When It Hurts
Parts 16-20
Part Sixteen
She’s waiting, arms crossed, half in tears and half screaming when she sees me. After a quick look over to make sure I’m not bleeding and a quick hug to make her feel better, she steps back. She crosses her arms again and I feel even more like shit. I didn’t want to make my mom worry.
“Where the hell were you? And don’t you dare try and tell me Mike’s. He already tried to cover for you and failed miserably.”
I almost smile at that, picturing Mike stammering and trying to cover up his mistake, half worried I’ll be pissed and half pissed that he needs to worry why he’s lying. “I’m sorry.” I mumble instead, looking at my shoes.
“Look at me, Billie Joe.” Mom says, almost snaps. “Look at me.”
It takes me a second to realize why she’s so desperate for me to as I look up at her. Then I realize she’s looking at my eyes to make sure I’m not stoned. “Where were you at one in the morning, Billie?” she asks softly, almost scared.
“I forgot about the time.” I tell her. “I’m sorry, okay?”
“Where were you?”
At some old, decaying park that will probably give me tetanus someday. My nose stings and I don’t want to cry so I do the only other thing I can . . . get pissed. “Look, I wasn’t fucking shooting up and I wasn’t drinking. I wasn’t holding up a bank or hanging out with some hooker in an alley. So just let it go, all right!”
She looks like I slapped her and I hate myself. But she takes a quick breath and puts on her pretend face, that one that means she wants to act like I didn’t just cut her. “I’m your mother, Billie. I worry.”
“Well, don’t.” I say bluntly and hating myself for every word. “I’m fine. No gang tattoos, no heroin, no knocked up teenage mother running around, no guy in a bar with a broken nose. I’m fine, Mom.” And I walk past her and to my room before she can say anything else, lighting a cigarette and locking the door.
I never wanted to be this. I never wanted to hurt anyone. I don’t want to make my mom cry and I don’t want Mike to have to be weird around me because I can’t fucking get over some shit that happened two years ago.
It’s not supposed to be this fucking hard.
I put my cigarette out and crawl into bed, burying my face in my pillow and crying. I feel like shit. I hurt everywhere, inside and out. I want to scratch my face off. I want to run as far away as I can and then run even farther. I want to be able to forget.
I. Just. Fucking. Hurt.
I pull the blanket up over my head, hoping the combination of my tears and the pillow muffling my sobs will smother me to death.
Because if I hurt this fucking much I shouldn’t be thinking about doing it again.
Part Seventeen
“You wanna talk about it?” Mike asks as we walk to school the next day. When I shake my hand he just sighs and hands me a cigarette. “You never do.”
“You don’t want to know.” I mutter, lighting the cancer stick and inhaling.
For some reason, Mike snaps. He grabs me by the neck of my shirt and throws me against the side of the brick building we’re walking past. I wince, more at the look on his face than the pain in my shoulders. “If I didn’t want to know I wouldn’t ask.”
“I don’t want you to know.” I say in a small voice.
He lets go of me, picking up the cigarette he dropped and lighting it again. “Then say that. Don’t fucking give me this shit about me not wanting to know. I want you to get the fuck over it, Billie Joe, but you’re never gonna be able to if you won’t tell me what happened.”
“I did tell you!” I protest. “You’re the only one I told.”
“What about the rest of it?” Mike demands. I don’t like this. I don’t like that he knows there’s more. I don’t like that he knows me so well, that he wants me to talk. I can’t even put it into words. Sometimes I feel like I’m a victim and sometimes I feel like a slut.
“I’m trying to forget.”
He glares at me. “Sometimes I don’t think you are.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” I snap.
“You’ve had it stuck in your head for two fucking years, Billie Joe. Are you even trying to let go of it?”
My bottom lip trembles but I refuse to cry. I want to hate him for this, but I can’t. He’s my best friend. I was a kid. I was just a fucking kid and all it took were a few drunken kisses to strip me of every ounce of innocence I had, which was actually a fuck of a lot considering all the stuff I’d done. And then my mother says I’m a good kid and I just feel like there’s a fucking black streak across my face that she’s somehow missing.
I want to go back … I want to remember what it was like to be a kid.
I don’t want to have to fall asleep every night thinking about exactly what I did in his bed, every single fucking detail. How much of a whore I was.
Bringing my legs up around his waist while we were kissing. Pulling him back down every time he pulled away. Slipping my hand inside his jeans when he asked without a qualm despite the few teasing times I had said ‘no’ before. Telling him to get on his back. He didn’t even fucking have to ask about that one. His hand leading mine to it, his hand on the back of my head. Him laughing when I gagged. Closing my eyes so I couldn’t see.
Walking up to my house after and the sudden rush of tears.
I don’t want to think about it when I fall asleep. I don’t want to feel guilty when I jack off, ashamed that occasionally I can still feel turned on.
I don’t want to admit that sometimes his face grows blurry in my mind and I could barely remember what he looked like until I saw him in the club for those few seconds. And how for a brief moment I considered rushing after him and repeating the very sin that has me locked in this fucking life sentence.
I don’t want Mike to know how fucked up I am, how I have a broken record in my head, how I’m a slut, how I still feel dirty, how I cry myself to sleep, how I know he’ll never want me because I’m reeking of sin.
So I just take another drag on my cigarette and keep walking, hearing him curse before he catches up with me.
Two blocks from the school he takes my hand and we walk the rest of the way in silence.
Part Eighteen
“Mike?” We’re sitting on the floor of his bedroom, smoking and eating stale potato chips because we’re half drunk and can’t find the expiration date on the bag.
“Yeah?” He lights another cigarette and looks at me, exhaling.
“Do you think . . .” I hesitate, not sure if I should ask the question, but the beer got the better of me. “Do you think anyone could ever love me?”
“Yes.” Mike says without a second’s hesitation. “And no.”
“Huh?”
“You won’t let people love you, Billie Joe.” Mike says, leaning forward and taking the cigarette from my trembling hands before I drop it on the floor. “You think you’re shit and you won’t let anyone get close to you.”
“I let you get close to me.” I murmur.
“You’re fucking blind.” Mike says, taking a drag off my cigarette before setting it in the ashtray and continuing to smoke his. When I reach for mine, he hits my hand away. “You’re so fucking stupid, Billie. You don’t see anything, you don’t know anything. You’re just stuck inside your head and you can’t see what other people see.”
“What’s that?” I reach for my cigarette again and he sighs, letting me take it. My hands aren’t shaking as bad.
Mike reaches across the space between us and lifts my chin up so I’m look straight into his crystal blue eyes. They’re like raindrops. The kind you go dance in.
“What do you see, Billie?”
“I see you.”
“No. What do you see?”
“Mike Dirnt? What the fuck kind of—“
“What do you fucking see, Billie?” Mike snaps.
“I see you!” I yell back, confused. “Mike Dirnt, bass player, my best friend, freak.”
He lets go of me and leans back, sighing again. I think his eyes are shining. I lean forward, looking upset. I don’t know what I’m going to do, hug him maybe. Touch his shoulder.
But he just puts his hand on my chest and pushes me back. I turn my head and take a drag off of my cigarette, trying not to let him see my lips tremble.
“I see mistakes.” Mike says softly. “Regret. Fear.”
I turn and look at him as a tear slides down my cheek. “I see an angel.”
Part Nineteen
It's always hard for me to sleep in the same bed as Mike, but I manage. I know Mike wouldn't hurt me. Which is why my first thought when I feel an arm snake around my waist is that someone broke into the house.
But somehow, despite the fact that I've never been in this position before, when he pulls me backward against his body . . . I know it's Mike. "Y-You're drunk." I stammer.
"So're you by the sound of it." Mike whispers back.
"You're gonna rape me, aren't you?"
Mike chokes on his laughter. "Of course I'm not, you freak." He pulls his arm away from me, moving over top me and falling down on the other side of me. He moves a hand to the back of my neck, letting his fingers play against my skin.
"I'm just going to kiss you." he promises in a whisper. "Hope you get caught up in the moment."
My eyes widen and my bottom lip trembles. "Mike--"
"You know me, Billie Joe. I'd never hurt you."
And then I feel his lips press against mine and I return the kiss without hesitation, half hating myself and half loving every moment of this, every inch of him pressed against me.
Part Twenty
I push him away suddenly and he stares at me with that sad look again and I feel even worse. And confused. Did he kiss me to make me feel better or did he kiss me because he . . . could he have wanted to? Could anyone want me like that?
"Billie?" I open my eyes. I hadn't even realized they were closed. "Am I dirty?"
I shake my head. "No." I say, desperate to prove it. "H-How could you be? You're not like me. You're not a--"
He presses the fingers on his hand gently against my moving lips. "Then how come I make you feel so dirty?"
"B-Because . . . because . . ." I'm running around in my brain trying to figure out the answer. "Because I'm making you dirty."
"But you just said I wasn't dirty." Mike's hand moves to the back of my neck again as he rests his forehead against mine. "Sometimes I think you make up how badly this makes you feel."
"I--"
"But then I remember that I know you better than anyone. And no one could pretend to hurt that long." He kisses my lips real soft and gives me a small smile. "But it's been so long, Billie. Don't you feel better at all? Even a little?"
When you kissed me I did. My face reddens, but whether because of anger or embarrassment I don't know.
"It's okay to want things." Mike says quietly.
"No."
I let my head fall against his chest and I feel him kiss the top of my head and wrap his arms around me as if I were a baby. As if I were as young as I want to be.
"Well, it doesn't have to be tonight." he whispers to no one.
Someone might think he's saying it to me, but he's not. He's whispering to that person who's always there to listen to everything we don't say to anyone, but more to hear ourselves talk than anything. Sometimes you have to say things out loud just to convince yourself that it wasn't part of a conversation between two strangers you heard on the street.
That's why we whisper to No One.
She’s waiting, arms crossed, half in tears and half screaming when she sees me. After a quick look over to make sure I’m not bleeding and a quick hug to make her feel better, she steps back. She crosses her arms again and I feel even more like shit. I didn’t want to make my mom worry.
“Where the hell were you? And don’t you dare try and tell me Mike’s. He already tried to cover for you and failed miserably.”
I almost smile at that, picturing Mike stammering and trying to cover up his mistake, half worried I’ll be pissed and half pissed that he needs to worry why he’s lying. “I’m sorry.” I mumble instead, looking at my shoes.
“Look at me, Billie Joe.” Mom says, almost snaps. “Look at me.”
It takes me a second to realize why she’s so desperate for me to as I look up at her. Then I realize she’s looking at my eyes to make sure I’m not stoned. “Where were you at one in the morning, Billie?” she asks softly, almost scared.
“I forgot about the time.” I tell her. “I’m sorry, okay?”
“Where were you?”
At some old, decaying park that will probably give me tetanus someday. My nose stings and I don’t want to cry so I do the only other thing I can . . . get pissed. “Look, I wasn’t fucking shooting up and I wasn’t drinking. I wasn’t holding up a bank or hanging out with some hooker in an alley. So just let it go, all right!”
She looks like I slapped her and I hate myself. But she takes a quick breath and puts on her pretend face, that one that means she wants to act like I didn’t just cut her. “I’m your mother, Billie. I worry.”
“Well, don’t.” I say bluntly and hating myself for every word. “I’m fine. No gang tattoos, no heroin, no knocked up teenage mother running around, no guy in a bar with a broken nose. I’m fine, Mom.” And I walk past her and to my room before she can say anything else, lighting a cigarette and locking the door.
I never wanted to be this. I never wanted to hurt anyone. I don’t want to make my mom cry and I don’t want Mike to have to be weird around me because I can’t fucking get over some shit that happened two years ago.
It’s not supposed to be this fucking hard.
I put my cigarette out and crawl into bed, burying my face in my pillow and crying. I feel like shit. I hurt everywhere, inside and out. I want to scratch my face off. I want to run as far away as I can and then run even farther. I want to be able to forget.
I. Just. Fucking. Hurt.
I pull the blanket up over my head, hoping the combination of my tears and the pillow muffling my sobs will smother me to death.
Because if I hurt this fucking much I shouldn’t be thinking about doing it again.
Part Seventeen
“You wanna talk about it?” Mike asks as we walk to school the next day. When I shake my hand he just sighs and hands me a cigarette. “You never do.”
“You don’t want to know.” I mutter, lighting the cancer stick and inhaling.
For some reason, Mike snaps. He grabs me by the neck of my shirt and throws me against the side of the brick building we’re walking past. I wince, more at the look on his face than the pain in my shoulders. “If I didn’t want to know I wouldn’t ask.”
“I don’t want you to know.” I say in a small voice.
He lets go of me, picking up the cigarette he dropped and lighting it again. “Then say that. Don’t fucking give me this shit about me not wanting to know. I want you to get the fuck over it, Billie Joe, but you’re never gonna be able to if you won’t tell me what happened.”
“I did tell you!” I protest. “You’re the only one I told.”
“What about the rest of it?” Mike demands. I don’t like this. I don’t like that he knows there’s more. I don’t like that he knows me so well, that he wants me to talk. I can’t even put it into words. Sometimes I feel like I’m a victim and sometimes I feel like a slut.
“I’m trying to forget.”
He glares at me. “Sometimes I don’t think you are.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” I snap.
“You’ve had it stuck in your head for two fucking years, Billie Joe. Are you even trying to let go of it?”
My bottom lip trembles but I refuse to cry. I want to hate him for this, but I can’t. He’s my best friend. I was a kid. I was just a fucking kid and all it took were a few drunken kisses to strip me of every ounce of innocence I had, which was actually a fuck of a lot considering all the stuff I’d done. And then my mother says I’m a good kid and I just feel like there’s a fucking black streak across my face that she’s somehow missing.
I want to go back … I want to remember what it was like to be a kid.
I don’t want to have to fall asleep every night thinking about exactly what I did in his bed, every single fucking detail. How much of a whore I was.
Bringing my legs up around his waist while we were kissing. Pulling him back down every time he pulled away. Slipping my hand inside his jeans when he asked without a qualm despite the few teasing times I had said ‘no’ before. Telling him to get on his back. He didn’t even fucking have to ask about that one. His hand leading mine to it, his hand on the back of my head. Him laughing when I gagged. Closing my eyes so I couldn’t see.
Walking up to my house after and the sudden rush of tears.
I don’t want to think about it when I fall asleep. I don’t want to feel guilty when I jack off, ashamed that occasionally I can still feel turned on.
I don’t want to admit that sometimes his face grows blurry in my mind and I could barely remember what he looked like until I saw him in the club for those few seconds. And how for a brief moment I considered rushing after him and repeating the very sin that has me locked in this fucking life sentence.
I don’t want Mike to know how fucked up I am, how I have a broken record in my head, how I’m a slut, how I still feel dirty, how I cry myself to sleep, how I know he’ll never want me because I’m reeking of sin.
So I just take another drag on my cigarette and keep walking, hearing him curse before he catches up with me.
Two blocks from the school he takes my hand and we walk the rest of the way in silence.
Part Eighteen
“Mike?” We’re sitting on the floor of his bedroom, smoking and eating stale potato chips because we’re half drunk and can’t find the expiration date on the bag.
“Yeah?” He lights another cigarette and looks at me, exhaling.
“Do you think . . .” I hesitate, not sure if I should ask the question, but the beer got the better of me. “Do you think anyone could ever love me?”
“Yes.” Mike says without a second’s hesitation. “And no.”
“Huh?”
“You won’t let people love you, Billie Joe.” Mike says, leaning forward and taking the cigarette from my trembling hands before I drop it on the floor. “You think you’re shit and you won’t let anyone get close to you.”
“I let you get close to me.” I murmur.
“You’re fucking blind.” Mike says, taking a drag off my cigarette before setting it in the ashtray and continuing to smoke his. When I reach for mine, he hits my hand away. “You’re so fucking stupid, Billie. You don’t see anything, you don’t know anything. You’re just stuck inside your head and you can’t see what other people see.”
“What’s that?” I reach for my cigarette again and he sighs, letting me take it. My hands aren’t shaking as bad.
Mike reaches across the space between us and lifts my chin up so I’m look straight into his crystal blue eyes. They’re like raindrops. The kind you go dance in.
“What do you see, Billie?”
“I see you.”
“No. What do you see?”
“Mike Dirnt? What the fuck kind of—“
“What do you fucking see, Billie?” Mike snaps.
“I see you!” I yell back, confused. “Mike Dirnt, bass player, my best friend, freak.”
He lets go of me and leans back, sighing again. I think his eyes are shining. I lean forward, looking upset. I don’t know what I’m going to do, hug him maybe. Touch his shoulder.
But he just puts his hand on my chest and pushes me back. I turn my head and take a drag off of my cigarette, trying not to let him see my lips tremble.
“I see mistakes.” Mike says softly. “Regret. Fear.”
I turn and look at him as a tear slides down my cheek. “I see an angel.”
Part Nineteen
It's always hard for me to sleep in the same bed as Mike, but I manage. I know Mike wouldn't hurt me. Which is why my first thought when I feel an arm snake around my waist is that someone broke into the house.
But somehow, despite the fact that I've never been in this position before, when he pulls me backward against his body . . . I know it's Mike. "Y-You're drunk." I stammer.
"So're you by the sound of it." Mike whispers back.
"You're gonna rape me, aren't you?"
Mike chokes on his laughter. "Of course I'm not, you freak." He pulls his arm away from me, moving over top me and falling down on the other side of me. He moves a hand to the back of my neck, letting his fingers play against my skin.
"I'm just going to kiss you." he promises in a whisper. "Hope you get caught up in the moment."
My eyes widen and my bottom lip trembles. "Mike--"
"You know me, Billie Joe. I'd never hurt you."
And then I feel his lips press against mine and I return the kiss without hesitation, half hating myself and half loving every moment of this, every inch of him pressed against me.
Part Twenty
I push him away suddenly and he stares at me with that sad look again and I feel even worse. And confused. Did he kiss me to make me feel better or did he kiss me because he . . . could he have wanted to? Could anyone want me like that?
"Billie?" I open my eyes. I hadn't even realized they were closed. "Am I dirty?"
I shake my head. "No." I say, desperate to prove it. "H-How could you be? You're not like me. You're not a--"
He presses the fingers on his hand gently against my moving lips. "Then how come I make you feel so dirty?"
"B-Because . . . because . . ." I'm running around in my brain trying to figure out the answer. "Because I'm making you dirty."
"But you just said I wasn't dirty." Mike's hand moves to the back of my neck again as he rests his forehead against mine. "Sometimes I think you make up how badly this makes you feel."
"I--"
"But then I remember that I know you better than anyone. And no one could pretend to hurt that long." He kisses my lips real soft and gives me a small smile. "But it's been so long, Billie. Don't you feel better at all? Even a little?"
When you kissed me I did. My face reddens, but whether because of anger or embarrassment I don't know.
"It's okay to want things." Mike says quietly.
"No."
I let my head fall against his chest and I feel him kiss the top of my head and wrap his arms around me as if I were a baby. As if I were as young as I want to be.
"Well, it doesn't have to be tonight." he whispers to no one.
Someone might think he's saying it to me, but he's not. He's whispering to that person who's always there to listen to everything we don't say to anyone, but more to hear ourselves talk than anything. Sometimes you have to say things out loud just to convince yourself that it wasn't part of a conversation between two strangers you heard on the street.
That's why we whisper to No One.