A dark, musty room, barely any light, the only light coming from the unopened curtain, he sits alone on the lounge, hunched over in a way that could only be described as ‘Depression’, his image right now was the dictionary definition of the word. A picture frame in his hands, he is crying over the girl sitting in the frame, around him were three bottles of Vodka, a suitcase also lay by his feet containing what he needs to go visit his baby boy, his young son who can’t even walk yet. I take a step forward and whisper his name, he responds only with a sniffle and a sad gasp; I froze in spot and stare up at my friend who had bought me here. There’s a look in his brown eyes as he stared back, one that told me he knew what happened and I whisper up to him about what I don’t know; he bends down and quietly fills me in on what I have missed, I can feel all the colour drain from my face as the sick images of him relapsing play in my head. The last time she did this to him, he ended up writing a beautiful suicide note and almost met his end. The time of sadness ended and instead my blood began to boil underneath the skin.
How dare she?
A soft, familiar hand wraps around my waist and pulls me close, his lips at my ear as he reminds me not to do anything stupid and to not bring her up at the moment. I shut my eyes and in my head, I count down from twenty in my head and let out a sigh, his hands leave my waist and he takes my hand as we both walk towards our sobbing friends on the lounge. Still holding my hand, my friend reached out and touched the sobbing boys hand as we both remind him that there was something bigger waiting for him.
“Give me a reason to live!” His voice shrieked at the both of us.
I froze and stared down at him, around me the world begin to blur as it hit me; this boy had been so broken, so ruined that he had no one to hold onto anymore and the tone in his voice made me believe that that he was actually hooping we could save him. I swallowed back as I remembered the pain because we’ve all been there, haven’t we? If not, you’re lucky and it’s only a matter of time until it happens. We’ve all found ourselves crying over someone we had and then lost. We all had that person who we loved more than ourselves and meant the world to us. That one special lover we’d do anything for; kill, die, live, triple backflip for, that someone who makes us want to drop down on our hands and knees and beg anything for. We all had that right amount of crazy love where we couldn’t even fathom the thought of being without them. But then, they leave and everything around you falls down, the world you made with them collapses and you are left underneath the rubble and debris. As we break away from the wreckage only one thing can save us and all it takes is the right amount of loneliness, the right amount of alcohol and any one of us can make the walk up the flight of stairs to the top and then to the edge so that we can step off to the world below and tumble down just to prove how much we love that person.
How frightening is that?
The daft things we did for love.
Sure people do weird things for love and I’m sure that the three of us sitting in the lounge room, whom all had tried to kill ourselves because of the person, we, so called, ‘loved’, weren’t the first group of people to kill out of passion. It’s weird isn’t it? Eerie almost just how much your mind, soul and heart could belong to another. But this time it wasn’t my heart being held against its will, it was his.
I wanted to articulate in one breath, every advantage for a heart to beat but I’m scared.
What if I couldn’t?
I began racking my brain, scrabbling for thoughts that could save him; what would you do if you were with me, if you were the one who held me and told me to calm down, if you were the one who was holding my hand and comforting your friend on the couch who was contemplating suicide? What would be the thoughts that could save him? What would be the thoughts that save me? My first thought went to my dad, he was standing there in front of me with a smile on his face and a pair of boxing gloves held out in front of him, ready for another afternoon of him watching me fight. I thought about all the things that made me happy, the little daft things that I loved and needed but it can’t be put into a sentence; music, bands, Edward Scissorhands, films, the movies, watching T.V while it rained outside, bubble wrap, singing into a fan; just all these small, crazy, lovely things. I begin to think about love, how it’s great to love things, loving life, loving love, loving the idea that I could have someone who adores me and who could cuddle me in the winter cold air, someone who could just love me for who I was. But it doesn’t end there, no, not at all, my mind begins to think about odd stuff to, you’re still on the topic of love and those moments when you see it unravel before your eyes, those moments when you see two old people holding hands in a park. You begin to think about weird stuff like shoving a heater down your pants to stay warm on a winter morning. My mind went to music and how the three of us had bonded over it, remembering the night underneath the stars when we duet an acoustic version of All I Want because we were all so down in the dumps and all broken and lost in the game of love. Music is possibly the best thing ever created by any human. The beat of whatever it is you prefer can make you move in ways that you never thought were possible; arms above the head waving around like an idiot, legs shaking like your legs are made of jelly or it can make you weep like the wife of a sailor, standing on a cliffs edge as you witness the un-survivable storm dancing on the horizon.
He sobbed again and I still have no idea what I could’ve said, I couldn’t say any of these things though, they were too odd, too peculiar, to random to save anybody’s life but you know what can. I swallowed back and placed my hand over the picture of the disgusting excuse for a human that he wanted so badly, I let go of my saviours hand and knelt down, reminding him that he didn’t need her. Behind me, feet shuffled and then there was emptiness, it didn’t last long though, thankfully, I don’t know how long I could stay with a broken best friend by myself.
“We can’t” Finally something was said; the words were harsh though but we were right; we couldn’t “But he can”
The empty space behind me was filled again, he reached over me and took the picture of the cruel teenage girl sitting in the sobbing boys hands, instead it was of a baby, his baby, his son.
Please save him Bradley.
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