Give Me a Break

I don’t remember what made me think alcohol could fix what a razor blade never could. There’s nothing to compare to a piece of sharp steel pressed like ice against pale skin quivering under the pressure. So why did I do it? The hangover faded under hotel sheets and movies turned up loud enough to drown out conversation with perfectly crafted one liners and false promises. Jon still smells like hard liquor. Brendon still smells like Chicago. All of it’s clammy and stale and overwhelming, sticking to my throat as I try to sleep, a shot glass in my hand.

“Alcohol never fixes anything” “Alcohol’s never the answer” My elementary and junior high teachers voices resonate, thumping between my ears, but fuck them, I like the self destruction. A blade or a glass, running blood or splashing alcohol. I like the way they bury words just like they buried Spencer.

The problem with dying is it’s easy. Human bodies are so fragile. They crumble under the slightest pressure. Even insects would find us pathetically human, like glass disguised as diamonds, pretending they can move mountains and saw through rock. Forgetting that their intelligence is what protects them, not their muscles or their skin. Human’s are pathetic creatures, weak and malleable. My razors cut through me like the soft pulp of an orange. I’m an orange, thin skinned and soft to my core.

Dying’s easy. It only took Spencer ten seconds down a flight of stairs. Only took that shooter on the news one bullet. Only took that jumper thirteen floors straight down. Dying is easy. It’s a miracle it doesn’t come for you this very moment. The balcony calls to me from outside, the curtains flapping in the early early morning. Brendon’s snoring. Jon’s curled up on the sofa. I’m alone again. Always alone. Alone with my balcony and the cold wind on my face.

I can’t remember going outside. Can’t remember how Jon talked me off of it last time. All I know is it’s not as high as it was last time. There are cigarette butts catching on my bare feet, rubbing ash along them, a pale canvas in the moon light. I grab a new one off the table. I want that burn before the ice cold fall. I want to feel my lungs collapsing along tainted air.

Maybe it would hurt. Would that really be so bad? What had I dreamt of? What reminded me and brought me out? Something must have. I was getting better. Things were getting better. Spencer...Spencer....He was losing his grip around me. He had been. What happened?! I was better! It wasn’t fair! I didn’t want this! I’m so sorry, Spencer! I’m so sorry!

The bandages along my wrists are filthy, unchanged for days after being tossed around in the water, soaked through with shower steam and the wish Jon would touch me. Jon. Still asleep. A heavy sleeper. Brendon. Snoring. I toss the cigarette off the balcony and watch it fall without touching my lips. Distracted. Not thinking. Thinking hurts. I don’t want thinking.

A steady stream of Spencer Spencer Spencer as I move inside, glide along the floor to Brendon’s bed, see his bare chest rise and fall. I stand next to him, watching the way his face contorts with every snore. His lips rise and his teeth shake, the raven hair falling in new straight waves across the pillow. I reach down and feel my knees hit the carpet, feel his breath along my cheeks.

Brendon never really knew me. He knew Spencer who knew me. A friend through a friend. He might as well be Jon. Another random stranger taking pity on a broken boy with bleeding wrists and broken promises. His mouth closes and I lean in, press my lips hard up against his and try not to think. He jerks awake, wide eyed and pulled away.

“Ryan?! What the-”
“Shhh!” I hiss pointing at Jon and Brendon gapes at me. I look away, licking at my lips. He tastes like the pizza we’d had before falling asleep, the box and half eaten crusts still littering the floor.
“What are you doing?”
“Just shut up, Brendon.” I growl and reach across the bed to kiss him again.

I want this. I need this. I need someone to kiss Spencer out of me. I need something raw and animalistic, unrestrained and uncompromising. Something where I can scream and moan and cry and it’s not because of Spencer, it’s because of the sex. I need the excuse to swallow up everything and spit it along Brendon’s tongue. Fuck propriety and boundaries and the friend barrier. If it’s not Brendon, it’ll be Jon. If not Jon, some guy I find downstairs. I don’t give a shit who it is. I need roughness and I’m going to get it. I’m going to shatter innocent little Brendon under my lips and hands until I’m not the only thing left bleeding.

Brendon’s mouth doesn’t move under mine. His eyes wander along my reaching shoulder to my cocked hip, absorbing the ripples and the non-existent curves tucked under protruding bone. My hand grasps at his back, pulls him closer and his eyes flutter shut, his mouth opens, and his tongue collides with mine, a feather crashed against a boulder until his hands are shivering on my hips and I can feel him collapsing.

He’s too innocent for the death he tastes along my tongue, too gentle for the broken neck he finds along my back. I pull him in and up, to the bathroom where a shut door and a towel tucked into the crack is all it takes to get his pants off. We don’t talk and we don’t look at each other.

I can feel Spencer in Brendon’s hands, can feel his need to get rid of it too because even if they weren’t fucking and even if Spencer and I weren’t either, we need to hurt the person we associate with him. Brendon will always feel like Spencer. I will always remind Brendon of him. We need to hurt each other. I need to break the innocence. Brendon needs to break the memory, the ties between me and Spencer. So we have sex and we don’t look at each other and when we finish it’s with a hole in our stomachs only two more shots can fill, or maybe six.

I really can’t remember.