Take This To Heart

I woke up at two instead. One hour behind schedule. What made my predicament even worse was the Emma was now curled up beside me, her hands latched onto my shirt. I cursed myself and silently pried her fingers away and got out of the bed. Emma’s bed squeaked and I froze, waiting for any sounds or any movements from the small child in the bed. When none came, I opened the door and turned around to oversee the door closing and making sure it didn’t make any loud noises.

I turned around to Jack. He looked angry to say the least. “And you’re out of bed because…?”

“I had to pee,” I lied. I looked around. “Where’s Alex?”

“Scared that he’d be the one to find you sneaking out?” He shook his head in disappointment. “C’mon, Phoenix. They’re all downstairs.”

I was silent as he placed a hand on my shoulder and guided me down the hall to the staircase.

“And you were up here because…?” I asked him the question with the same tone he’d asked me with.

“We’ve been taking turns, making sure you sleep good while the other two rest…though not many people are getting any rest around here.”

We passed the landing were I used to sit all the time and he led me all the way downstairs into the living room. The plasma screen was on the news, muted.

Mona and Alex turned to face me as Jack returned back downstairs. An uncomfortable silence fallowed as I sat in one of the recliners and Jack to a seat on the other couch. Alex and Mona shared one, Alex on the right side and Mona on the left. I immediately cursed myself once more once I noticed the chair I had picked was directly in front of them.

“Phoenix, why are you out of bed?” Alex’s voice was monotone. Not angry like Jack had been, but understanding. I was sure at that moment, Jack hadn’t been angry at me because I’d gotten out of bed, but because he was sure I wasn’t getting any rest and was awake the whole time. He would have been mad either way if he’d found out I had woken up at all. Alex, on the other hand, seemed to understand (not really) that I couldn’t sleep and didn’t press me to go back to sleep. However, all three of them would be fuming and upset if they really found out why I was up.

“I had to pee.” I repeated my previous comment.

Alex nodded to the hallway that led to the dining room, game room, and bathrooms. “Go on.”
I walked back to the bathroom, not wanting to blow my cover, but as I saw how understanding Alex was I had the feeling of guilt settle into my stomach.

After everything he’d done, I was planning to off myself. Again. After he bought me all new stuff and how he’d looked out for me and cared for me.

I remember closing the bathroom door, locking it. I was crying now, hard and I knew they could hear me because Alex was at the door, yelling for me to let him in. I didn’t; I was lying in the tub in the fetal position crying my eyes out until I felt sick.

I was over the toilet puking my guts out when they finally broke down the door. Alex and Mona both grabbed me and hugged me, as if anything else were to happen to me, they wouldn’t be able to bear it.

“Phoenix,” Alex’s voice held concern. “We can help you. All you have to do is talk.”

I was still crying, still felt like retching, but all that came up was hot acidic tasting water. I coughed up another mouthful of horrid tasting water and spat it in the commode. I dry gagged once. Twice. Alex was patting me on the back as if to encourage the sickness to run its course so I could talk. Mona touched my forehead and Jack appeared at the door with a damp washcloth.

“He’s burning up.” Mona’s anxiousness was fueled by Alex’s worried glances. She took the damp rag from Jack and dabbed my forehead with it.

I was still sobbing and my nose was running. I wiped it with my sleeve. “I did it again.” I uttered out. “I’m so stupid. Why am I even alive? Is it even possible for someone to mess up so much that they weren’t even suppose to be born?!”

“Look,” Alex’s voice was still understanding; he didn’t understand what I was saying. “I have no idea -“ I cut him off.

“I tried again! Alright? I know I’m useless so I tried again! I didn’t have to pee. I was planning to off myself again. Then I saw how understanding all of you were and-“ I started to cry again and I couldn’t stop myself.

Mona wiped away the salty tears with the rag again and told me to stop crying, that everything was fine. “Shh. Phoenix. Just, shh.”

I shut up. I didn’t know what else to do. I was there forever just crying. Alex was sitting on the floor beside me and was hugging me and Jack was trying to explain how much they cared about me. Mona was sitting on my other side, trying to cool my temperature. At some point I fell asleep because I woke up on the couch with the lights dimmed and a throw over me.

Hushed voices were in my background.

“Maybe we could send him somewhere in the city when we’re up there with Rian. And we could record there…so he wouldn’t have to leave and Rian could be around his family some more. We could get in contact with Hopeless and I’m sure they’d fix something up. Oh, and it has a good rep.” It was Jack’s voice.

A few computer keys were hit. I could hear them.

“How about Ironwood?” I didn’t recognize the voice.

A sigh. “Where is it?” It was Alex.

“Twenty miles north of Camden, Maine. It’s a youth rehabilitation center.” The voice replied.

“Maine?” Alex sounded disappointed.

“He’s not going to get any help here, Alex.” Mona’s voice was quite.

A fist slammed on the table. “Yeah? Well, I’m not going to adopt him and then send him all the way to Maine!”

“Alex, maybe you should wait on adopting him. I mean, do you really want to make a commitment like that to a troubled kid like Phoenix?” Mona’s voice was a stab to my heart.

“Are you kidding me? Are you freaking kidding me?! That kid is my life, if you haven’t noticed! Of course I want to adopt him and I do care about his health, but I am not going to adopt him only to set him out somewhere else!”

I flinched at his tone. Jack stopped him.

“No, we’ll got to LA just like we planned and we can send him to Pacific Coast in LA. It’s a day institute, so he can come home on the weekends, so its not like you won’t ever see him.”

“It’s still the nuthouse for teens, either way.” The voice said.

Alex groaned. “I don’t want him to feel like I betrayed him.”

I gave a small groaned/moan at the light that was making itself known through my eyelids, dimmed or not. I could see through my silted eyelids that Alex, Mona, Jack, and the other guy had all turned towards me, watching as I stretched, waking myself up farther.

“How ya feelin’, Pheonix?”

I looked at who had spoken. Jack. I yawned.

“My head hurts and my eyes are really, really dry.”

“You were crying.” Mona muttered, softly.

“I know.” I said.

“You remember?” Mona asked.

My glare was dangerous. “I’m suicidal; not stupid.”

Everyone was silent. “So you do realize that we are trying to help you, not hurt you even more and-“ I cut the guy(whose name still escapes me) off.

“I’m fine at dealing!” My defenses shot up in a matter of seconds. “I don’t need any help!”

Alex pulled out a pill bottle. “This, Phoenix Envy, isn’t dealing.” His eyes were pleading with mine, begged me for understand why he was doing this to me. “We want to help you.” I looked away.

I shook my head in disbelief, still averting my eyes. “You don’t understand, do you?” I gave a halfhearted laugh. “You don’t, because if you knew half of what I was thinking, you’d have me thrown in a Rehab Center when I was about ten and we first came here, because that’s were everything starts.”

I fell to my knees as they gave way. “You don’t know how it feels to be placed in a place like this and the only person who loves you and is related to you be suddenly ripped from your arms. It gets worse when your passed in front of hundreds of families, but none wants them you. ‘He’s to…clingy. Too secluded. Too friggin’ emotional!’”

Mona grabbed my shoulders and shook me. “Who told you that, Envy? Who?”

I shook my head. It was The Mercies. They’d also told me I was crap. That I didn’t deserve friends. Or a family. Or even life. And they were only helping me for the free check they got out of it. Everything was too good for me. And it had been banged into my head a million times that I was worthless and unneeded.

I wish I could have killed them for what they’d done to me. “I swore I wouldn’t tell.” I murmured.

My tone was small, and I knew I was giving off too much information, giving them hints. And they would be jumping to conclusions.

Alex touched Mona’s shoulder and she looked up at him, removing her hands and letting them fall to her side as he tried. As soon as she was out of way, he tackled me in a giant hug. When he pulled away, he allowed his hands to find my shoulders and he gripped them easily. I wanted to pull away. I wasn’t so much for human contact at the moment. Not talking about them. I tried to jerk away, but he held fast. My eyes shot up in alarm when I noted that he wasn’t going to release me. However, before I could demand him to release me, his brown eyes locked with mine.

“We know this is important.” I didn’t answer. I was intrigued by his eyes and how much power they held over me, wondering why I couldn’t look away. “It must be weighing you down a lot.”

“Stop.” I warned. He knew exactly what he was doing. It was exactly the same thing he did when he wanted to get a girl in bed. Charm her. He was doing to same thing to me, trying to get me to spill by using common knowledge: Yes, if you have a huge secret, you do want to spill it, and when you put it like that, sometimes the ropes that hold you from spilling can be broken. And yes, again, looking someone in the eyes and holding contact does have drastic effects on people. It was the common knowledge of charming someone.

He didn’t let up.

I looked away. “The Mercies. They said it. They did everything.” I looked at Mona, horrorstricken. “But KC didn’t do anything. He helped me. He let me shower. He fed me and got me clothes and drinks. He made everything better. Don’t let them take him away!”

Alex shook his head in disappointment, but I couldn’t tell if it was aimed at me or The Mercies. I was pretty sure it was The Mercies. “How’d he make everything better?” His voice was calm towards me and I knew it was The Mercies whom he’d shook his head at.

“He made me forget.” I answered innocently. They knew what I meant by that.

Mona sighed in disbelief. She shook her head just like Alex had. “I’m sorry, Phoenix, but KC is going to be put on trial just like the rest of his family.”

“Why?” I whined. “He did everything for me. He helped me forget the bad stuff.”

“Giving drugs to a minor is more harm than help.” Jack spoke softly.

“He wasn’t the first,” I snorted, remembering Mikey. “Besides, I wanted to forget.” I muttered.

“Don’t we all.” The guy said sarcastically.

“Zack,” Alex warned. Zack crossed his arms over his chest and apologized.

I shrugged it off. I hated apologies, especially when the person apologizing didn’t mean it.

Everyone went quite.

“So…I’d really like some rest here…” I murmured.

“You’ve been resting a lot.” Jack pointed out.

“Well, I’m sorry. I don’t see your room mate dead in a bathroom because of overdose. And I don’t you see suffering from abusive pasts either.” My sarcasm fueled my anger, allowing me to protest even more. “Oh, yeah, sorry. That was me.”

Angered, I exited the room and ran up the steps, ducking behind the police tape that covered the door and stopped immediately when I saw the half opened bathroom door. I pushed it open a little bit more and saw where’d they’d taped an outline of where they’d found Jade. I wanted to scream.

I didn’t. I just stood there and touched one of my sister’s many CDs that she’d left behind. Escape the Fate, Simple Plan, A Day To Remember. She’d all seen them at concerts. Mostly the Warped Tour, but she’d seen them all. Except one. The one CD in particular struck me like a bullet: bluntly. I was shocked to noticed she hadn’t seen all her bands in concert, yet she still had her CDs. My sister was the type to attend concerts every chance she got, just about every weekend, and when she was there, she’d visit the merchandise table and buy some of the bands CDs.

I however was absolutely positive she’d never seen Nevershoutnever, but there, mixed along with the other CDs rested the self-titled album. I touched the CD case. It was the cardboard kind. The kind with a little slip that the CD slid into. I pulled it out with caution.

Taped on the back, under the track listings was a picture of a teenage boy. A little older than me. Maybe eighteen or nineteen. His hair was styled at messy angles and he was wearing a PETA shirt with skinny jeans. His ears were gaged and he had spider bites on his lower bottom lip. His eyes were a dark and ruddy, but they were looking away. An acoustic guitar was in his hand and beneath the picture, a slanted handwriting had labled him: Christofer Drew. A small heart was over the ‘I’. By the guy’s head, a lipstick print was fading. I let my fingers trace over the picture that had been printed on computer paper.

I smiled. The guy looked like a total softy…not at all what my sister usually listened to or went after.

…So my sister had her soft spot…and his name was Christofer Drew. I laughed and turned on the laptop, determined to find out more about the animal loving teenager whom had captured my sister’s heart. I typed in his name into the BING search engine. The first thing that came up was a fan site. Fallowing that was ways to contact him: Myspace, Facebook, Twitter. I finally stumbled upon the Wikipedia site and double clicked the link.

“‘Never Shout Never is the alias of eighteen year old pop musician, Christofer Ingle.’” I read the first line out loud. “Huh.” I muttered. I scanned through the article, pulling out bits and pieces.

I clicked the BACK TO TOP button and as soon as I was at the top of the page, I stared at his photo. It was different from the one Christine had taped to the back of her CD. I hit the back button with the cursor. In seconds I was back to the search engine’s results. Thank you, high speed.

One in particular link stood out to me: Vans Warped Tour lineup. I clicked on the link again and the deadly truth hit me. The three words ALL TIME LOW were right in my face. Beside their band name was NEVERSHOUTNEVER. They were playing at the Warped Tour? I rushed downstairs to find the adults were still talking.

They stopped once they saw me, out of breath on the landing, rushing to find them. I didn’t notice I still had the CD in my hand. Everyone was looking up at me. “You guys are playing at the Warped Tour?” My breath was shaky.

Alex nodded. “Yeah. We’re supposed to be out there in two days, but-“ I cut Alex off.

“Well, c’mon! Lets go.” I was jumping up and down in anticipation.

Zack laughed. “Are you high?”

I shook my head, still jumping. “Nope. Haven’t had a blunt or snorted in about a month.” I turned my attention back to Alex. “C’mon! I’ll go pack my stuff now. You should go now, too, so all of you can pack your stuff and be back in the morning to pick me up and we can be on our way to…” I paused thinking of the first place they played. “San Diego!”

Alex looked extremely confused. “That’s in two days, dude. Besides we already canceled. What’s the rush?”

My eyes widened. I didn’t hear his last question. “What?” I glanced down at the CD finally noticing it. “But…why?”

“Um…one because of you and two because of Rian and his family issues.”

“But…but…but I’ve g-gotta get this…gotta get this signed….” A tear rolled down my cheek. I felt as if I’d just failed my sister, yet again.

I put my hands up to my face, pulling at my hair. Nervous habit, I suppose? A dry sob escaped my mouth.

“Whatcha got there, Envy?” Alex asked, tenderly as he walked up the landing, sat beside me and took the CD from my hands. His eyes widened as soon as he saw the CD.

“You’re gay?”

I was angry to say the least. “No! It's my sister’s.” I sniffled. “She was in love with him, apparently, but she never saw him in concert. I was going to get it signed…and-and put it,” Another sob, “In her box….”

Alex looked confused. “Her box?”

I nodded. “I have a box of all her treasured items.”

Alex looked down at the CD again. “And this Christofer Drew guy…he’s going to be at the Warped Tour?” He sounded skeptical.

I nodded again. “He’s in the lineup.” I wiped my eyes.

Alex looked at the CD cover. “Never Shout Never…” He rubbed his chin. “That’s where I’ve heard the name Christofer Drew….” He handed me back the CD and rubbed his hands together. “Alright.”

He turned to Zack and Jack, standing up. “C’mon guys. Pack your bags.” Alex popped his back before heading down the stairs. Mona confronted him at the floor.

“Are you crazy, Alexander Gaskarth?” She pushed him with a little force on his shoulders. “Do you know how old that boy is? Sixteen! Are you going to drag a sixteen year old out on a three-month-long concert event?! Don’t you know what kind of toll that will have on him?!”

Alex looked back up at me. “Has he ever been to a concert before?” Alex asked, tenderly.

I nodded my head fiercely. “With my sister. To see Simple Plan about four, five years ago. I was eleven.”

Alex looked back at Mona, a wide smile growing on his face. “See? He’s went to a concert before.”

Mona cut him off before he could add to his argument. “Simple Plan is a tame concert. They don’t scream or-“

Alex cut her off too. “They cuss. He was eleven.” His evidence seemed to settle the argument as Mona went silent, glaring at him. “Besides,” Alex added, pleading, “We’ll watch over him. He’s not going to be wandering alone around the site.”

Mona didn’t look convinced. “May I remind you, Mr. Gaskarth,” She began, tapping his chest with her fingernail, making Alex’s eyes go wide and stumble backward on the stiars, “That Simple Plan was a one day concert. The Warped Tour is three months long.”

Jack raised his hand in the background and began, “If I may,” Mona looked at him, fuming.

He looked away and dropped his hand. “Its actually two and a half months. Really, Mona, he’ll be fine. We’ll make sure he eats and doesn’t dump his food and make sure he sleeps and gets all his exercise and for his bonus he gets to see tons of bands perform.” Jack’s voice was calm and collected seeing as the way Mona was glaring at him from the first sentence he said. I had to give him credit.

She looked angry, but in a matter of seconds her face turned soft. “Alright. Fine. He can go. But,” She turned to me. “You’re not leaving so soon!”

I opened my mouth to protest, but both Alex and Mona shot me a look. Alex’s told me to shut up while we were ahead and Mona’s was a warning. “You can leave in a few days. Not tomorrow morning. That way, you have time to pack and I can take you shopping for anything you need before the trip.”

“You won’t need to do that.” Alex muttered to Mona, standing up from the stairs that he’d been backed into and dusting off his clothes.

Mona turned back to him, confused. “Excuse me?”

“You won’t need to. In fact, tonight, we’ll pack his stuff and in the morning, we’ll get up and go to the mall for all his other stuff. Get him some CDs and stuff…to keep him entertained.”

Mona sighed. “Sure. Why not?”