that."
"It's okay," I assured him, shutting the door and locking it. I was always locking doors these days. Little River wasn't a dangerous town, considering how small and quiet it was, but I was compelled to make sure that whatever room I was in, no one could get inside unless I allowed them.
I wondered if Neil locked his doors.
"Do you want half of my sandwich?" I asked, gesturing to the half-forgotten, completely uneaten meal I had just set down on the coffee table.
"Oh, uh, sure," he nodded and sat down nearly simultaneously with me. "So… um…"
I bit into the sandwich, and the peanut butter caused it to stick to the roof of my mouth. I swallowed. "How are your grandparents?" I asked.
"Same as always, of course… How's your mom?"
"Good. Seeing Deborah really put her in good spirits."
There was a long moment of silence where we ate and stared at the blank television screen as if hoping the other would turn it on to drown out how loud the silence was.
"Well, um… listen," Eric started. "I didn't really know what to get you for Christmas, so I thought that maybe you and I could go out to a store or something, and you could pick something out, and I'll buy it for you."
I closed my eyes for a minute, trying to think about some kind of positive for Christmastime… but all I saw was the color blue and felt that aching in my whole body, like something had festered and died there, and I worried it might be my soul.
When I opened my eyes again, words came out of my mouth. I hadn't planned to say them, but they came out just the same. "I want to go to New York. I want to go to New York before school starts back."
Eric's eyebrows rose. "What?"
"You and me, we'll drive to New York. We'll go there, and I'll finish my business with Neil."
"You have business to finish with Neil?"
I stared at him, or rather, stared through him. "I think so."
"I don't know if I can afford to drive us to New York… I mean, hotel rooms, food… gas…"
"Don't worry about that," I assured him. "I've got some money saved up from the summers I mowed people's grass. I think it'll be enough, if you're willing to throw in a little bit."
"We could just buy plane tickets."
"No," I said, almost cutting him off. "No… I need the drive… I need the time to think up what I'm going to say."
"Well… look," Eric said. "It's stupid to go rushing off to New York before you're sure. I'll take you to New York, but not right now. We'll save our money up some more, shovel snow and shit, really be sure we can afford it… We'll go in March, during Spring Break. If you need to talk to Neil, you'd better be real goddamn sure of what you're going to say, or he isn't going to listen to you. Please, just trust me on this."
I didn't want to, but I nodded weakly and decided that maybe Eric was right. After all, he was in a better state of mind than I was.
I admitted, however, "I'm not sure about this… I don't know if I can make it to March like this…" I buried my face in my hands and sighed, exhausted. He rubbed my back sympathetically and then seemed to remember that I didn't like to be touched and pulled away.
"You know I've got your back, Brian, no matter what… if you want to talk, I'm right here. I just don't want you to go and make any rash decisions. I don't want you to get hurt… not anymore."
I looked at him. "You know what happened to me…" I whispered as if the words, should they be uttered, would cause the room to burst into flames.
"I… have an idea of what happened, but… neither of you will tell me…" Eric said hesitantly, and he was staring at the wall. "I understand. I mean… it really isn't any of my business, so I'll try to stay out of your way, and I won't ask anymore, but…"
"Doesn't it fucking disgust you?" I asked, feeling a grimace on my lips, watching his image blur in my eyes.
"What he did does…" he nodded, jaw set… and then he finally made eye contact with me. "…but you don't."
I hugged him, not caring that my tears or the blood from my nose was ruining his shirt, and he didn't seem to care either. It was just nice to get some sort of halfway understanding, or at least some words of comfort. I never got any of that from Neil McCormick.
I couldn't help but wonder if that was what was compelling me to go find him in New York… if I wanted him to look at me, really look at me and realize what he had done and feel bad for me. Something about his face, the face that I'd wanted to know in order to give me the truth and the comfort of knowing the truth… I hated his face. I wanted to see him suffer. He'd liked it. He'd fucking liked it. He'd let it happen to me and didn't even remember who I was. I wanted him to hear it again. Again. Again, again, again. I wanted it to run through his mind on a loop of what had been done to me so he could really and truly understand what he had done to me, and what it turned me into… how much it fucked me up.
He had to know.
(Neil McCormick)
I snorted coke off the sink in a public bathroom.
After work, I had spotted a drug dealer in the alleyway, the same one he was usually in, and out of impulse, I bought a dime bag. I hadn't snorted since that john had made me, and I didn't really do coke back in Hutchinson, but if I wasn't going to be able to sleep, I figured I might as well have the energy to stay awake.
Well, that wasn't completely true. I had managed to get a couple of hours of sleep every once in a while, before I was jolted out by nightmares. The nightmares got worse and worse every night it seemed, and I just didn't want to deal with them anymore, so I snorted and felt awake and alert almost instantly. Awake and alert and just… better. I felt like… myself again.
Wendy noticed.
"Hey, you seem to be in a better mood," she said, kicking the door shut when she got home. I had cleaned the whole apartment, and that also didn't go unnoticed. "Since when do you clean? Did you do something bad?"
"I got bored," I said, smirking. I had actually had too much energy to sit on my ass, so yes, I did clean… not that the apartment looked remarkably better or anything. "How was work?"
"Shitty," she said, plopping down on the couch next to me. "Glad to see you in better spirits though. You've been fucking mopey since you got back from Hutchinson. Do you really miss your mommy that much?"
She was teasing me, I knew. "I don't miss anything about Hutchinson. Going back just reminded me how much I hated that place." It came out meaner than I'd expected.
She rubbed my shoulder. "You don't miss Eric or your mom?"
"No." Eric reminded me of Brian. Mom… I missed the hell out of my mom, but whenever we came back together I remembered that she wasn't who I'd wanted her to be. She'd never be the real 'Mom' character that I always fantasized her as when we were far away. I knew she loved me, but… it just wasn't the same.
I remembered how I'd called out to her that night after that john at Brighton Beach…
"Neil?"
"You hungry? I still owe you dinner. I already ate, but…"
"I'm not starving, but if you want, we can go out. That guy I told you about, Jay, told me about this really cool bar."
I shrugged and went along with the idea. I was high as a fucking kite, and, even though I discovered the route to this bar was on the same route where I'd met Brighton Beach john, I wasn't afraid. I wasn't afraid of anything.
I was fucking invincible.
It felt nice to be in control again.
(Wendy Peterson)
Something was wrong with Neil McCormick.
That was a fucking stupid statement. There'd always been something wrong with Neil. I guess it was better to say that something else had happened to him since he left for Christmas.
He'd been doing well. He'd given up hustling (again- let's see how long it lasts this time), and he'd actually listened to me for once and gotten a real job. He'd been smiling more, shutting down less. Sure, he still had some really fucked up perspective, but all in all, it had been an improvement from the Neil McCormick I'd met as a little girl.
Then, he left.
Then, he came back.
I wasn't stupid enough to not see the bruises, but when I asked, he claimed that he'd gotten into a fight back home. Some guy called him a faggot one too many times, he had said. I didn't know if I could believe that. He'd never let that word bother him before. He thought people's negative reactions to his sexuality were funny more than anything.
I also hadn't forgotten about that downtrodden "I don't know" he'd given me on the phone when I'd asked him why we were friends. I didn't mention it though, hoping that I'd just misread him on the phone. Neil was always swallowing his words anyways, so it was hard to tell what he was feeling.
He definitely wasn't well though, not when he came back. That was for sure. He didn't think that I noticed that he hadn't been sleeping much, even though the dark, dark bags under his eyes and the way he hung over his cup of coffee in the morning made it so obvious. He was smoking more too. Frankly, he seemed to have closed himself off even more than he had before, and no matter what I did, I knew he'd deny it from here to the moon. Neil never thought there was anything wrong with him.
He didn't have too much of an appetite when we went out, but I was relieved to see that he was in a good mood… chipper even. He was a talkative life of the party, giving boys and girls alike little flutters in their chest with his smiles. Neil could be charming when he wanted to be. He talked animatedly about all kinds of things, spouting fabulous lies about how his father had been a famous actor and how he had had sex with some famous celebrities when visiting his dad in Hollywood. He talked about how he had drunk and smoked weed with famous musicians, and he was so convincing that even I started to believe him.
I was just happy to see that he was in better spirits… but something was nagging at the back of my skull… I didn't know why, but I still felt like something was wrong. I caught him by the arm in the hallway on the way back to the apartment. I was stumbling a bit from too much booze, and he laughed at me. "Need me to carry you over the threshold?" he teased.
"Neil, if you were hustlin' again would you tell me?" I asked, words slurring together. "Promise I won't be mad, but I just wanna know you're bein' careful."
And there it was.
I wasn't sure what it was, but there was this falter in his gaze and in his smile. Bothered… it looked something like bothered.
"I'm not doing that anymore," he said and unlocked the door. "Don't get your underwear in a wad."
Something was wrong with Neil McCormick.
I just didn't know what.
"Hey, Wendy, can I borrow some cash?"
It was two weeks after the night he'd cheered up when he asked me. I didn't think anything of it, not really. Since he'd quit hustling and took up a minimum wage job, he wasn't exactly bringing in the dough like he had been, and I was sure getting used to a slightly less extravagant spending limit was difficult. I gave him twenty bucks and told him not to spend it all in one place and didn't think about it again.
…until he asked me again, three days later.
"What do you need it for now?"
"Lunch, cigarettes…" he replied, shrugging noncommittally. "Stuff."
"What about your paycheck?"
"I don't get it until next week." He sniffed and wiped his nose on the back of his wrist, looking around the room.
"Where'd you spend the last one?" I asked.
He seemed to be getting agitated by all the questions. "I don't know. Rent, lunch, cigarettes, stuff," he grumbled.
"You may need to lower your expensive tastes, Neil," I said with a sigh, digging a twenty dollar bill out of my wallet.
"Yeah, whatever," he practically spat back, snatching it before I could even get it completely out of the pocket. "I'll pay you back."
No, he wouldn't.
Author: osaki_nana_707
Pairings/Characters: Brian, Neil, Eric, Wendy
Rating: R
Warnings:language, mentions of abuse, drug abuse
Summary: Brian's not through with Neil. Neil's not through destroying himself.
Read
Chapter 3
(Brian Lackey)
Neil was gone. He came into my life, sent a wrecking ball of truth crashing through every one of my bones, and left. I was alone with the responsibility to pick the pieces back up and resume life as if it hadn't been completely changed, muddled, pissed on, ruined, and destroyed. I wanted to tell Eric, but I knew he wouldn't understand. There was no way he could understand. Neil had been the only one who could get it, but now I didn't feel like even he got it. He had fucking liked it. He had told me himself. He had been my only hope, my only source for sanity in my crazy, fucked up life, and he'd let me down. I was no different than the miscellaneous other guys he'd had sex with for money or fun or whatever reason he did. That was another thing he'd told me himself.
I don't know why I had expected any less.
The house felt empty as soon as Deborah had gone, leaving me alone with my mother until classes began on the eighteenth. I felt smothered by my mother's presence though, knowing that she didn't know, and not wanting her to know, but sort of wishing that she did know just so I would have someone to comfort me and…
I spent most of my time locked up in my room. I slept a lot, but most of the time I woke up from horrible nightmares that were much too clear now that I knew the truth. I sometimes wet the bed again, and I almost always got a nosebleed. I'd cry sometimes, but I learned how to keep it quiet so that Mom wouldn't hear. Most of the time the crying spells were in the middle of the night anyway. After a particularly vivid dream where I remembered tasting that man on my mouth, I threw up and threw up until I was out of juices and crumpled up on the floor in pain. Mom was at work that night, so I sobbed loudly until it stopped hurting.
I couldn't keep living this way, I knew… but what else was I supposed to do? I couldn't make it go away any more than I could change it.
I think that may have been the worst part.
Mom was at work, and it was snowing again. I made myself a sandwich and sat down in front of the television. Right then, there was a rapping on the door. I got up and answered it.
Eric stood there with a smile, shivering. "Hey," he greeted, trying not to let his teeth chatter. "How are you doing?"
"I'm getting by," I said, wondering how true it was. "Come inside."
I didn't have to tell him twice. He stomped the snow off of his boots on the rug and tossed his damp coat and scarf over a chair. "I thought I'd come by and check up on you since I hadn't heard from you since Christmas. I love those tapes by the way-"
I cut him off with a laugh that sounded a little bitter. "I'm not sick. You don't have to check up on me like I am."
He worried his bottom lip under his teeth. "I didn't mean it like that."
"It's okay," I assured him, shutting the door and locking it. I was always locking doors these days. Little River wasn't a dangerous town, considering how small and quiet it was, but I was compelled to make sure that whatever room I was in, no one could get inside unless I allowed them.
I wondered if Neil locked his doors.
"Do you want half of my sandwich?" I asked, gesturing to the half-forgotten, completely uneaten meal I had just set down on the coffee table.
"Oh, uh, sure," he nodded and sat down nearly simultaneously with me. "So… um…"
I bit into the sandwich, and the peanut butter caused it to stick to the roof of my mouth. I swallowed. "How are your grandparents?" I asked.
"Same as always, of course… How's your mom?"
"Good. Seeing Deborah really put her in good spirits."
There was a long moment of silence where we ate and stared at the blank television screen as if hoping the other would turn it on to drown out how loud the silence was.
"Well, um… listen," Eric started. "I didn't really know what to get you for Christmas, so I thought that maybe you and I could go out to a store or something, and you could pick something out, and I'll buy it for you."
I closed my eyes for a minute, trying to think about some kind of positive for Christmastime… but all I saw was the color blue and felt that aching in my whole body, like something had festered and died there, and I worried it might be my soul.
When I opened my eyes again, words came out of my mouth. I hadn't planned to say them, but they came out just the same. "I want to go to New York. I want to go to New York before school starts back."
Eric's eyebrows rose. "What?"
"You and me, we'll drive to New York. We'll go there, and I'll finish my business with Neil."
"You have business to finish with Neil?"
I stared at him, or rather, stared through him. "I think so."
"I don't know if I can afford to drive us to New York… I mean, hotel rooms, food… gas…"
"Don't worry about that," I assured him. "I've got some money saved up from the summers I mowed people's grass. I think it'll be enough, if you're willing to throw in a little bit."
"We could just buy plane tickets."
"No," I said, almost cutting him off. "No… I need the drive… I need the time to think up what I'm going to say."
"Well… look," Eric said. "It's stupid to go rushing off to New York before you're sure. I'll take you to New York, but not right now. We'll save our money up some more, shovel snow and shit, really be sure we can afford it… We'll go in March, during Spring Break. If you need to talk to Neil, you'd better be real goddamn sure of what you're going to say, or he isn't going to listen to you. Please, just trust me on this."
I didn't want to, but I nodded weakly and decided that maybe Eric was right. After all, he was in a better state of mind than I was.
I admitted, however, "I'm not sure about this… I don't know if I can make it to March like this…" I buried my face in my hands and sighed, exhausted. He rubbed my back sympathetically and then seemed to remember that I didn't like to be touched and pulled away.
"You know I've got your back, Brian, no matter what… if you want to talk, I'm right here. I just don't want you to go and make any rash decisions. I don't want you to get hurt… not anymore."
I looked at him. "You know what happened to me…" I whispered as if the words, should they be uttered, would cause the room to burst into flames.
"I… have an idea of what happened, but… neither of you will tell me…" Eric said hesitantly, and he was staring at the wall. "I understand. I mean… it really isn't any of my business, so I'll try to stay out of your way, and I won't ask anymore, but…"
"Doesn't it fucking disgust you?" I asked, feeling a grimace on my lips, watching his image blur in my eyes.
"What he did does…" he nodded, jaw set… and then he finally made eye contact with me. "…but you don't."
I hugged him, not caring that my tears or the blood from my nose was ruining his shirt, and he didn't seem to care either. It was just nice to get some sort of halfway understanding, or at least some words of comfort. I never got any of that from Neil McCormick.
I couldn't help but wonder if that was what was compelling me to go find him in New York… if I wanted him to look at me, really look at me and realize what he had done and feel bad for me. Something about his face, the face that I'd wanted to know in order to give me the truth and the comfort of knowing the truth… I hated his face. I wanted to see him suffer. He'd liked it. He'd fucking liked it. He'd let it happen to me and didn't even remember who I was. I wanted him to hear it again. Again. Again, again, again. I wanted it to run through his mind on a loop of what had been done to me so he could really and truly understand what he had done to me, and what it turned me into… how much it fucked me up.
He had to know.
(Neil McCormick)
I snorted coke off the sink in a public bathroom.
After work, I had spotted a drug dealer in the alleyway, the same one he was usually in, and out of impulse, I bought a dime bag. I hadn't snorted since that john had made me, and I didn't really do coke back in Hutchinson, but if I wasn't going to be able to sleep, I figured I might as well have the energy to stay awake.
Well, that wasn't completely true. I had managed to get a couple of hours of sleep every once in a while, before I was jolted out by nightmares. The nightmares got worse and worse every night it seemed, and I just didn't want to deal with them anymore, so I snorted and felt awake and alert almost instantly. Awake and alert and just… better. I felt like… myself again.
Wendy noticed.
"Hey, you seem to be in a better mood," she said, kicking the door shut when she got home. I had cleaned the whole apartment, and that also didn't go unnoticed. "Since when do you clean? Did you do something bad?"
"I got bored," I said, smirking. I had actually had too much energy to sit on my ass, so yes, I did clean… not that the apartment looked remarkably better or anything. "How was work?"
"Shitty," she said, plopping down on the couch next to me. "Glad to see you in better spirits though. You've been fucking mopey since you got back from Hutchinson. Do you really miss your mommy that much?"
She was teasing me, I knew. "I don't miss anything about Hutchinson. Going back just reminded me how much I hated that place." It came out meaner than I'd expected.
She rubbed my shoulder. "You don't miss Eric or your mom?"
"No." Eric reminded me of Brian. Mom… I missed the hell out of my mom, but whenever we came back together I remembered that she wasn't who I'd wanted her to be. She'd never be the real 'Mom' character that I always fantasized her as when we were far away. I knew she loved me, but… it just wasn't the same.
I remembered how I'd called out to her that night after that john at Brighton Beach…
"Neil?"
"You hungry? I still owe you dinner. I already ate, but…"
"I'm not starving, but if you want, we can go out. That guy I told you about, Jay, told me about this really cool bar."
I shrugged and went along with the idea. I was high as a fucking kite, and, even though I discovered the route to this bar was on the same route where I'd met Brighton Beach john, I wasn't afraid. I wasn't afraid of anything.
I was fucking invincible.
It felt nice to be in control again.
(Wendy Peterson)
Something was wrong with Neil McCormick.
That was a fucking stupid statement. There'd always been something wrong with Neil. I guess it was better to say that something else had happened to him since he left for Christmas.
He'd been doing well. He'd given up hustling (again- let's see how long it lasts this time), and he'd actually listened to me for once and gotten a real job. He'd been smiling more, shutting down less. Sure, he still had some really fucked up perspective, but all in all, it had been an improvement from the Neil McCormick I'd met as a little girl.
Then, he left.
Then, he came back.
I wasn't stupid enough to not see the bruises, but when I asked, he claimed that he'd gotten into a fight back home. Some guy called him a faggot one too many times, he had said. I didn't know if I could believe that. He'd never let that word bother him before. He thought people's negative reactions to his sexuality were funny more than anything.
I also hadn't forgotten about that downtrodden "I don't know" he'd given me on the phone when I'd asked him why we were friends. I didn't mention it though, hoping that I'd just misread him on the phone. Neil was always swallowing his words anyways, so it was hard to tell what he was feeling.
He definitely wasn't well though, not when he came back. That was for sure. He didn't think that I noticed that he hadn't been sleeping much, even though the dark, dark bags under his eyes and the way he hung over his cup of coffee in the morning made it so obvious. He was smoking more too. Frankly, he seemed to have closed himself off even more than he had before, and no matter what I did, I knew he'd deny it from here to the moon. Neil never thought there was anything wrong with him.
He didn't have too much of an appetite when we went out, but I was relieved to see that he was in a good mood… chipper even. He was a talkative life of the party, giving boys and girls alike little flutters in their chest with his smiles. Neil could be charming when he wanted to be. He talked animatedly about all kinds of things, spouting fabulous lies about how his father had been a famous actor and how he had had sex with some famous celebrities when visiting his dad in Hollywood. He talked about how he had drunk and smoked weed with famous musicians, and he was so convincing that even I started to believe him.
I was just happy to see that he was in better spirits… but something was nagging at the back of my skull… I didn't know why, but I still felt like something was wrong. I caught him by the arm in the hallway on the way back to the apartment. I was stumbling a bit from too much booze, and he laughed at me. "Need me to carry you over the threshold?" he teased.
"Neil, if you were hustlin' again would you tell me?" I asked, words slurring together. "Promise I won't be mad, but I just wanna know you're bein' careful."
And there it was.
I wasn't sure what it was, but there was this falter in his gaze and in his smile. Bothered… it looked something like bothered.
"I'm not doing that anymore," he said and unlocked the door. "Don't get your underwear in a wad."
Something was wrong with Neil McCormick.
I just didn't know what.
"Hey, Wendy, can I borrow some cash?"
It was two weeks after the night he'd cheered up when he asked me. I didn't think anything of it, not really. Since he'd quit hustling and took up a minimum wage job, he wasn't exactly bringing in the dough like he had been, and I was sure getting used to a slightly less extravagant spending limit was difficult. I gave him twenty bucks and told him not to spend it all in one place and didn't think about it again.
…until he asked me again, three days later.
"What do you need it for now?"
"Lunch, cigarettes…" he replied, shrugging noncommittally. "Stuff."
"What about your paycheck?"
"I don't get it until next week." He sniffed and wiped his nose on the back of his wrist, looking around the room.
"Where'd you spend the last one?" I asked.
He seemed to be getting agitated by all the questions. "I don't know. Rent, lunch, cigarettes, stuff," he grumbled.
"You may need to lower your expensive tastes, Neil," I said with a sigh, digging a twenty dollar bill out of my wallet.
"Yeah, whatever," he practically spat back, snatching it before I could even get it completely out of the pocket. "I'll pay you back."
No, he wouldn't.