Fix Me, Conflict Me

“My older brother, Daniel, used to love this place,” Alex sighed, staring at the Paper Moon Diner sign hanging above our heads. “This is actually the first time I’ve been here without him.” I chewed on my straw, waiting for Alex to continue. “C-Can I give you the abridged version for now?” Alex asked, and I was alarmed to see how he had paled so quickly. I nodded and Alex blurted out, “Daniel committed suicide about a month ago.”

No wonder Alex was so messed up. After his confession, I reached over and took his hand in mine. “You never get over it, but it gets easier, I promise.”

Alex stared at me with wide eyes. “Someone you know committed suicide, too?”

Cooper instantly came to mind. He wasn’t dead…but he was dead to me. “In a sense.”

Alex didn’t even realize I was holding his hand, I think. He had sighed and was staring at the sky again, like if he stared long enough his brother would come back. No. “What do you mean? And…who was it? If you don’t mind me asking,” he amended quietly.

“He was...well, he was everything to me. Then he became…someone else. I tried to get him back, I really did my best, but he was too far gone. I just…Sometimes I feel like it’s my fault, and I know I shouldn’t. Looking back, I see that he would’ve gone down this road with or without me. I never could change his mind when he had it set on something,” I laughed, but it was bitter. I didn’t like how it sounded.

“That’s exactly how it was with Daniel,” Alex whispered, staring blankly at our hands. “But it really is my fault, Maddie…I’m his brother. I should’ve known something was up with him. I thought it was just girlfriend troubles, but it was so much more than that. He…He didn’t tell me it was my fault, everyone tells me it’s not. But if you knew him, Maddie, then you’d know I’m the only reason, the only thing that could’ve pushed him to suicide!”

I bit my lip, knowing it would be useless to argue with Alex right now. He was still too angry. I was there once. I could help him out of it. You can’t stay angry forever. “How did you find out?” I asked once he’d caught his breath after his little spiel.

“I…found him. He hung himself,” Alex choked out.

I nodded, but I couldn’t even begin to fathom what that would be like. I’ve never seen a dead body, save for my grandparents. That was only when they had been embalmed and were on display at the funeral home. I’ve never seen a fresh kill. “I never find him, but the police call and tell me he’s in jail,” I mumbled.

“Your boyfriend’s been in jail more than once?”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” I said sharply, withdrawing my hand…But Alex shocked me when he took hold of it again after a moment. “The first time he got in jail, it took me a while to get enough money to bail him out. That was when I thought I could still change him, you know. Save him. But he didn’t want to change. And you can’t save somebody who doesn’t want to be saved, Alex,” I told him firmly.

Alex stopped looking at the sky now, focusing instead on our entwined hands. “Hey, Maddie…Thanks.”

“For?”

“A lot of things…Not saying ‘I’m sorry’ for one. You have no idea how sick I am of hearing that.”

I smiled a bit and shrugged. “It’s just, why say something when nothing can make it better?”

Alex nodded. “And for…letting me vent on you. It’s not fair. You’re still such a stranger to me, but you’re sitting here and listening to me rant…You have no idea how good it feels, just to have someone listen.”

I wrapped my arms around this sad boy’s waist. I felt like we had so much in common. Not like two peas in a pod, but like two sides of the same coin. “Yeah, I do, Alex.”

I felt him sigh again and was surprised when he hugged me back. “And…for not telling me to talk to someone, or trying to get me to seek professional help, or any other therapeutical bullshit along those lines. And this, especially,” he chuckled, gesturing to the hug. “’Cause, you know, therapy is every kid’s nightmare when people are telling you that you need to get help but all you really want is a fucking hug,” Alex rambled, and his voice finally cracked.

I didn’t want to come off as an insensitive bitch, even though I was really just dying to slap him and tell him to man up, so I just continued to hug him in silence. I put up with Cooper, no matter how much I wanted to die, too. Alex was a guy. Shouldn’t he be able to handle this?

When our food came, we ate it pretty slowly because we were still having that heavy conversation about suicide and life and death and all the things in-between. Alex was slowly proving me wrong about the certainty of his guy-ness…Just kidding. But in all honesty, Alex was truly a poet. The things he said shouldn’t be coming out of a nineteen year old boy’s mouth. They were brutally honest, yet they could also be surreally beautiful. The way he worded things, it just... amazed me. It also explained a lot. His flowery diction accounted for his emotionally instability and extreme sensitivity, for sure. But they were all things that made him who he was, and I liked who he was…so far.

“I should probably get you back to work, huh?” Alex asked after we watched Baz eat everything we didn’t eat. I hoped Alex would take him for a nice, long walk after this.

“Yeah, probably,” I sighed when I read my text from Bailey that said, [Lunch with Alex? Take your time!] “Here, don’t forget Baz on his leash!”

Alex took the leash and put it in his other hand so he could grab mine again. I was a little startled, but I let it slide. “We need to do this again sometime,” Alex said firmly. It wasn’t a question. He opened and shut my door for me before going over to the driver’s seat. “You need to tell me your story.”

“Alright,” I sighed when he dropped me off in front of the animal shelter. “Bye, Alex.”

“See you around, Madds,” Alex said as he waved away, making me tense up at the name. No one but Cooper called me that. Alex drove away with Baz in the passenger seat.

I was just about to go inside, but Dean blocked my way to the door, along with a few of his junkie friends. “So where is it, Maddie? All the coke,” he asked darkly. I’d been avoiding home lately because I wanted to live a little longer, if not for myself, for all the animals at the animal shelter and the few friends that I have but that I happened to love so very, very much.

“I told you, I burned it,” I said, holding my ground even though they were all closing in on me. I wasn’t even going to bother with the mace. It would just make them hurt me even more than they did.

I winced when Dean grabbed a fistful of my hair. “We’ll see about that! Let’s take a walk, Maddie…” Dean dragged me to my apartment by my hair. Fucking ow.