Nobody's Listening

E I G H T

"Your… your face," I stuttered. I stroked his face, which had welts on it, like a belt was taken to it. He cringed. "What happened?" I asked, tears in my eyes.

He took a deep breath. "Tuesday night, when we got home, my father was waiting for me. When you had dropped me off after school, I had come home to find my father drunk and with some woman. So I ran back out and asked you to hang out. I thought he hadn't seen or heard me, but I guess he did. But when I got home… he was angry. So angry." He placed his head in his hands, and I inched towards him to hear his soft voice.

"He took his belt and tried whipping it around my neck from behind. He wasn't sober, so he missed a few times…." James raised his head and ran a finger down one of the welts. "Then he yelled. His face was purple, he was yelling so hard. He… he called me a pussy, and a whiney emo bitch."

He started to choke up as he started sliding out of his large black hoodie. "He told me that if I wanted to prove his wrong, that if I wasn't a pussy, that I would take the knife he handed me and I would cut myself."

I covered my mouth and tried to stifle the cries I wanted to let out. "You didn't…" I murmured around my hand, my voice an octave higher than usual.

"No. I didn't. So he sliced up my stomach." James laid back and lifted up his shirt, showing a healing scrape from skating and a few thin marks on his stomach.

"Oh, James…"

He pulled his shirt back down and shrugged. "It could've been worse. That's why I wasn't at school. I was trying to fix myself back up like always." He sat up and sighed heavily. "But then, it did get worse. He told me he was disappointed in me, and all the other crap he always spews. And then, he took a gun and shot at me." James began to roll his pants leg up, sporting a bloody rag wrapped around his calf. "It only scraped through a vein, but it still bled like hell. So I hobbled out and called you."

He sat there silently, staring at me with sad, gray eyes. "The saddest part is that I believe him. I wish he had killed me. I wish I had the guts to kill myself."

I felt bile rise in my throat. "No. Don't." I got up and grabbed his arm, tugging him up as gently as I could. "I'm taking you to the emergency room."

James laughed. It didn't even sound like him. It sounded forced and angry. "I'm not going to the emergency room."

I placed my hands on my hips and glared up at him. "Yes, you are."

He leaned down until his nose was just inches from mine, a fierce gray fire in his eyes. "No. I'm not."

"Yes, you are."

"No, I'm not."

"Yes."

"No."

"Yes," I said, inching closer, trying not to snarl.

"No, Dezza," he growled. We were so close that our noses were touching, and I could see the blue speckles in his eyes and the blonde tips on his eyelashes.

I grabbed his face, losing all of my anger and replacing it with hurt. "Please, James." My nose tingled as I fought the tears. "Please. I don't want you to hurt yourself."

He glared at me for a few more seconds and then sighed in defeat. "You have no idea how much it hurts."

"Let me fix it," I begged him. "Let me…" I focused in on his lips, his mauve lips that called to me, tantalizing me, as they formed my name with protests. Without thinking, I pressed my lips to his.

At first, he didn't respond. And then, he pushed me away. I gasped for breath, and my heart swirled down to my stomach.

"Dezza…" he whispered. "What the hell? I don't even…"

I bit my tongue to keep from crying. "I'm just worried about you…" I figured it would be easier to lie, to not tell him that I was falling for him. Which was infuriating.

He screwed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose. He sighed. “Going on…. If you think I can be fixed…"

"I do!" I objected.

"Then take me to the hospital." He leaned down and pressed his lips to my forehead. "I just hope you know that when you do that, I'll be gone for a very long time. This is my third strike. I'll have to go to rehab."

I swallowed nervously. "For how long?" I looked up into his eyes, fear making his eyes glitter.

“I don’t know.” He pulled away and started to totter out of my room. “Let’s just get this over with, okay?”