Sins Laid Bare

Sins Laid Bare

I instantly recoil. And by the way he smirks, it’s like that’s almost what he wants. He turns back to the sink, running the washcloth against the blood on his arm again.

“But why?”

“Don’t ask stupid questions.” he snaps. “It’s not like you’d understand the answer anyway. Oh so fucking perfect with your god damn head in the clouds, writing nothing but love songs. This has nothing to do with love. Or your fucking romanticism.”

“What’s it to do with then?”

He glares at me. “I already told you. Don’t ask stupid questions.” He stares at the blood soaked washcloth. “Fucking Finnish fuck.” he mutters.

“Bam! You fucking cut yourself and just expect me to not say anything?”

“You do it often enough.” He lets out a weak laugh. “Dude, this will just not stop fucking bleeding.”

I pull him toward me, grabbing a towel off the shelf. I press it hard against his arm, meeting his glare with mine. “What the fuck does that mean? ‘You do it often enough’?”

“I just said it.” He tries to pull away from me, but I don’t let him.

“How can I say anything?” I ask quietly. “Obviously you don’t tell me anything anymore.”

He snorts. “Oh please, Ville. All the fucking signs were there. Disappearing into the bathroom after I eat. Only wearing long sleeves. Not letting you fuck me with my shirt off. You’re not really that stupid, are you?”

I don’t say anything. Maybe I knew, maybe I didn’t. But it’s all true, all those things he’s done. And my sins of not paying him enough attention are laid bare.

“I didn’t . . . I . . . Bammie . . .”

He manages to pull away from my loosened grip this time. “Don’t you think that a good boyfriend would notice these things?” he snaps. “Don’t you think he would notice a fucking cutter throwing up everything he eats?”

“Don’t you think that a good boyfriend would trust his boyfriend enough to tell him what’s wrong?” I scream hysterically.

”I don’t know what’s wrong!” Bam breaks, falling against me and bursting into tears. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me, Ville. It just . . . it happens and I can’t control it. I can’t get rid of it. It just has to . . . play out.”

“It’s happened before?”

“Do skateboards usually leave scars in lines across your arms, Ville?”

That’s how I know that I always knew. I knew it was bullshit. I knew that scars wouldn’t be identical, that they wouldn’t look like they were the mark of a razor blade, that they would resemble scrapes and not outlets of pain.

But I’d my own closet of demons. I couldn’t bear to think that Bammie, my Bammie, felt that hopeless, that empty, that fucking desperate.

My own scars told the story.

No one needed to tell me how this would play out.

I’d written the script two years before.

Titled it in my blood.

I was startled out of my thoughts by Bam storming out of the bathroom. I turned to follow him. Nothing could have prepared me for this scene. The curtains pulled back.

Bam pulled the gun out of his dresser drawer, pressed it to his temple, and pulled the trigger.

It didn’t work.

Fucking safety.

And in the two seconds it took him to reach for it, I’d knocked the gun from his hand. My fist connected with his jaw, his with my side.

The scene ended with us holding each other and crying.

The play ended with a bottle of pills.