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“And remember, for as much as the physical world tries to keep us chained…” He steps toward me once more, and lifts a hand, coasting a gloved finger down my temple. I hold myself utterly and completely still. “In here, we are limitless.” His gaze bores into me, and I’m helpless to look away. “And we always find ways to…satisfy what we cannot have.”
He was just a crazy old man. Lonely too, maybe. And sure, he looked at me like…like…he liked what he saw, but he didn’t do anything. Are you sure he wouldn’t have though, if you weren’t interrupted? I shake away the thought. No, I’m just looking for something that’s not there. Like I always do.
Despite the Xanax working through my system, I feel restless still—like that feeling you get when you’ve forgotten something, but can’t remember anything about what it is that you’ve forgotten.
Dreams nip at my consciousness, luring me into oblivion with flashes of color—Spider-Man swinging from rooftop to rooftop… Little do I know as I fall into oblivion that those movie plans will never come to fruition. That I’ll never even watch it, because it’ll forever be tainted by this night.
That tonight was the last normal, somewhat peaceful night I’d have for years and years to come…
They say when tragedy strikes, you remember every little surrounding detail. What you were doing. What you were eating. What you said last. What you were watching. And the detail that will stand o...
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The funny thing about moments where your world comes crashing down around you… Is that you have no idea that that’s what’s happening.
One day, I’ll look back on this moment—these first twenty-four hours, this first week, this first month…. And I’ll think: Fuck, man. You had no idea.
In my mind, images flash. A small hand splayed against a rain-speckled window. Red headlights disappearing into a gray oblivion. Hazel eyes surrounded in bruises. And, lastly, it’s an image of Jeremy, bent over in boxer briefs…. And I want to fucking throw up.
I stare at the tiled floor… And I barter with every deity or demon who might be listening, that Ray’s words of assurance aren’t a lie. Yet somehow already knowing… Nothing will ever be the same.
Death… It wasn’t something I really thought about before. Not really. I knew it could take people away from me, but I didn’t know it could take me, a kid. Nor did I know where it would take me. I never thought to ask. I just knew it was somewhere far, far away; somewhere you couldn’t come back from.
I didn’t want that blackness to come for her. Take me, take me, but not her, never her, I begged silently.
My heart thumps heavily in my chest, and what little life I felt moments ago, fizzles just as quick as it came. I don’t even call it numbness anymore. Numbness is supposed to be fleeting. There’s supposed to be an end in sight.
He’s beautiful, even when he’s at his ugliest—a husk of the person I once knew. Barely even recognizable these days, and yet my soul still aches for him, always. More now than it ever has.
“Don’t go… please… angel.”
If it brought back my sister, I’d take that bullet in a heartbeat.
Vodka. Pills. A blade. It’s all the same. Just different roads to the same destination: peace.
The silence is heavy, but not awkward. Just…heavy. Suffocating. But at least with him here, I can almost bear it.
“I’m sorry,” I choke out. His eyes are squeezed shut, and he’s cradling his stomach. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I chant, the words running all together. My hands hover around him, fingers clawing at the air. My voice breaks, but I don’t cry. “I’m sorry.” He lifts his head, reddened eyes meeting mine. He’s panting, lips parted and damp. “I’m sorry,” I rasp.
Staring at one another, stripped down to the bone, with nothing but crushed cornfields, icy mist slamming into our faces, an endless black night bearing down on us… And the wasteland that is all of what we once were, stretched out between us.
If there’s a way out of this hell, would we even take it at this point?
“It’s your birthday.” I nod. “It’s your birthday,” he says again, more desperately this time, and his hand trembles, the chain swinging. He doesn’t say it, but I hear it nonetheless, woven within each pained syllable: Too. It’s your birthday too.
He hasn’t touched the piano in six months. Hasn’t written any new lyrics, or touched any instrument, for that matter. If it was up to him, I think he’d ban music completely. He doesn’t even listen anymore.
The world won’t stop for Izzy, but ours sure has.
I’ve got the boy of my dreams in my bed, and all I want to do is crawl into a hole and die.
Why I thought I could get away from…this…I have no idea. Why I even wanted to… Well that’s a lot more complicated. And most fucked up of all, when I turn around and find the lump that is Mason buried under my covers, hidden mostly in shadows, waiting for me to join him… I feel relieved.
We’re clothed, and yet I never feel so naked as I do as when I’m in Mason’s arms.
“Do you still feel her?” And with nothing but plastic stars and planets as my witnesses, in the arms of the boy I love and who I’ll never have—not now, and not ever—I let the lie fall easily from my lips. “Yes.”
At least when I black out, I can forget for a bit. Manage some semblance of peace. Find solace in the blinding headaches and churning nausea when I wake—a much needed balm to the agony of having to remember all over again.
“When I wake up, I forget…makes me not wanna wake up at all.” A small, choked noise escapes him. “Same.” “But at least when I’m drunk—” “We don’t dream,” he finished in a whisper.
One person who has me in a fucking chokehold, keeping me from falling into that dark, bottomless pit I’ve been dangling over for what feels like a century, rather than just eight months. And yet, for some reason, the particular brand of torture that comes with being near Jeremy Montgomery, is one I welcome willingly. Seeking it out. Craving it like it’s just another flask, filled to the brim with liquid fire I can asphyxiate on. Blaze my insides. Burn it all into ash.
He’s a noose I’d dangle from in strangled, agonized hellfire for eternity.
“I don’t belong here. I feel like I…” “Like you what?” “Like because she couldn’t be here, I had to take her place.”
She’s fucking alive out there, somewhere, clinging to the memories of us and home, just as desperately as we cling to her and the hope that she’ll be returned to us.
“I shouldn’t be here.”
“God, there’s so much worse shit going on, and here I am having a pity party because I will never have that,” he says roughly, flinging a hand in the direction of the gym. “I will never…never have that, but Izzy could have. She should be here. With you, and—” I’m shaking my head, but I don’t know why. Just that he’s wrong. He’s wrong.
“I’m gay, and it means nothing. They were all right about me, and none of it means anything now.”
I ache and I ache, and yet, when I turn my head just so, silky golden blond hair flutters up against my nose with my inhale, settling me some. Reorienting my senses—my entire being—grounding me to this moment, and this moment only.
“Everything will go back to the way it was, but it’ll be better this time. Better because we…we know now, what it’s like to lose it all. We’ll never take things for granted again. We’re gonna chase our dreams. We’re gonna be brave. Nothing will hold us back from living the life we want.”
“And then someday, there will be this guy, and he’s gonna come along and-and push all the right buttons. You’re gonna fight it. Be stubborn as always. But fuck, he’s gonna fall so hard. And you’re gonna fall so hard right back, because…because he won’t give up. He’ll never rest until you let him in.”
“This boy—this man… he’s gonna treat you the way you deserve, better than you think you deserve. He’s gonna give you the world even when you insist you don’t want it. Because as low maintenance as you try to be…” I say roughly, a low chuckle threading my words, “you’re not.” A startled laugh croaks out of him, scraping hotly over my neck “And you shouldn’t be. You should have ridiculous standards and expectations, and settle for nothing less than everything.”
“And he’s gonna be the luckiest man in the world, whoever he is. Because…you don’t let people in easily. You don’t love freely. So to have that…” I swallow. “To have that…”
Jeremy pulls back just enough to crane his head back, and meet my gaze. And there’s…there’s something there. Something important. It shines back from rippling pools of amber, stealing whatever I was trying to say, stealing my damn breath.
“Mase…” he murmurs, his forehead creasing. “You’re gonna be happy,” I say near-soundlessly, boring my gaze into his. His face blurs, and I’m vaguely aware of my jaw trembling, and the wetness streaking down my cheek. “You’re gonna be so happy. And you hold on tight to...
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Sometimes he feels bigger. His presence. His being. My awareness of him…
Perhaps that is why I continue to burn and burn for him. Because in these brief moments of reprieve, like now, where just for a second, the noose loosens, the flames retreat just enough for the smoke to clear, and gravity no longer feels like a curse but a relief… I can remember what it’s like to breathe freely again.
Sometimes I leave just so she’ll remember I’m here.
Please come back… I don’t know how to do this without you
Yeah, we were only thirteen. But I loved her. In all the ways I was capable of at that age, I fucking loved her. She was my girl. My frizzy-haired, firecracker of a girl with a heart of fucking gold.
can’t give up on her. I won’t. Not ever. Not until I have no choice. Not until I see her lifeless body with my own two eyes, and there’s no room left for doubt or denial.
