These Words Are My Heart and Soul

Boy, can two hours drag. In all those seconds, minutes - which I counted - I thought of nothing. Nothing except what I had done. Frank had always been good to me; never cheated, never wished against me, never regretted meeting me. All he’d ever done was love me. And I’d repaid him, by sleeping with someone I hated.

Who was, inevitably, his best friend.

The clock came seven pm, releasing me of the girds I’d been bound to Gerard by. I stood up, wiping my face feebly, straightening my hair and clothes vaguely and walking out the door. My pack over my shoulder, I didn’t turn back.

I didn’t stop to say goodbye. I didn’t go back and yell at him. I didn’t even let him know I was going. I just walked away.

On my journey home, I did what I was doing the whole week through. I didn’t blink; the dryness of my eyes was my achievement. I ignored the huge dull ache in my stomach; I’d earned that ache. I didn’t think; the blankness of my mind was my reassurance.

Instead of going home, I went to a nearby playground. It was getting late, seven thirty already, so no one was out. No one was there to see me not cry. No one was there to see me not eat. No one was there to see me not try to keep the promise I’d made my mother two years ago.

However inviting the glass shards and jagged pieces of metal I saw as I strolled round were, I didn’t want to disgrace the memory of my mother with another worthless razorblade kiss. What would it solve anyway? Just flying shy of the place on my wrist where I nearly killed myself that one time. Just short of killing myself again.

Who would know? Who would care? Who would even cry?

Frank would, a voice said in the back of my head. Cariad too. So would Mikey. I nodded at the sound of this voice, looking away from the pointed objects momentarily. And Gerard, a smaller, weaker, feebler voice whispered. My eyes went back to the pointed things. Gerard… he’d fucked me up then and now, again - he’d been in my life, what, a month? And he’d already brought me crashing back to the mess I was back then.

Not that I’d ever got over that. I’d always been a mess. Not just because of Gerard. I mean, I’d lost hundreds of friends over the first twelve years of my life, and then with my dad dieing.

And the biggest glass shard caught my eye.

The lyrics of a song leaked into my head as I picked up the glass, cutting my fingers slightly. Just light ones, like paper cuts or when you nick yourself cutting potatoes. Nothing compared to what I could have done…

# Love is not a victory march. It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah. #

I gripped the glass in my hand, feeling it cut some more, then switched hands. I wasn’t technically hurting myself; just soaking in the bliss of a perfectly arrayed accident. Blissfully incorrect in the most painful of ways.

Staying the night in the playground wasn’t a decision I made until tiredness got the better of me, and I slept at the bottom of the slide. My bleeding hands stained my clothes and the metal of the slide, but it didn’t matter. No one came to the playground anyway. Not in Belleville. Not when five bodies were found. So I knew I wouldn’t be found.

Alone again.

***
# Love is not a victory march. It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah. #

Oh how true.

Mikey had even brought mine and Gerard’s song over, on tape. It had been three days since Gerard ran away. My memory was starting to come back, the only patchy thing now was Gerard and my relationship with him. I’d listened the Mikey’s account of what happened, and it seemed to fit what I could piece together.

I found it so hard to believe he would do that. He didn’t even knock me out when he was drunk.

The thing I was desperately trying to remember was whether I‘d given him a reason. What had we, what had I done that night. I must have done something to deserve it, I kept thinking. Nobody goes around knocking people out for no reason.

If you think about it, he kind of had a reason.

But if only I could remember it at the time.
***