Mysterious Skin - I Wish I Was (10/15)
Title: I Wish I Was (10/15)
Author: osaki_nana_707
Pairings/Characters: Brian, Eric, Neil, Wendy, OC Julian, EricxBrian
Rating: light R
Warnings:language, mentions of abuse, drug abuse, sexual situations
Summary: Brian's not through with Neil. Neil's not through destroying himself.
Read
Chapter 10
(Brian Lackey)
I woke up with a headache, unable to remember anything from the night before. I tasted wine and sushi on my lips along with the familiar taste of vomit, and as much as I thought that I enjoyed the sushi when I ate it, I was sincerely questioning if I would ever eat it again.
I groaned a little as the blood pulsed in my temples and pushed my face up against Eric's t-shirt. He was snoring somewhat loudly above the top of my head. It was probably the wine because he didn't normally snore that loud.
I risked opening my eyes, and thankfully one of us had remembered to shut the curtains. It must have been Eric, but I really couldn't remember.
I crawled out from under the sheets and shivered because the room was so cold by comparison. I was still in my clothes from the night before.
I found some Tylenol in Eric's bag since I'd forgotten to pack any, swallowed two pills, and hopped into the shower to try to get rid of my headache. Thankfully, after standing under the showerhead for twenty minutes, it started to fade. I dried off and dressed and started to shave and realized that I was humming… something… I couldn't remember the name of the song, but I was pretty sure it was on one of those tapes I'd bought Eric for Christmas. I didn't remember listening to it in the car, but my memory was still pretty fuzzy, and we'd probably listened to it the day before or so… maybe…
I tugged the map out of my suitcase, sitting on the edge of the bed, listening while Eric snored, half-suffocating himself in the pillow. We were behind schedule. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania was a nine to ten hour drive, and we'd have to make it today if we intended to get back on track. The good thing was that after that New York was only a short few hours away.
Actually, was it a good thing? I still wasn't sure what I would say to Neil… I didn't even want to make him hurt anymore. I didn't feel so fucking terrible anymore, and when I was with Eric, I didn't dream… well, I did… but I had his presence there to remind me that that was all it was, and it didn't frighten me so badly. I didn't know how it would be when I got back home and inevitably spent my nights alone, but frankly, I didn't want to think about that so I didn't.
Still… there was something keeping me from telling Eric that we should just go back and forget about it… Something, something was compelling me to go to New York. It was a nagging feeling in the back of my head. It felt like I needed to go to New York, more than I'd ever needed anything in my life, almost like my life depended on it… Well, no… not my life really… but… maybe someone else's life.
What did that mean?
I was beginning to feel that same feeling I'd had when I wanted to know what had happened to me… that constant, horrible wondering… and the slight fear of what I would find.
I leaned over and touched Eric's shoulder, shaking lightly. "Hey. Eric…"
He snorted, mumbled, and slowly blinked open the crust-filled eye that wasn't buried in the pillow. "What time's it?" he asked, voice heavy with sleep.
"Almost nine. We've got a long drive."
He mumbled again and lifted himself up, rubbing his eyes with his fist. "Need a shower," he mumbled, and then he gave me a weird little smile, like he knew something I didn't know. I didn't question him on it, figuring he would tell me later.
I went down to the hotel's continental breakfast and grabbed Eric and me some bagels and dry cereal in plastic bowls and went back up to find him digging through his duffel bag for a shirt. He had freckles on his shoulders, I noticed, and then I wondered why I was noticing.
"I see you're ready to go," I teased him.
"Running a little sluggish is all," Eric replied, and I could have sworn the tips of his ears turned pink. He yanked out a t-shirt that had been washed so many times that the band's logo had faded to the point of obscurity and pulled it over his head, sending some of his curls bouncing. "Just let me put on my face, and we can leave."
He went into the bathroom to doll himself up with all the ridiculous amounts of make-up, and maybe it was just me, but I was pretty sure he was humming the same song that I had been.
(Neil McCormick)
I woke up with a headache, unable to remember anything from the night before. I tasted blood and the familiar taste of cock on my lips, and it made the familiar taste of vomit touch the back of my throat.
I slowly lifted my head, but my vision swam, swirled, and dimmed for a second. I placed a palm against my temple and felt a bandage there. When had I banged my head?
Oh, yeah.
I remembered that part… the rest of it though was still a great big blur.
Wendy came out of the bathroom, tying her hair back, and she saw me sitting there and came rushing at me. Her hand didn't slap or punch like I'd expected but instead brushed against my cheek, thumb rubbing my cheekbone that I was sure was more pronounced as of lately. "How are you feeling?" she asked.
"Shitty," I said, blinking slowly.
"Is there anything I can get for you?" she asked, pushing my hair out of the way to check the wound on my head.
"Yeah… a gun and a bullet," I replied flatly. It was meant to be a joke, but as it came out of my mouth it felt eerily true.
"Don't joke about things like that."
"You don't have any sense of humor." I dropped my legs to the floor and leaned my elbows onto my knees, rubbing my face with my hands. "Where are my clothes?"
"You don't remember anything about last night," she said, raising her eyebrows.
I paused, trying to remember, but all I heard was this vague echo of bells. "Was I abducted by aliens?" I asked.
I started laughing hysterically, even though there was absolutely nothing funny about it. Nothing was funny about it at all. Nothing… but I kept laughing, laughing until my sides hurt and my stomach ached and I couldn't breathe and I could hardly see because I knew that if I didn't laugh then something much worse would come spilling out of me. What that was I didn't know, but I didn't want to know.
"What the fuck is the matter with you?" Wendy demanded, and her voice was strained and exhausted and I wondered if she had slept that night.
"I don't know. I don't know!" I was practically singing the phrase. "Nothing! Everything!"
"Oh, God, you really have lost it… I should have taken you to the hospital."
"That's where the aliens put the probe," I said, snickering as I pointed at my head wound. "I bet they're watching us right now. Like ghosts."
She made a face full of horror, and it struck a familiar chord with me for some reason I couldn't identify. My humor faded away. "I'm joking," I said because I really wasn't sure what I was doing. "My head is fine." Well, not anymore fucked up than before.
Why did I think that?
"You fucking dickhead," Wendy grumbled, crossing her arms over her chest. "I thought I'd lost you."
I stood, testing my footing. I managed to stay up, so that was good.
"Neil… I don't want to lose you, ever."
"Confessing your love?" I teased.
"Neil…"
Her voice sounded different. It sounded sad, weak, shaky… I didn't like it. I didn't want to turn around because I knew what I would see.
"Neil," she sobbed, and I felt my hands clench, "Neil, please… Please, stop snorting coke. Please, please, please stop. If you care about me even a little bit, please do this for me."
I sniffed and wiped my nose on my wrist. No blood this time.
"I never said-"
"I'm not fucking stupid, Neil. I know what you've been doing, and I hoped that you would get a clue, but I'm asking you… no, I'm begging you, Neil, please, please stop. You're killing yourself, and I can't keep watching you do that!"
"I…"
What was I supposed to say to that?
"Neil… take a look at yourself in the mirror. Take a good, long, hard look in the mirror and try to convince me that you're okay. You can't honestly say that, can you? Are you really that addicted, that you can't even see that you're a skeleton, and you're scratched up, and you haven't slept or eaten, and that you're getting the shit beat out of you for enough money to buy more so you can do it all over again…? You don't see that?"
I didn't like what she was saying. I didn't like the way she was saying it.
I really didn't like that she was right.
"Neil, I know you don't want to do this. I know you're hurting. You don't remember, but you were a crying mess in my arms last night. You were just sobbing and sobbing until you crashed. You just cried and cried and cried until you fell asleep… Please, don't keep doing this to yourself. Please, please, please don't keep doing this. I love you, Neil, but I don't even know you anymore. I don't want to lose you. I don't want to feel like I've already lost you. Why do you keep doing this? Are you that addicted, Neil? I can take you to a clinic."
I closed my eyes, wanting to shut out what she was saying. She didn't understand. She didn't understand that some part of me was already lost, and I couldn't figure out where I'd put it anymore. Maybe it was back in Hutchinson… maybe it was clogging up that drain in Brighton Beach. I didn't know. I just didn't know.
"I can handle it…" I said, and it was so weak that even I didn't believe it.
"No, you can't, Neil… and that's okay. You shouldn't think you have to do everything by yourself. I want to help you, but you have to let me. There are so many people who…"
"Who what?" I asked, laughing, and it was low in my throat and bitter in sound and taste. "Who care about me? Fuck, Wendy, look around… You're conducting a fucking intervention, and the only one here is you."
I could feel her stiffen just from her gaze. I still wouldn't look at her.
"Wendy," I mumbled, staring at the floor, "have you ever looked at yourself in the mirror and thought, just for a second, that maybe you'd be better off dead?"
"No…"
"Yeah, well, me neither," I said, snagging a cigarette from the pack on the coffee table. "I don't like to look in the mirror anymore."
She sat there with her knees together, hands clutched tightly in her lap. She couldn't seem to come up with anything to say to that and instead just watched me light my cigarette.
…and I thought I'd give this cocaine-free lifestyle a try for a few days, not because I wanted Wendy to feel better, but because I deserved the misery I had coming my way from being sober.
I dug out where I'd stashed it, only vaguely remembering that I had done so, and glanced over at the wall where there was broken glass and handfuls of cash. "What the fuck is that all about?" I asked.
"I don't know…" she mumbled into her hands.
I extended the little bag to her, waving it in front of her, though it was definitely more tantalizing for me. "Here. Take it. That's all I got. You might want to take that money too."
She looked through the bag at me. "Are you serious?"
"Yeah, take it. Take it before I change my mind."
She did without hesitation… and then she dumped it in the toilet and flushed it down.
"Thank you… Neil…" she said.
"Don't thank me yet. You're about to hate me a whole lot more…"
I wasn't wrong. I was sure she was absolutely miserable by the end of the day. I was an absolute wreck. I seemed to forget that I deserved all the misery because by the time Wendy had gotten home, I was already begging her for money to go buy just a little. I needed it just so I could feel a little bit happier because fuck, I just felt so sick.
I was shaking and achy all over and I hated myself and everyone else but nothing else compared to how much I just wanted a little bit to sniff or rub on my gums or something… I just wanted to stop feeling.
I turned my room over twice looking for spare change, but I had already cleaned myself out. I was too tired to do it a third time, so I tried to sleep, but every time I shut my eyes I was back in that bathtub in Brighton Beach… but the man standing behind me, fucking himself into me without so much as a warning wasn't the same john from before. "HERE WE GO, SLUT!" he shouted in a familiar, familiar voice that I didn't want to hear.
I woke up with phantom pains all over and then remembered that I already ached everywhere. I barely made it to the bathroom before I puked until there was nothing, absolutely nothing left in me.
When I trudged back into my room, I realized that only about twenty minutes had passed since I tried to sleep off my cravings.
"Fuck!" I shouted, kicking the bedside table, sending my alarm clock crashing into the trash can.
I didn't have the strength to keep feeling angry. I collapsed onto the mattress face first and tried to sleep again, but this time I was in the kitchen with cereal raining down on me and the distant, familiar, familiar voice saying, "You liked it. It's okay that you liked it. Everything's going to be okay."
I woke up again screaming, "Liar! Call me your fucking angel?"
Sometime during the morning when Wendy had gone to work, I found myself lying awake, staring up at the ceiling that looked so much like his ceiling. I couldn't get rid of the nightmares. I couldn't get rid of the shakes and the pain. Worst of all, I couldn't get rid of that constant desire for coke. Just a little, and you'll be be fine, I kept hearing a voice say.
I realized the clock was still in the trashcan and grabbed for it. "Shit!" I shouted as a sharp pain cut into my finger. I lifted my hand to find a red line of blood slipping from the tip. It had been cut on a stray shard of glass that had been tossed into the bin, glass from that jar I had apparently thrown against the wall.
You deserve this.
I reached back inside the trashcan and grasped a larger piece of the glass, holding it gingerly in my palm. I could make out just a faint reflection of myself in it, and it filled me with disgust.
There was a sound of someone entering the apartment, but I was too distracted to care. I ghosted the glass point across the inside of my arm and then dug into the skin just enough to make it bleed, enjoying the way it made me forget about everything else. When I saw that redness, I didn't see anything else.
"Yo, McCormick, you here?" It wasn't Wendy's voice; that was for sure. It was a man's voice. I barely had time to turn my eyes to the door before it opened and for a split second I expected it to be him and another split second I thought it would be him, but it wasn't either of them.
It was Jay's roommate, the Sid Vicious wannabe. I stared blankly at him, and he stared blankly right back at my arm.
"What are you doing here?" I asked, voice weirdly soft.
"Wendy asked me and Jay to come check on you when we could. What the fuck are you doing?" he asked. When I just stared at him, he cursed and grabbed me by the arm, dragging me into the bathroom to wash the blood off. I clutched the piece of glass in my hand until it started to bleed as well, and he yelled at me and snagged the bloody piece of glass away.
I just stared at my arm under the faucet, tracing the scratched letters there with my eyes over and over and over again.
S
L
U
T
You deserve this.
Author: osaki_nana_707
Pairings/Characters: Brian, Eric, Neil, Wendy, OC Julian, EricxBrian
Rating: light R
Warnings:language, mentions of abuse, drug abuse, sexual situations
Summary: Brian's not through with Neil. Neil's not through destroying himself.
Read
Chapter 10
(Brian Lackey)
I woke up with a headache, unable to remember anything from the night before. I tasted wine and sushi on my lips along with the familiar taste of vomit, and as much as I thought that I enjoyed the sushi when I ate it, I was sincerely questioning if I would ever eat it again.
I groaned a little as the blood pulsed in my temples and pushed my face up against Eric's t-shirt. He was snoring somewhat loudly above the top of my head. It was probably the wine because he didn't normally snore that loud.
I risked opening my eyes, and thankfully one of us had remembered to shut the curtains. It must have been Eric, but I really couldn't remember.
I crawled out from under the sheets and shivered because the room was so cold by comparison. I was still in my clothes from the night before.
I found some Tylenol in Eric's bag since I'd forgotten to pack any, swallowed two pills, and hopped into the shower to try to get rid of my headache. Thankfully, after standing under the showerhead for twenty minutes, it started to fade. I dried off and dressed and started to shave and realized that I was humming… something… I couldn't remember the name of the song, but I was pretty sure it was on one of those tapes I'd bought Eric for Christmas. I didn't remember listening to it in the car, but my memory was still pretty fuzzy, and we'd probably listened to it the day before or so… maybe…
I tugged the map out of my suitcase, sitting on the edge of the bed, listening while Eric snored, half-suffocating himself in the pillow. We were behind schedule. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania was a nine to ten hour drive, and we'd have to make it today if we intended to get back on track. The good thing was that after that New York was only a short few hours away.
Actually, was it a good thing? I still wasn't sure what I would say to Neil… I didn't even want to make him hurt anymore. I didn't feel so fucking terrible anymore, and when I was with Eric, I didn't dream… well, I did… but I had his presence there to remind me that that was all it was, and it didn't frighten me so badly. I didn't know how it would be when I got back home and inevitably spent my nights alone, but frankly, I didn't want to think about that so I didn't.
Still… there was something keeping me from telling Eric that we should just go back and forget about it… Something, something was compelling me to go to New York. It was a nagging feeling in the back of my head. It felt like I needed to go to New York, more than I'd ever needed anything in my life, almost like my life depended on it… Well, no… not my life really… but… maybe someone else's life.
What did that mean?
I was beginning to feel that same feeling I'd had when I wanted to know what had happened to me… that constant, horrible wondering… and the slight fear of what I would find.
I leaned over and touched Eric's shoulder, shaking lightly. "Hey. Eric…"
He snorted, mumbled, and slowly blinked open the crust-filled eye that wasn't buried in the pillow. "What time's it?" he asked, voice heavy with sleep.
"Almost nine. We've got a long drive."
He mumbled again and lifted himself up, rubbing his eyes with his fist. "Need a shower," he mumbled, and then he gave me a weird little smile, like he knew something I didn't know. I didn't question him on it, figuring he would tell me later.
I went down to the hotel's continental breakfast and grabbed Eric and me some bagels and dry cereal in plastic bowls and went back up to find him digging through his duffel bag for a shirt. He had freckles on his shoulders, I noticed, and then I wondered why I was noticing.
"I see you're ready to go," I teased him.
"Running a little sluggish is all," Eric replied, and I could have sworn the tips of his ears turned pink. He yanked out a t-shirt that had been washed so many times that the band's logo had faded to the point of obscurity and pulled it over his head, sending some of his curls bouncing. "Just let me put on my face, and we can leave."
He went into the bathroom to doll himself up with all the ridiculous amounts of make-up, and maybe it was just me, but I was pretty sure he was humming the same song that I had been.
(Neil McCormick)
I woke up with a headache, unable to remember anything from the night before. I tasted blood and the familiar taste of cock on my lips, and it made the familiar taste of vomit touch the back of my throat.
I slowly lifted my head, but my vision swam, swirled, and dimmed for a second. I placed a palm against my temple and felt a bandage there. When had I banged my head?
Oh, yeah.
I remembered that part… the rest of it though was still a great big blur.
Wendy came out of the bathroom, tying her hair back, and she saw me sitting there and came rushing at me. Her hand didn't slap or punch like I'd expected but instead brushed against my cheek, thumb rubbing my cheekbone that I was sure was more pronounced as of lately. "How are you feeling?" she asked.
"Shitty," I said, blinking slowly.
"Is there anything I can get for you?" she asked, pushing my hair out of the way to check the wound on my head.
"Yeah… a gun and a bullet," I replied flatly. It was meant to be a joke, but as it came out of my mouth it felt eerily true.
"Don't joke about things like that."
"You don't have any sense of humor." I dropped my legs to the floor and leaned my elbows onto my knees, rubbing my face with my hands. "Where are my clothes?"
"You don't remember anything about last night," she said, raising her eyebrows.
I paused, trying to remember, but all I heard was this vague echo of bells. "Was I abducted by aliens?" I asked.
I started laughing hysterically, even though there was absolutely nothing funny about it. Nothing was funny about it at all. Nothing… but I kept laughing, laughing until my sides hurt and my stomach ached and I couldn't breathe and I could hardly see because I knew that if I didn't laugh then something much worse would come spilling out of me. What that was I didn't know, but I didn't want to know.
"What the fuck is the matter with you?" Wendy demanded, and her voice was strained and exhausted and I wondered if she had slept that night.
"I don't know. I don't know!" I was practically singing the phrase. "Nothing! Everything!"
"Oh, God, you really have lost it… I should have taken you to the hospital."
"That's where the aliens put the probe," I said, snickering as I pointed at my head wound. "I bet they're watching us right now. Like ghosts."
She made a face full of horror, and it struck a familiar chord with me for some reason I couldn't identify. My humor faded away. "I'm joking," I said because I really wasn't sure what I was doing. "My head is fine." Well, not anymore fucked up than before.
Why did I think that?
"You fucking dickhead," Wendy grumbled, crossing her arms over her chest. "I thought I'd lost you."
I stood, testing my footing. I managed to stay up, so that was good.
"Neil… I don't want to lose you, ever."
"Confessing your love?" I teased.
"Neil…"
Her voice sounded different. It sounded sad, weak, shaky… I didn't like it. I didn't want to turn around because I knew what I would see.
"Neil," she sobbed, and I felt my hands clench, "Neil, please… Please, stop snorting coke. Please, please, please stop. If you care about me even a little bit, please do this for me."
I sniffed and wiped my nose on my wrist. No blood this time.
"I never said-"
"I'm not fucking stupid, Neil. I know what you've been doing, and I hoped that you would get a clue, but I'm asking you… no, I'm begging you, Neil, please, please stop. You're killing yourself, and I can't keep watching you do that!"
"I…"
What was I supposed to say to that?
"Neil… take a look at yourself in the mirror. Take a good, long, hard look in the mirror and try to convince me that you're okay. You can't honestly say that, can you? Are you really that addicted, that you can't even see that you're a skeleton, and you're scratched up, and you haven't slept or eaten, and that you're getting the shit beat out of you for enough money to buy more so you can do it all over again…? You don't see that?"
I didn't like what she was saying. I didn't like the way she was saying it.
I really didn't like that she was right.
"Neil, I know you don't want to do this. I know you're hurting. You don't remember, but you were a crying mess in my arms last night. You were just sobbing and sobbing until you crashed. You just cried and cried and cried until you fell asleep… Please, don't keep doing this to yourself. Please, please, please don't keep doing this. I love you, Neil, but I don't even know you anymore. I don't want to lose you. I don't want to feel like I've already lost you. Why do you keep doing this? Are you that addicted, Neil? I can take you to a clinic."
I closed my eyes, wanting to shut out what she was saying. She didn't understand. She didn't understand that some part of me was already lost, and I couldn't figure out where I'd put it anymore. Maybe it was back in Hutchinson… maybe it was clogging up that drain in Brighton Beach. I didn't know. I just didn't know.
"I can handle it…" I said, and it was so weak that even I didn't believe it.
"No, you can't, Neil… and that's okay. You shouldn't think you have to do everything by yourself. I want to help you, but you have to let me. There are so many people who…"
"Who what?" I asked, laughing, and it was low in my throat and bitter in sound and taste. "Who care about me? Fuck, Wendy, look around… You're conducting a fucking intervention, and the only one here is you."
I could feel her stiffen just from her gaze. I still wouldn't look at her.
"Wendy," I mumbled, staring at the floor, "have you ever looked at yourself in the mirror and thought, just for a second, that maybe you'd be better off dead?"
"No…"
"Yeah, well, me neither," I said, snagging a cigarette from the pack on the coffee table. "I don't like to look in the mirror anymore."
She sat there with her knees together, hands clutched tightly in her lap. She couldn't seem to come up with anything to say to that and instead just watched me light my cigarette.
…and I thought I'd give this cocaine-free lifestyle a try for a few days, not because I wanted Wendy to feel better, but because I deserved the misery I had coming my way from being sober.
I dug out where I'd stashed it, only vaguely remembering that I had done so, and glanced over at the wall where there was broken glass and handfuls of cash. "What the fuck is that all about?" I asked.
"I don't know…" she mumbled into her hands.
I extended the little bag to her, waving it in front of her, though it was definitely more tantalizing for me. "Here. Take it. That's all I got. You might want to take that money too."
She looked through the bag at me. "Are you serious?"
"Yeah, take it. Take it before I change my mind."
She did without hesitation… and then she dumped it in the toilet and flushed it down.
"Thank you… Neil…" she said.
"Don't thank me yet. You're about to hate me a whole lot more…"
I wasn't wrong. I was sure she was absolutely miserable by the end of the day. I was an absolute wreck. I seemed to forget that I deserved all the misery because by the time Wendy had gotten home, I was already begging her for money to go buy just a little. I needed it just so I could feel a little bit happier because fuck, I just felt so sick.
I was shaking and achy all over and I hated myself and everyone else but nothing else compared to how much I just wanted a little bit to sniff or rub on my gums or something… I just wanted to stop feeling.
I turned my room over twice looking for spare change, but I had already cleaned myself out. I was too tired to do it a third time, so I tried to sleep, but every time I shut my eyes I was back in that bathtub in Brighton Beach… but the man standing behind me, fucking himself into me without so much as a warning wasn't the same john from before. "HERE WE GO, SLUT!" he shouted in a familiar, familiar voice that I didn't want to hear.
I woke up with phantom pains all over and then remembered that I already ached everywhere. I barely made it to the bathroom before I puked until there was nothing, absolutely nothing left in me.
When I trudged back into my room, I realized that only about twenty minutes had passed since I tried to sleep off my cravings.
"Fuck!" I shouted, kicking the bedside table, sending my alarm clock crashing into the trash can.
I didn't have the strength to keep feeling angry. I collapsed onto the mattress face first and tried to sleep again, but this time I was in the kitchen with cereal raining down on me and the distant, familiar, familiar voice saying, "You liked it. It's okay that you liked it. Everything's going to be okay."
I woke up again screaming, "Liar! Call me your fucking angel?"
Sometime during the morning when Wendy had gone to work, I found myself lying awake, staring up at the ceiling that looked so much like his ceiling. I couldn't get rid of the nightmares. I couldn't get rid of the shakes and the pain. Worst of all, I couldn't get rid of that constant desire for coke. Just a little, and you'll be be fine, I kept hearing a voice say.
I realized the clock was still in the trashcan and grabbed for it. "Shit!" I shouted as a sharp pain cut into my finger. I lifted my hand to find a red line of blood slipping from the tip. It had been cut on a stray shard of glass that had been tossed into the bin, glass from that jar I had apparently thrown against the wall.
You deserve this.
I reached back inside the trashcan and grasped a larger piece of the glass, holding it gingerly in my palm. I could make out just a faint reflection of myself in it, and it filled me with disgust.
There was a sound of someone entering the apartment, but I was too distracted to care. I ghosted the glass point across the inside of my arm and then dug into the skin just enough to make it bleed, enjoying the way it made me forget about everything else. When I saw that redness, I didn't see anything else.
"Yo, McCormick, you here?" It wasn't Wendy's voice; that was for sure. It was a man's voice. I barely had time to turn my eyes to the door before it opened and for a split second I expected it to be him and another split second I thought it would be him, but it wasn't either of them.
It was Jay's roommate, the Sid Vicious wannabe. I stared blankly at him, and he stared blankly right back at my arm.
"What are you doing here?" I asked, voice weirdly soft.
"Wendy asked me and Jay to come check on you when we could. What the fuck are you doing?" he asked. When I just stared at him, he cursed and grabbed me by the arm, dragging me into the bathroom to wash the blood off. I clutched the piece of glass in my hand until it started to bleed as well, and he yelled at me and snagged the bloody piece of glass away.
I just stared at my arm under the faucet, tracing the scratched letters there with my eyes over and over and over again.
S
L
U
T
You deserve this.