Care For Me Not, I'll Hurt You Too Much

You could feel virtually every part of your body shaking as you stumbled into Gerard’s house awkwardly, nearly hitting the back of his couch as you tripped over your own feet. The sudden rush of your body nearly falling face forward causes your already rapidly beating heart to kick up its pace. You could see the couch suddenly zooming closer to your face so you close your eyes in anticipation of the pain to come. Its then that you suddenly have the strongest feeling of deja-vu flood through you, and from behind your closed eyes, you could still see the couch coming closer and closer to your face. Except the couch you now see in your head is the one that sits isolated in your empty living room back at home.

You suddenly feel a firm and forceful grip around your elbow, clutching tightly and pulling you back up so quickly your head spins. The rush in your head is accompanied by a swirl of feelings in your stomach, the preparation for pain making your head hurt. You stumble back again, nearly falling over backwards from the immense dizziness you now felt.

Although, Gerard stopped you from falling headfirst into the headboard of his couch, you are suddenly greeted with a flash of memory resembling the same scene. Like before, this memory is of practically the same scene but in your own home. You see and feel yourself falling again as you sway in your spot. You see the couch coming closer, and a brief memory of pain greets your senses, but then nothing more.

You must have been falling again, because you feel Gerard’s grip tighten and pull at your arm once more. The head rush now flowing restlessly through your mind helps to prove this point, and also bring on an extremely large head ache that shoots its way all the way around your skull and rests itself in your temples.

You stumble back, clutching your head and taking deep breaths to try and calm yourself. The fast paced beating of your heart only increased every time you felt yourself being pulled back upright, and it didn’t seem to want to go down now. You feel your back connect with the wall behind you and you gasp, your eyes shooting open to reveal an irritably bright living room.

You suddenly have the strongest urge to run. You could feel the tingling in your legs as your mind prepared you for this action. You didn’t know where you were going to go when you ran, but all you knew was that it was fine…as long as you weren’t in this house.

The living room is homely and comforting. The warmth inside blocks out the blistering cold that you felt while you were still outside, but does nothing to calm your massive nerves of the situation at hand. Sure, the light from the kitchen shining in lit up most of the room with a calm, golden glow, but inside your mind, you could still see darkness. Sure, the television was on, and turned down low enough to be heard, but it still wasn’t loud enough to block out the whistle from the wind outside. Sure, your back was pressed against the wall and you were being steadied by strong hands, but that wasn’t enough to stop your excessive shaking.

You could feel it everywhere. The rapid quake of your limbs seemed to spread the longer you stared at the scene in front of you. Because it was all changing. Just seeing this house and hearing the wind scream outside the door started to change everything. The couch was no longer sitting in the middle of the living room, but instead pushed against the adjacent wall. The light in the kitchen no long cast that warming glow, and instead shed a white light that halted all comforting feelings. Everything was Ceana’s. Everything was exactly the way you remembered it being that one night.

You could still hear and feel everything that was really happening. You could hear the television, and feel Gerard’s grip on your elbow, but none of that seemed to be registering now. You knew it was there, you just couldn’t convince yourself to concentrate on that. All your concentration had instead been diverted to the fact that all you could see was Ceana’s house on the night she died.

You close your eyes, attempting to block out all the images now playing out before you. But you could still see them behind your lids. You could still see everything as it happened and replayed like some psycho’s torture movie of the month. Everything shifted suddenly, making you stagger and sway again, and causing Gerard to push you back against the wall. But none of that registered. All you could see was the room. But now the walls…they were falling too.

You keep your eyes shut tight, and bring your hand down to the wall behind your back. Just trying to make sure that they were still there. You could feel them, and you could hear the sound your fingertips made as the brushed along the paint…but you couldn’t convince yourself that they were still there.

You could see them…all the walls of the house beginning to crumble and crack. The paint began to chip and peel as it slid off the wall. Everything was melting and burning before your very eyes, and you couldn’t stop it! You could feel the wall behind you, but you could see it all dissolving around you. The edges turned black and faded to ash as an invisible fire brought them down around you. You could see the howling wind take it all away as the ashes floated up into the blank abyss surrounding you and this room.

The wind was taking it all away.

You used to feel comforted here, you used to feel safe here. But now, now everything was burning. Every single security was burning and being carried away by the wind.

You can hear a piercing howl rip through your consciousness as if to confirm everything that you were thinking.

It was leaving you with nothing. It was taking away everything. There would be no comfort, there would be no solace from the wind. Because now it was ripping though this house and breaking down everything you had left.

“Ken?” You hear Gerard’s voice echoing throughout your head, but you’re not sure if it was just in your head or if he was really speaking.

The walls are falling. The walls are falling. The walls are falling. The words repeat, never ending and its all you can hear. You could feel it all crumbling down around you as the wind continued to blare though the streets.

“Kendall.” He whispers again, this time sounding a little farther away.

You could feel it. You could really feel it all happening. There was nothing holding you anymore as you felt yourself slowly closing in on yourself. There was no support now as the walls in your head disintegrated around you more and more as the wind ripped though the city.

Make it stop! You want to scream.

“Ken!” Gerard’s voice causes you to open your eyes finally, looking right at him.

You were sitting on the floor of his living room, with your back still pressed against the wall. He had both his hands on your shoulders and he stared right into your eyes. He glanced frantically back and forth between both of your eyes as you stared blankly at his face. Then you remember…

No!

Sweat drips down your face as your body quakes horrendously. You stare right at him as you finally realize what you’re doing. Why you’re here. And what he’s seen.

You didn’t want them to, but the tears roll down your cheeks anyway. They flow freely, as if they had been doing this all along. You shake as you ball your hands into fists at your sides, cutting into the flesh of your palms with your nails as Gerard’s face stared right back at you.

You couldn’t breathe. You don’t know what’s happening to you, but your throat won’t allow air through. You feel as if you suddenly lost the ability to inhale as you sit there. The shaking gets worse and you could feel it. The tears rolled down your face and you could feel your face tightening up already. You could feel the world around you growing hazy. The lights began to dim, and the sounds seemed to be coming through a thick fog.

“Who was it Gerard?!” A voice calls out, making the both of you jump, and making you gasp out.

You watch as Gerard stands quickly and stares at the glowing doorway leading into the kitchen. “Just Kendall ma.”

You can’t believe this. You can’t believe this is all happening. You can’t believe you did this!

You close your eyes again, and take in a deep, shuddering breath as your heart drops to the very bottom of your chest, making everything hurt. You feel a tear roll down your cheek. Fuck. You exclaim to yourself.

You never wanted him to see you cry. You don’t want him to see you like this. You don’t want to feel this exposed and open in front of him.

But it’s too late. You tell yourself.

Still, you stop the rest of the tears threatening to spill over and suck nervously on your bottom lip.

This can’t be real. You tell yourself once again, leaning your head back against the wall and keeping your eyes shut.

You could feel everything down to your toes shaking. Your hands were the worst, so you place them underneath your body in an attempt to keep them still. Your legs felt numb, as did your face. You felt tingles prickling their tracks along your cheeks as everything grew to be too hot. You could taste the salt of your tears on your lip as a bead of sweat dripped down the back of your neck. You take in another deep breath with difficulty. You can feel your heart thudding rapidly in your chest as your mind reels with a nervous chatter. The deep breaths, and the lip-biting were all you could do, however, to keep the screaming only in your head.

On the inside you were screaming at yourself to just get up and go. You were yelling, shouting and stomping around and just telling yourself to get out of this goddamn house. It all felt like too much, and you felt as if you opened your mouth and tried to speak once, then it all was going to come out. Just one long and painful scream that would drown out the constant whistling outside and display all your sorrows to the world.

Secretly, you wanted to do this. You wanted to scream, shout, and run. You wanted to do anything, but stay in this house and try to explain why you come over a complete wreck. You just wanted to go now though.

You should have done that when you first thought of it outside. You tell yourself, and share a self-hatred chuckle inside your head.

“Does Kendall want anything to eat?” Your heart rate kicks up at the sound. You had almost forgot that there were other people in the house. It was then that you remembered Gerard’s mother’s voice coming from the kitchen doorway.

The fact alone that you didn’t want anyone else to see you like this caused you to open your eyes and shoot Gerard a worried look from your position on the floor. He didn’t see it though. His head was turned and he was already responding.

“Maybe later ma.” Gerard says, back, still staring at the doorway.

“Alright then, I’m just going to head on up to bed! Good night kids!” You hear her call out before Gerard responds.

“Night mom!”

Footsteps down the hallway signal that you’re now alone. You look up to find Gerard staring at you once again, this time looking determined.

“What happened?” he asks.