Born and Broken Every Single Time.

The next few days passed with little hitch. It was the holidays and we treated them as such, just lazing and letting the days pass as little more than a waste. For the first week, Alicia was on holiday with her parents, which meant I at least had Mikey for company. I stole the occasional moment with Gerard, or rather he did, as an overriding feeling in my gut pushed me away mentally, if not physically.

I couldn’t stand how I felt as he looked at me, his eyes bright and his ambition burning. He seemed so much happier than I had ever known him to be. He had always just kind of lived in his room, not saying much and going out as and when he pleased, but now he was different. His dreams weren’t a secret anymore, whether it was his secret or when it turned into our secret, it was now out in the open and it was happening for him. His life was in his own hands.

Well that’s what he thought and what I strenuously tried to force myself to believe. Every time he spoke to me about moving he dropped some hint or image of me visiting or the first time I’d see the new place he’d frequent, it killed. I forced a smile time and time again, soothing the ideas in his mind rather than trying to put them down.

It was the moment he said he would give it all up that flew around my mind over and over, forcing it in turn to work in overdrive. He couldn’t mean that. It all meant so much to him and to pledge that he’d throw it away on a whim, that whim being me, was unimaginable. But then this split into further questions, gnawing away at me until I forced my mind to search for answers. If he was wiling to give something this amazing, this special up over me then it must mean I meant a hell of a lot to him. And truthfully?

It scared me.

Granted, I was rather happy with what he had going on, it was nice just to have someone there and I know he felt the same. My mind wandered briefly onto the topic of love, touching on it for a mere second before shaking it from the forefront. It was ridiculous, this wasn’t love, this was happiness. We were happy with each other, just having that someone for now. But still, after reaching this conclusion and seeming contented to reside within it, I felt a touch of unease.

Three months and he’d be living his new life and already he was making preparations for it. Today he was away seeking a new house to rent, his father with him to help him. This left me to have the day with Mikey, as always, but more importantly for me – a chance to think without him there. As I glanced over from where I lay on my made up bed, I saw Mikey asleep, snoring ungracefully and reminding me why I had been forced into thinking, due to his lack of offering a distraction.

"Mikes," I muttered, sitting up and throwing a shirt at him to coax him from his slumber.

"Mmm," he groaned, turning over and pulling his duvet snugly over him before returning to his monotonous snores and grumbles. Thus, I was back to my original dilemma, lack of distraction.

I rummaged around for my phone, moaning in frustration every time it wasn’t where I looked. Finally I found it under my pillow, and I had no idea how it got there. I unlocked it, cringing slightly as the sudden influx of light attacked my eyes and looked to see if I had anything new. I slept with my phone on vibrate so it would only wake me if someone phoned, thus presumably important. I had one new text.

My heart froze as I went into my inbox, my eyes widening in disbelief as I saw ’Mum’ highlighted. I stared blankly at the phone for a brief moment, just wondering why she had finally decided to contact me. She had made no effort to do so in the past, and as she met me in my own room upon our last encounter, she seemed to seethe a drunken hatred for me. Maybe this is what this held, a written form of her hatred, just to tell me how much of a let down I am, how I’m still that fat little freak she constantly referred to. I calmed my thoughts, opening the text and frowning in confusion as I saw the lone word with an additional letter.

"Sorry x"

’Sorry for what?’ I said inwardly to myself. I didn’t feel anything as I read it, I felt numb. Sorry for what?

Sorry for having a go at me? For constantly putting me down? For the name-calling? For the drinking? For how she acted when Gerard was around? For throwing that vase at me? For everything? For not caring? For not contacting me before now? Sorry for what?

I put my phone down, suppressing the urge to throw it out of the window onto the road below. Suppressing the longing to see it lay on the road and watch some car – no, some truck just come and crush it beneath it’s bulky exterior. I curled my knees to my chest, exhaling deeply as I rocked slowly back and forth. It was sort of comforting, taking me briefly back to the childhood idea of being rocked to sleep. This wasn’t to gain sleep however; this was just to grasp sanity. I thought over the questions in my mind, over and over, until one stuck with me.

"For throwing that vase at me?" I mumbled quietly to myself.

I looked down, stretching my legs slowly back out in front of me and gliding my shirt up slightly. I looked down at my stomach, knowing she hadn’t caused the faint etchings that were close to dispersion on my skin, but feeling she might as well have. What the hell was she thinking? Drunk or not did she really think she could get away with throwing something like that at me? She stood, watching it smash around me, shards flying at me, and didn’t even care. Her state of intoxication seemed to make her angrier that the vase had smashed rather than giving a shit I could have been harmed.

It was then I picked up my phone, noting the time to be a few minutes prior to seven. It explained why Mikey wasn’t bouncing about just yet but didn’t explain why I seemed so wide-awake. I decided I wasn’t going to avoid the problem, I was going to tackle it head on. I replied with a simple "What for?" knowing almost certainly that she’d be awake. She usually got up early and even if she didn’t, she had some strange attachment to her phone.

I twirled the phone in my hands awkwardly, throwing it and catching it occasionally in some attempt to will her reply to speed up. The thought crossed my mind that maybe my words from all those times had finally sunk in, finally struck a chord with her. And then it hit me.

It wasn’t my words; it was those of Gerard. She wouldn’t listen to me because she lived with me and when you’re forced to be with someone so often, if something unsavoury happens between you it can change everything. After all the bad things that had gone on in my family, we all seemed to refuse to listen to each other, just listen. Then in walked Gerard, squaring up to her and telling her exactly what he thought without me having to force him. He made her look at me, just for those few seconds, he made her look at me and see what she was doing to me. Crushing me bit by bit, slowly destroying me with every action and word of hers. And there it was. The realisation that most things in my life, right now, right this second came back to one person.

Gerard.

It wasn’t me. It wasn’t my family and it wasn’t my friends. It was him. When everyone turned their back on me, he was there. When I was slowly destroying myself, letting my world cave in around me, he was there to pull me through. He even brought the music back into my life, he gave me his guitar, knowing that being separated from my own was torture. He even took on my family, showing them the error of their ways and the hurt they were inflicting on me. He was always the one to help me out. It wasn’t my friends or my family, but most worryingly of all – it wasn’t me.

I couldn’t look after myself. I, at the age of eighteen, had to rely on someone else to fight my battles and to pull me from everything. Suddenly, as my mind took over and clouded every rational thought in my mind, I felt suffocated. It was the most horrible realisation I’d forced myself to make. But that was the difference, I had realised it myself, without him having to help me out.

I was gratefully snapped from my thoughts as my phone vibrated gently next to me. I snatched it to me, opening the text as quickly as I could manage. I told the phone to hurry up in frustration as it said ’loading’ and just willed it to increase it’s working speed. I froze as I looked at the reply before me.

"Everything."