Troubled Thoughts and the Self-Esteem to Match

Gabe

"Gabe?" I roll over in bed, to see him in his own bed, watching me. He's laying on his side, with his head propped up on his palm. I don't say anything. There's something in his eyes that tells me not to.
"We need to talk." He says, pushing off of his mattress and sauntering toward me in a strange promenade. His movements are fluid, graceful, and he seems to simply glide across the floor. It lasts no time though, and he's crawling onto my bed, on me. He sits on my chest, gazing down at me intently. An eery smile is perched on his lips as he scrutinizes me expression.

"Gabey, you hurt me." The bandages around his wrists disappear, and he shows me the circus of scars on his arms, along with fresh ones. "You made me do this." He adds in almost a whisper. I'm sickened, but can't take my eyes away from his arms. "You hurt me so bad, again. You led me to hurting myself." He continues, but as he says this, he sinks lower, until our faces are unbelievably close. He smiles as his eyes land on my lips.
"Your fault, Gabe."
His voice is below a whisper, so that it sounds more like it's my own mind saying it than him. I blink, and when I open my eyes, a small handgun is poised in his hand. He points it at my face.
"You're terrible, and what I'm about to do is your fault too."
He twists his arm behind his head, in a way that it shouldn't be able to move. When I realize what he's doing, I begin to scream, and reach for the gun, but I'm too slow.

He pulls the trigger, and the bullet bursts through his head. Blood sprays across my face. His brains are blown all over me, and I'm screaming my lungs out.

My nightmare seemed to reach reality as I jerked awake, screaming like I was in my dream. I began clawing at my face. I still felt his brains on my skin, tasted his blood in my mouth. I couldn't shake the sensation, and my stomach flipped. I dove from my bed, lurching to get to the trashcan by the door. My dinner was coming back up, and, with one violent wretch, I was vomiting.

I thought I heard my name, but I wasn't sure. All I could really hear was me gagging up all of the contents in my stomach.
I flinched when I felt a hand press to my back. The sick sensation left me then, leaving me crouched over the trashcan, heaving.
"Gabe, are you alright? You scared the hell out of me when you screamed." Bill's voice was soothing to hear, but as soon as he spoke them, he was pulling the door open and hurrying out into the hall. He returned with toilet paper, handing it to me and kneeling back beside me.
I wiped my mouth with it before tossing it in the trash can. I took him by surprise when I turned, lunging at him to wrap my arms around him in an iron grip.

My fingers instantly laced into his hair, searching for a bullet hole. There were none though.
"Gabe, what's wrong?" He questioned, his voice teeming with worry. He tried to push himself back to arms-length to examine me, but I held tighter, not willing to let go.
"You-..You killed yourself because of me." I finally forced myself to answer, which came out as a raspy croak. "What?"
He finally managed to pull himself back enough to stare into my eyes. I didn't like the connection, so I let my gaze avert to the door to his right, which was cracked open enough to let a bit of light shine through, refracting across the profile of his face.

"Nightmare... You- you blew your fucking brains out on me!" My voice steadily elevated as I said this, reaching almost a yell by the time I finished the sentence. He looked almost like he didn't comprehend what I had said for several seconds, before finally stammering "But Gabe, it didn't really hap-p-pen. It was just a dream." I nodded wearily, plopping down on the floor to wipe the beads of sweat off of my face.
"I know it was, but it didn't feel like a damn dream." I shivered, rubbing at my arms. "It feels like your fucking brains are really all over me right now, and it won't stop." I felt like I might puke again just mentioning the fake sensation of someone's most precious organ splattered across my body, but gulped it down in refusal.
"Don't give me that look." I growled when I noticed his Bambi eyes locked onto me, agitated that I even told him about the damn nightmare at all. I stood up unsteadily, wobbling from the light-headed feeling that drummed at my temples, almost falling before I could even reach my bed.

"Just go back to sleep; It's no big deal." I grumbled when my head hit my pillow, a headache now beginning to dance through the back of my skull. I fought the covers out from under my body to pull them over myself, listening. He was still kneeled down in the same spot. "But-"
I didn't give him time to say anything more before sternly repeating "Go back to sleep. It was nothing." I listened to him stand and walk across the floor, but cringed when he didn't climb into his bed. Instead, weight shifted on my mattress as he placed himself by my feet. I twisted my upper body around so that I could glare at him, almost snapping "What?"
He looked a tiny bit wounded by the sharpness to my tone, but persisted nonetheless. "You were just literally sick by a dream. I'm not just going to go back to sleep like it wasn't a big deal, because it is."

We split a double sided frown for an un-accounted time, but he wasn't going to give up, so I sat back up, sighing as frustratedly as I could as I did so. "It isn't a big deal. I have dreams like that all the time; it just so happens that you hurting yourself last night didn't help the ordeal, okay?" Oops. That sounded a bit more harsh than it was supposed to, and a pang of hurt flashed across his face, but he quickly controlled it. "Tell me about the dream." He instructed, causing a second sigh to tumble over my lips.
"What's there to tell you? All that happened was you said stuff like," I unintentionally rose my voice to mock what he'd said in the dream, "Gabe, this is your fault.' and, 'You led me to do this'. Then, you blew your brains out on me." I gave the quickest description I could, before huffing "See? Nothing to it."
I honestly just wanted to go back to sleep and forget everything, but he wasn't going to let me. He just had to be typical William.
"Gabe, you know what I did wasn't your fault." He offered, placing a freezing hand on the back of my shoulder blade. The touch was way too cold for my liking, causing me to shrug his palm away.
"Sure it wasn't." I jeered sarcastically, turning back around so that I had my back to him. "Just go to sleep now, okay? I told you, and I have a headache, so I just want sleep."

I figured the hostility would chase him off, but to my misfortune, it didn't. Doing the complete opposite of what I expected, he crawled over me, squeezing in between me and the wall. "What are you doing?" I practically whined, being forced to scoot over so that we were both on the tiny bed. "I'm sleeping here since you won't cooperate." He insisted adamantly, stealing some of my blanket. I was honestly dumbfounded for several seconds by his odd reasoning with himself. So, he thought that this would get me to talk?
"Okay, but you can't blame me if I stink you out. I tend to get gassy around this time." I warned, watching his upper lip curl up in disgust at the thought.
"S-so? I can deal with it." He pretended to be unphased, but it was painfully obvious that he wasn't. "Oh, and my snoring is louder than usual because I'm congested, so careful with that too." I fought to suppress a laugh at the dread on his face, but he still made no move to migrate back to his own bed.

"Can't be any worse right here than it is from my bed." He shot back, the doubt of his own words lacing his voice. I felt a quick shiver jolt his body, so, just to discourage him from this dumb idea even more, I tossed my arm around him. "Is Guillermo cold? Cause Gabanti can warm him up." I wiggled my eyebrows in his direction along with the innuendo, the grimace that creased his face almost ripping a hysterical laugh from my throat.
"Um..." He hesitated, attempting to inch closer to the wall, though he was already pressed flush against it. "No Thanks..You can tell me more about this dream though."
Typical of him. I rolled my eyes in the most dramatic extent possible; leave it to him to ruin my fun like that. "No Dammit! It was a fucking dream. Forget about it."
The raise in my tone caused him to flinch, much like a small child being scolded for something he didn't do, and though it was dark in the room, I could clearly see the hurt in his face. I fucking hated when that look scriptured his face, especially knowing I caused it.
"Is there any chance that you're Bip-polar?" He mustered the strength to jeer, rolling over so that his back was to me and his face was to the wall. Damn.
Why did I always piss people off, or hurt them? It was like no matter what I did or tried, it still ended with me getting on someone's nerves. I mean, I had just been trying to help him this past week, and what did it cause? Him hurting himself.

I didn't like him falling asleep hurt by me, not after the extent of what I caused last night. "Guillermo.." I whispered over his shoulder, prodding his ribs through the thick fabric of his jacket. I watched the rise and fall of the profile of his body for several seconds before he finally decided to acknowledge me. "What, Gabe?" Though his voice was stiff, I knew that he couldn't be too pissed of, otherwise he would have just ignored me completely.
"How did the rest of the group react to...Well, you know.." I inquired, genuinely curious as to know, considering I'd spent the day hulled up in here, mentally beating myself up for the mess I'd caused.
Me asking this surprised him, he forgetting about being angry to roll back over, facing me again. It showed on his face that he was wagering if he should tell me or not.

"Well, I don't know how they knew, but Travis was like..." He trailed off as he fought a hand out from under the cover to brush the long curls of his hair from his face, smoothing them to his jawline instead of simply tucking them behind his ear.
"Trav kept hugging me and telling me stuff like 'you know I love you, right buddy?' and 'I'm here for you whenever you need me.' "
This flustered him, the next syllable he tried to speak skipping on his tongue like a scratched CD. "And Brendon told me 'Every little thing's gonna be okay'." I nodded, muttering "Leave it to Brendon to quote Bob Marley.
"Did the others do anything?" I then hurried to question, wanting to keep the conversation flowing this way so that he might forget about my nightmare that had woke both of us.

"Well....Danny told me that you two got into a fight over it.." He made himself busy by gnawing at his knuckle, keeping his gaze averted to somewhere indistinct. "I was wondering why you two were beat up looking."
I blinked at this, feeling stupid because I'd actually somehow forgotten about the fight. I'd ran my fingers across my jaw earlier that day, finding a large, sore lump there, but didn't remember that he'd punched me there. "You had a bruised there earlier, when we were at the shower room, I noticed it, but didn't say anything." He continued, noticing me running a finger over the bump again. It was a large knot, very sore to the touch. "Did I do any noticeable damage to him?" I queried, feeling even more like shit for actually punching Danny like I did. I remembered the blood oozing from his nose with a silent gag, hoping it was nothing.
"You busted his nose pretty bad." He answered, before adding "It's bruised up pretty bad...Like your jaw."

This made me want to kick myself in the nuts, but instead I nuzzled my face into my pillow to let out a loud, frustrated groan.
"I wish I could just go back about two days and keep this from ever happening." I wasn't certain if he understood what I said through the pillow, but regardless, he snuggled close, shivering.
"Why is it so cold?" I twisted my head just enough to see him over the pillow, retorting "No complaining about it being cold, because I already offered to warm you up." His nose crinkled up at the suggestion, but it quickly melted away to a yawn.
Watching him, a thought struck me that I couldn't shake. He was gay. He was? It shouldn't have dismayed me, but it did because this meant I was the only one in the block that wasn't gay. And here I was sharing a bed with him.
Did that make it like he was cheating on Chislett? Because we were curled up under my blanket together, did that suddenly make it different than if he wasn't gay?
"Why Chislett?" I blurted out without meaning to. This automatically troubled him, me asking something like this, but I couldn't help it. I didn't like Chislett, so why the hell did he decide to go gay for someone like him?
"Huh?" He grew shy again, like he was going to crawl back into his shell, but I wouldn't allow it until I got a good answer.

"You denied being gay since you came here, but then you're caught kissing another guy. What changed that?" I pressed almost barbarically, the question consuming my mind so that I considered every answer he might give me in the span of maybe two seconds. "I-I...I don't know. I'm not gay...I'm just testing myself." My brain hadn't thought that one up, and the answer was completely contradictory. Obviously, if he was with another guy, that meant he was gay, or bisexual.
"What brought it on in the first place though?" I continued, squeezing every bit of information I could get out of him, even if he was terribly uncomfortable.
"Well..W-when we were p-practicing the other day....He kind of...k-kissed me.." His voice had dipped down to such a quiet whisper, I had to strain to hear him. "And..I liked it..It made me feel worth something..So, when he said that he thought we should at least give it a try, I agreed."

It would be a lie to say I wasn't shocked by the things I'd just been told. "So basically what you're saying is that it didn't matter who it could have been? That you would have said yes to anybody?" I fought to keep my voice clear of any sharpness, just the thought of this 'Chizzy' pissing me off. What business did he have taking advantage of someone as naive as William?
"No." He growled back, picking at the fresh bandages on his freshly cut up arms. This reminded me that it had been my fault, just because I had gotten pissed off about Chizzy in the first place, so I couldn't let it get to me now.
"Hey. Your choice." I forced myself to say through gritted teeth, ready to go back to sleep. I leaned up just enough to scoot my pillow closer to the middle of the bed, so that we could share it; he didn't act like he was going anywhere soon, so why not?
"Sleep, Chico. It's way past your bedtime."

Wearily, he lowered his head onto his half of the pillow I offered him, watching me as if waiting for me to snap something crude, but I didn't. I plopped down to pull the cover to my chin, it doing the same on him. "Buenos noches, Guillermo." I breathed out, able to stare straight ahead directly into his big eyes. They were hindered by what seemed like either worry, or uncertainty, but over what, I hadn't the slightest clue.
"Night.." He uttered like he was just as sleepy, curling his arms up in front of him as if for warmth. I didn't see how he was so cold in a jacket; I didn't even have a shirt on, and I wasn't cold.
"Don't dream dirty things about me." I joked softly, making sure to wrap the conversation up on a lighter note so that it wouldn't stay wide open, unfinished. However, my own words disgusted me. We were sharing my bed like this, but he would probably be dreaming about Chislett.