Don't Worry, Baby

Mike Pritchard got out of bed on his 17th birthday in good spirits. But then again, it was a rare thing to catch Mike Pritchard without the constant buzz of good cheer around him like a halo. He went downstairs after he was dressed, kissed his mother on the cheek, and let himself stop for a moment before going out the door to look at his newly 17 year old face. It was a pretty good face, he decided -- could be a lot worse, anyway. He knew, in some intuitive way, that as he grew, things would improve further. For now, though, he liked his face. He liked himself.

Halfway down his block (and surely out of the sight of his mother), Mike lit a cigarette, relishing the feeling of the smoke puffing down his throat. He tilted his head back and exhaled in a rush, smiling up at nothing. After a moment, he kept on walking.

A couple blocks and a cigarette and a half later, he came upon a dark shape leaning against a low wall blocking off the grounds of a graveyard. Mike frowned -- it looked a little strange on his sunny face, especially if you had been following him all morning - and shook his head slightly, almost as if to clear it. He sighed heavily and got down on his knees next to the dark shape, reaching his hand out to it.

He snapped his fingers next to the dark shape. “Billie,” he said to it.

“Billie!” he said again, this time grabbing the dark shape and shaking it.

The dark shape made a low humming noise and stayed still. Abandoning all pretense, Mike started shaking the shape vigorously, chanting “up” loudly over and over again.

“Up-up-up-up-up-up-up!”

The dark shape flopped around in his hands before its hood fell down and revealed that it was a man underneath - a boy, rather - with curly brown hair and white white skin. He had an unhealthy look about him, even though his body was still covered by a mass of black, baggy clothing.

“Billie, you with me?” Mike said, tweaking his chin and smiling again.

When Billie said nothing, Mike’s grin slid off his face quickly.

“Billie, look at me.” he said sharply, all good humor gone.

Billie’s eyes went to Mike’s, and Mike felt a sinking feeling accompanied with a burning rage when he saw that his best friend had once again stoned himself into what Mike liked to think of as The Great Beyond, a place where Billie went when he had to escape what was happening to him on Earth.

Mike himself had been to The Great Beyond once and never planned to return. But it seemed to him now that Billie had not only gone there but purchased a one way ticket, non refundable. It was in the way his body was limp and grotesquely warm, and Mike supposed that was because he moved like a corpse, and corpses aren’t warm. It was in the way he looked at Mike, wide eyed, his lower lip hanging down to expose the bottom of his teeth. But most of all, it was in his eyes -- his empty, vacant, expressionless eyes. There was no emotion, no feeling… no life. He didn’t even seem to need to blink as often as usual, and when he did, it was slow, slow enough to drive Mike insane.

For one crazed, detached moment, Mike raised his hand to slap Billie. When his hand was in the air and cocked back enough to slam Billie a good one, Mike turned his head to look at his hand and froze. What would hitting Billie gain for him?

Satisfaction, he told himself.

Yeah, but he’s so far in The Great Beyond your slap would probably hurt your hand more than his face, he told himself right back.

Mike lowered his hand and instead opted to rub his forehead with it in a tired gesture that did not fit him. It was the gesture of a factory worker after a long summer workday, the gesture of the welfare mother as she tries to gather three of her five children into her line of sight at the grocery store, the gesture of the coach of a losing major league team after the fifth loss of the season.

In front of him, Billie only blinked, slowly, slowly.

Mike sighed again and stood up, looking to the east, where he could see his school’s flag sitting sadly on the flagpole, unmoved by the lack of wind. He stared for a moment with a kind of stupid longing, then figured that it was May and seniors pretty much stopped showing up in May anyway, and put school out of his mind. He had a much more immediate issue at hand.

Looking down at the black shape most people would have mistaken as a pile of undesirable rags, Mike felt a weird surge of determination. It got his adrenaline pumping, anyway. He bent down and stuck his hands into Billie’s armpits, heaving him up. His muscles flexed and he grunted a little. Billie was a dead weight. He might as well have been sopping wet as well, for all the help his billowy clothes gave.

“It’s almost summer, for Christ’s sake.” Mike said, muttering, unaware he had spoken out loud.

---

Mike knew his mother would be long gone by the time he got back to the house, especially with the time it was taking to carry Billie the way he was. He had to half carry him, and this was after the gargantuan struggle of getting him to at least move his feet.

One foot in front of the other, and soon you’ll be walking out the do-o-or! Mike searched his mind for the source of this snippet of song, finally remembering the grumpy wizard turned happy wizard by Kris Kringle in some old claymation Christmas movie. It wasn’t the one about Rudolph, it was --

But before he could finish his thought, Billie suddenly fell like ton of bricks, face first, and Mike’s fingers scrabbled on his clothes for some kind of purchase. He finally got a hold of one of Billie’s shirts and pulled it up quickly, saving Billie’s nose from getting skinned on the unforgiving pavement, but at the cost of a loud rip! that came from somewhere in Billie’s layers. Mike almost laughed at this, but then he got a good look at the lack of expression on Billie’s face and the laugh was gone, just like that.

“Come on, baby, please.” Mike was surprised to hear the tone of desperation in his voice, and wondered vaguely for the first time if his house was the best place to be going, wondered if maybe he shouldn’t have headed down towards school anyway, toward the direction of the hospital. But Mike banished that thought as quickly as it came, because that thought was scary, because that thought meant that while the novelty had worn off of Billie’s drug hazes (overdoses, his mind supplied, unbidden, a word Mike skipped over without even letting himself fully process it, because it was so terrifying) and it meant that they were now out of control, and Mike wasn’t quite ready for that.

Thankfully, when Mike looked back up, he only had another half a block to go. He was, in fact, shuffling past the exact spot he had stopped on that morning to take that first good drag of his cigarette.

Billie’s weight was hurting his shoulders, he knew he’d have a dull ache there for a week. He was sure his knee was creaking with each step, and the muscles in his calves were absolutely screaming with protest, but he didn’t stop until he was in the house and down the hall, behind his closed bedroom door and laying face first on his bed with Billie slumped by his side.

He turned, exhaling that big sigh yet again, and faced Billie, who had somehow fallen onto the bed on his back, so his vacant face was pointed towards the ceiling.

Mike poked Billie’s cheek, his finger sinking into the soft flesh. He ran his nail along Billie’s eyebrow. It felt strangely intimate to him to be touching Billie in this way, even though he was basically unconscious, but he found he didn’t want to stop. He danced his fingertips over Billie’s cracked lips and felt his muggy breath mist them. He traced the slope of Billie’s nose, letting his hand fly away from his face and fall down onto his chest. And then, for no reason he could think of, he leant in and kissed Billie’s cheek. His lips lingered on his best friend’s skin for seconds, applying the smallest amount of pressure. He could smell Billie’s skin, a kind of musk that was unlike anything he’d ever smelt on him before, which he supposed was because he’d never been that close to Billie before.

Mike pulled away, eyes still closed, and laid back on the bed. He pulled his legs up and curled his knees up, so he was in the fetal position. He felt like he was protecting himself from something, but he wasn’t sure what. Mike set his chin against his chest, eyes still closed, and it seemed to him that the smell of Billie’s cheek was invading his nostrils, so he took deep deep breaths, over and over again, trying to memorize the smell, and he was still inhaling and exhaling in a slow, measured fashion when he fell asleep.

---

As Mike fell deeper and deeper into unconsciousness, dreaming fragmented dreams and snoring quietly, Billie came closer and closer to consciousness.

When Mike’s eyes finally blinked open, Billie was wide awake, sitting on Mike’s pillows, staring down at Mike’s face.

Weird how things work, Mike thought wondrously, just a while ago I was staring at him.

Billie spoke. “I fucked up, Mike, didn’t I?”

Mike nodded and sat up, stretching. “What was it? Something new?”

Billie smiled tiredly, and it scared Mike to see something scarily like wisdom in that smile. “After a while, Mike, none of it’s new.”

“I’m scared.” Mike blurted, speaking words that had been sitting in his heart but not processed by his mind.

“For you.” he added rather lamely, when Billie didn’t respond.

“Don’t worry, baby.” Billie finally said, not looking at Mike, quoting their favorite Beach Boys song. Mike guessed Billie was trying to lighten the mood, but it wasn’t going to work this time.

There was a very long pause that neither of them felt comfortable with.

“Why?” Mike asked, and in retrospect, it was such a broad question after such a long pause that it was no wonder Billie misunderstood him. While Mike was asking why he shouldn’t have been scared for Billie, Billie began his explanation of why he had drugged himself into The Great Beyond, and Mike didn’t interrupt.

“He hit her again, but he didn’t stop there this time. He went for Marci and I stepped in front of him and he… he just laughed. ‘You?’ he said, Mike, and I could taste the vodka on him, Mike, it was strong. ‘You?’ he said. ‘I’m supposed to be scared of you?’ Then he kinda stumbled toward me and I didn’t -- couldn’t -- move cause I was in front of Marci and he grabbed my arm and pulled up my sleeve and ran his nails down my scars and said ‘I can’t hurt you anymore than you hurt yourself, you little faggot.’ And I couldn’t move, I felt so naked, and my Ma had her hand over her mouth and she was crying and he laughed and walked away and I just stood there for a while and Marci touched my shoulder and I shrugged her off and went to my room and then it’s all black. I dunno how you found me and I dunno how I got here.”

Wordlessly, Mike looked at Billie. He put his hand out and Billie set his wrist in it. Gently, with two fingers, Mike pulled Billie’s sleeves up. He could feel the tug where it was stuck to the scars and dried blood on Billie’s arm, and knew from Billie’s short hisses that it hurt, but he didn’t stop until Billie’s entire forearm was bare. When he was done, there was blood on the tips of his fingers. Billie’s arm was covered in cuts and scars, some deep, some shallow, some long, some short. Blood had dried in clumps along the scars, leaving dark red, beaded lines. Streaks of blood had dried all over the skin, some of it flaking off, some of it new. It made Mike’s stomach twist to see that some of the cuts were still bleeding, steadily pumping out his best friend’s lifeblood.

Mike sat there, Billie’s arm in his hand, and started -- very gently -- letting his fingers run along the seam of Billie’s deepest scars, feeling the blood on his fingertips. He sensed rather than saw Billie turn his head to the side, gasping as little sobs ran through him. Mike supposed it was an awful kind of shame that made Billie cry whenever he let Mike see his scars.

And though he had been doing good the whole time, Mike suddenly found himself holding back the strongest burst of tears he had ever felt. His mind seized on the fact that if he cried in front of Billie he would only make him feel a million times worse and Billie was already crying and he couldn’t stand to make Billie cry and wasn’t it bad enough already? Wasn’t it bad enough already?

But not even that could stop it. The tears broke through his mind’s barrier and leaked out onto his face -- big, fat tears that felt hot enough to scald Mike’s skin. He cried, at first… but the crying spell turned into sobbing and the sobbing turned into weeping and soon enough Mike let go of Billie’s arm and put his bloody hands to his face because he couldn’t even keep his head up, and cried so much he washed the blood off his hands, even though it smeared on his forehead.

As Mike sobbed, Billie leant forward on his knees and grabbed his shoulders, unsure of what he should do. He felt Mike’s body jerk with his heaving breaths and for the first time in a long time, Billie wasn’t thinking at all about himself. He was totally preoccupied with Mike and Mike’s feelings, and when he thought back on it later, he realized it felt really, really good to let himself go.

Eventually, Mike stopped. He sniffed and wiped his nose on the back of his hand, keeping his head down.

“Mike?” Billie said tentatively, sitting back and letting go of his shoulders. Mike responded through a cracked voice, thick with tears.

“What?”

“I’m… I’m sorry.” Billie felt that this was not precisely what Mike wanted to hear, but found he had nothing else to say.

After a moment’s hesitation, Mike lunged himself forward, arms wide open, and enveloped Billie into a suffocating hug, burying his face into Billie’s neck. Billie could feel his wet eyes.

“It’s gonna get better, Mikey.” Billie said, rubbing circles on Mike’s broad back.

“Don’t lie.” Mike said into Billie’s neck, his voice muffled, and Billie couldn’t help but laugh a little, even though it hurt.

When Mike pulled away, he looked at Billie with his overbright eyes and red nose and Billie just wanted to kiss him, kiss all the hurt and pain away, kiss him so he could heal him, as if he was some sort of John Coffey of the New Age, some God given healing man. Shaman. Whatever those men who could heal were, he wanted to be right at that moment so Mike would never have to cry another tear unless he wanted to.

---

That night, Mike made Billie stay with him.

“Now’s not a good time to go back.” Mike told him seriously, and Billie didn’t argue.

They laid side by side on Mike’s bed, mostly silent, as the sun set lower and lower, casting the room into deep shades of darker and darker orange until it finally faded into night.

Mike’s eyes closed, slowly as the sunset, and just before he slipped into unconsciousness, he rolled over so his body was pressed against Billie’s, so he knew he was there.

---

The sun rolled into the room as an unwelcome guest; during the night, Mike had been jolted awake at least ten times by horrible dreams that rushed through his mind like sped up film. Billie slept on like a rock next to him each time he jerked forward, covered in a cold sweat, his fists gripping the sheets, his eyes frantically scanning the room for unknown shadows and monsters.

As soon as the California sun’s heat hit Mike’s eyelids, they flashed open.

“Goddamnit.” he said out loud, his voice dragged out and cracked with sleep.

“Mikey, s’okay…” Billie slurred, half his mouth still trapped against the pillow.

Mike turned on his side to face Billie -- sometime during the night, he must have rolled away from him, because there was actually space between them now.

“How are you feeling? Are you okay?” Mike asked Billie, who opened one eye and looked directly at him.

“I’m not even awake.” Billie said, laughing a little.

“Billie, c’mon.”

“I’m fine, Michael. Super duper.”

Mike scrutinized him for a moment, no humor on his face, and reached his hand out to grab Billie’s arm. Ignoring the other boy’s protests, Mike pulled his sleeve down and looked down at the bandage he had wrapped around Billie’s arm tenderly the day before. There were little spots of blood here and there, but they were little, and that was good enough for Mike.

---

The end of spring passed and turned into the beginning of summer. Mike graduated high school and walked with his class. Billie went to The Great Beyond almost every day. They lived their separate lives together, as only best friends can. Billie spent weeks at a time at Mike’s house, and Mike and his mother welcomed him. Things had plateaued since the day Mike had taken Billie to his house and bandaged him up -- at least outwardly. Inside, in Mike’s head and heart, things were very, very different.

He first noticed it that morning they woke up together, after checking that Billie’s bandages had held. It was something… missing. It was such a strange, distant feeling that Mike actually spent some time looking around his room, seeing if anything was gone. As he and Billie lay on his bed and listened to records spin, Mike thought maybe he had settled on what it might be.

He didn’t feel… happy, like he usually did. He didn’t feel much of anything, really. He was acutely aware of Billie’s breathing next to him, Billie’s arm against his, and he could feel the sun on his face and breathe the stifled air of his room, but none of it really dug deep into his skin or mind. It was suffocating, the numbness. But he couldn’t put it into words so he didn’t say anything about it to Billie, who was silent and stoic next to him.

So days passed in a blur for Mike. Even his high school graduation didn’t set his heart alight with joy; it was simply something he had done. It didn’t feel like a huge accomplishment, not even when Billie met him in his cap and gown and hugged him like his life depended on it, whispering congratulations and telling him tearfully how proud he was of him. Because even as Billie pulled back from the hug and looked at Mike with bright, shiny eyes, all Mike could think about was the way Billie’s shirtsleeve had stuck to the drying blood and cuts on his arm.

Mike didn’t really allow himself to think too deeply about his new change of mood. He busied himself with Billie and work and felt the weeks since his graduation slip by him, powerless to do anything about it. It wasn’t until the middle of July that he had more than a few hours alone, and even then, he had no idea what do to.

Billie was gone home for his mother’s birthday, biting his lip and asking Mike over and over again if it was the right thing to do, refusing to let Mike come with him, and after a few false starts, Mike watched his back turn the corner in the distance, his feet carrying him to a home he never belonged to.

When Mike went back into his room and shut the door, the silence and emptiness of the small space was scary. It was strange to be without Billie -- strange to not listen to his soft breathing, strange to not see him with his guitar on the bed or the floor or next to the window, strange to… just be without him.

Mike didn’t really know what to do with that, so he did the only thing that made sense. He crossed the room to his record player and put the needle on the last record Billie had been listening to. Mike sat down next to his window and let the sun hit his face. The warmth of the sun made him feel better than he had in a long time, and just as he was thinking about how maybe he was coming out of his slump, the static of the beginning of the record stopped and the beginning of Don’t Worry Baby by The Beach Boys flooded Mike’s ears.

It seemed that he had never heard music before that moment. His eyes were closed, jammed tight, and all he could hear was his heartbeat and the soft “ahs” of the song. The record player was not high quality, and the song was scratched and tinny, but it still held Mike in such a bind that the tone of the voices, the beat of the drums, and the low plunk of the bass were the only things in his world - for that moment. When it ended, Mike snapped up and carefully set the needle back at the beginning, standing in front of the player and watching the record turn as it started again.

It suddenly occurred to Mike that maybe he had been wrong for a very long time. He had lived much of his life believing that things were always going to be better in the future, that nothing was really worth crying over, and that his life was precious and full of worth. He had spent much of his life believing in himself. It wasn’t a vain sort of thing; it was simply how Mike was built to think and live and be.

Yet as the song continued, it seemed to him that there were a great many things to cry about, especially in a world where someone like Billie could be so destroyed by his circumstances, where his best friend had to make himself bleed to keep himself alive, and even if Mike’s life had been pretty okay, what kind of world was it when it made him completely unable to help the most important person in his life?

As Mike thought all these things, it felt to him that the sun was cold on his skin. He realized that he was only one person, that his life was rather limited, and that there was a whole entire world of pain and suffering right outside his world. It was the first time he could remember being fully aware of things that were beyond him and did not apply to his life. These things weighed on Mike’s shoulders so hard he slumped forward. He was so preoccupied with his heavy thoughts that he didn’t even notice the tears that were falling onto the rotating record until the song began to skip.

---

Billie had been noticing for a while that Mike was different. It wasn’t his appearance, he was still as golden and handsome as ever, it was his general affect. His smile. His laugh. There was less and less of those and more and more shrugs and silence, and the expression on his face always made it seem like he was thinking very intensely about something.

Billie was feeling better than usual. The constant time spent with Mike kept his spirits up and made it harder to hurt himself, and the time away from his stepfather made him want to hurt himself less and less. For the first time in the history of their friendship, Billie was the one cracking jokes and poking Mike’s side and tickling him to get him to smile, not the other way around.

As the summer came to a close, Billie became very fed up with Mike’s silence. He started making efforts to ask Mike what was wrong, and when all he got were non committal shrugs or the monotone recitation of “Don’t worry, baby.”

One warm night, while the sun was setting, Billie asked Mike yet again what was wrong with him, and instead of a shrug or a blow off answer, Mike was completely silent until he started to cry. Billie turned around in alarm and went to the bed, where Mike was laying, and knelt down next to him.

“Mike!” he said, pulling his hands away from his eyes. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

Mike just looked at him with large, wet eyes. His mouth opened and closed a few times, and Billie heard him struggling to get words out of his throat. Mike sat up, pushing Billie back, and looked at him.

“I’m just… so fucking sad.” he finally forced out, and when he got it out, he collapsed forward onto Billie, sobbing into his shoulder. Billie felt more surprised than he should have, maybe -- of course he’d noticed that Mike was less cheery, but he couldn’t even wrap his mind around Mike being so sad.

“Why, Mike? Why are you sad?” he asked him, pushing him forward again so he could see his face when he spoke.

“Because… because… because everything’s so bad, Billie! Because you’re sad! Because when you have drugs, you don’t need me! Because the world is ugly and cruel and there are starving people and the sun always sets and because I never knew just how sad music could feel and because I can’t give you anything I want to give you, like love or laughter or smiles, because I love you, because no matter what I do you’ll always want to hurt yourself, because everything is so heavy and dark and because I can’t stand how useless I am and because just because I just can’t, Billie, I don’t know.”

There was a silence after this, as Mike caught his breath and Billie tried to process what he’d heard.

“Mike, you… Mike, those things, they aren’t… they’re not things you can control. How I feel is… Mike, I’m happy when I’m with you. You have given me everything that I’ve ever had! You are the only thing I have!”

Mike interrupted, moaning loudly and shaking his head. “Drugs, Billie, you have all the fucking drugs!”

Billie seized Mike’s shoulders and shook him violently. The sudden movement made Mike’s mouth drop open in shock.

“Look at me, Mike.”

Mike’s eyes reluctantly went to Billie’s.

“I do the drugs to be less of a burden on you. I do the drugs so I can escape who I am, the parts of me that even you can’t change. Me hurting myself… my scars… that’s all they are. They’re scars. They’re not what’s inside me. My scars are on my skin so I don’t have to carry them on my heart, because I carry you in my heart. The sun always sets, Mike, but doesn’t it always rise again?”

Mike’s breath caught in his throat. Billie paused for a moment, wiping furiously at the tears in the corners of his eyes. He smiled at Mike for a moment, a kind of a sad smile. The corners of his eyes lifted and crinkled, and suddenly Mike knew that when Billie got old, those crinkles at the corners of his eyes would still be there, every time he smiled, getting deeper and deeper, but always there.

“You’re acting like happiness and sadness are permanent states of being. But you know just like I do that it can change. Happiness and sadness, frowns and smiles, tears and laughter… they’re all fluid. They’re always different, from day to day. It’s never black and white, it’s never all bad and it’s never all good. My sadness does not define me. My happiness does not define me. Neither do those things define you.”

Billie let go of Mike’s shoulders. Mike slumped onto the bed, unsure of what or how he was thinking, unsure of what to do, what to say, how to feel. He felt as if Billie had totally uprooted his world, tipped him over, and shaken him around, making pieces and bit of thoughts finally fit together into fully formed ideas, some that he didn’t even know were in his head.

“And Mike, you know I need you. You know I do. I need you because I love you. I love you because I need you. I never wanted to need anyone, but I feel like I was built to need you. You are my sunshine, Mike. And because you are my sunshine, you will never be useless. You should never be lonely. You’re the only reason I made it this far. I don’t… I don’t know what else I can tell you. I don’t know how else to say it. But… but you know it‘s all going to be alright, don‘t you? The sun always sets, but it always rises again.”

Billie sat back, out of words. Mike looked up at him with an expression Billie couldn’t read.

“Don’t worry, baby. Everything will turn out alright.” Mike said to Billie, and it seemed to Billie that as he said it, the sunlight returned to Mike’s face, his eyes, his smile. It seemed to Billie that Mike maybe for the first time understood what it meant to be someone’s sunshine. It seemed to Billie that Mike had finally understood the value of the sun’s warmth, now that he had felt the coldness of the stars.