I Scream For Everything That I've Loved

CHAPTER 12 
AUSTIN

Fucking prick. That fucking prick. 
The whole drive home I was shaking, tears in my eyes. I was so mad I was almost crying, it was barely that I was upset. I kept my fingers gripped around the leather steering wheel, knuckles white, my eyes fixated on the road in front of me, not looking at the beautiful boy next to me. I didn't want him to think I was crying, as I blinked my eyes furiously, keeping the tears away. 
I'd been really bad lately. I just couldn't show it because I was with Alan; but I was ready to let it out, which is why I found myself driving past my complex in the direction of Alan's apartment. 

"Where are we going?" He asked next to me. I didn't want to bring him home, I really didn't. But I just needed to be alone tonight, I didn't want anyone around, not even Alan. Even if he could make me feel better. 

"I'm bringing you home. I'm sorry, I just...I need a little bit. It's late anyway, and you can come back in the morning if you want."

"But Austin, I-" 

"Alan, please." I looked at him now. As soon as he realized that I was crying he frowned, sighed, and nodded his head, then went back to looking out the window. 
I was actually starting to tear up because I was upset, now. My head was starting to sort through everything and I wasn't even alone yet. 
One thing I could say to Alan that was bothering me was, why had I let him get hit? 

"I'm sorry I didn't stop him before you got hit."

He looked over at me and shrugged. 
"It's fine. I wouldn't have gotten to hit him again if you had." He smiled at me but I couldn't return the gesture. 

"Your stomach has got to hurt and I could have prevented it."

"It's not that bad, Austin. I swear. I've been hurt worse than that before." 

"Those guys in high school didn't beat you up because of me, though. That's why I'm saying sorry. It's my fault." 

Alan had told me about this one time when he was in high school, some jerks beat him up over something stupid. I guess they thought he was gay or something. 
Seriously, I wish. 
Which was probably not a great thing to wish upon my best friend. It's not like it'd help my situation, anyway. Because we've all seen the movies where the best friends fall in love with eachother but really; have you ever actually seen that happen? Or, more relevant to my situation, have you ever seen two male best friends fall in love with each other? Because I sure haven't. 

Sooner than I would have preferred- even though I wanted to get home- I was pulling into the parking lot which surrounded the building Alan resided in. I could tell Alan was upset-I don't blame him, I was too- and I thought that maybe he wanted to tell me something as he slid out of the passenger seat, but he just looked at me, waiting. And he was licking his lips, looking down in that way he does when something was on his mind; but he still just murmured, "so, I'll Uh..." 

"I'm sorry Alan. I'll text you in a while, okay?"
 I love you. 

"Yeah. Actually I might just go to bed, so if I do...good night Austin. I-" He cut himself off with a shake of his head. "Good night." 

"Night, Alan." I gave him a smile before he shut the door and watched as he strode to the main entrance. 

No matter how much the urge to go home was pushing me, I did not want to go there. I did not want to go to that sickly quiet apartment, to be met by sickly dark rooms which held sickly dark objects. Did not want to take those sickly dark objects and use them against my disgusting body, driven by my sickly dark mind. 
But I also wanted nothing more than that. 
-
"Fuck!" I slammed my hand down on the bathroom counter, staring down to where hot liquid dripped down my thigh. I had to admit, that last one hurt like a bitch. But I wasn't done. I brought the metal back to my skin, almost smiling down to where I ripped myself open. Tonight was definitely a razor night. How fucking psychotic does that sound? 
Ha, how fucking psychotic do I look; razor in hand, splitting my own skin just for a surge of pain- which made me feel better? I still do not understand how causing myself pain fixed anything, but oh well. I guess I liked it, otherwise I wouldn't be standing at my bathroom sink, blood beginning to pool at the cuts I had made on my legs. 
It did not feel good, it was irritating and quite honestly I wanted it to stop. I didn't want my skin to burn any more, I didn't want to see my bodily fluids leaving me, I didn't want it to hurt. But still, it felt so good. I'm doing something so terrible to myself deliberately, and I didn't even know why. Why do I do this? Fuck knows. If anyone else were to do this to me, I'd call it torture. Nobody wants to be tortured, nobody wants to be hurt, nobody wants to sit up all night watching themselves bleed. Why the FUCK would I do this. 
I looked up to the mirror in front of me, examining my body. 

Dark, messy hair. Trimmed perfectly. I hated it. 
Honey-brown eyes, set in a sad position, they were beautiful. I hated them. 
Structured face, nice jaw-line, nose not too big nor small. I hated it. 
Shoulders set not too wide, not too bony, not chubby. I hate them. 
Thin torso, my hip bones stuck out just the slightest, giving me the almost-v-line. No rolls, no saggy whatever. I hate it. 
Hips protruding or not, I'd hate them. 
Hips covered in faint traces of scars. I loved them. Not the hips, but the scars.
Legs long and thin, something I even found attractive. I hated them. 

I am disgusting. My body is disgusting and I hate it all. If there were a way for me to surgically remove myself from my body, there's no doubt I'd do it.
I didn't care if parts of me were attractive, I didn't care if there were girls out there that would kill to touch me, or men who would kill to be me; my body belonged to me and I am disgusting it is all disgusting and I hate it all. I hate me. 

My eyes came back to rest on the thin scarlet lines that now scattered my upper thigh. They made me smile. They made me happy. 
I guess I was done questioning (my sanity) why I enjoyed hurting myself for the night. I was fully satisfied with the marks I had left on myself and lifted the hand towel from the counter to begin to clean up my mess. 

Once cleaned up, I moved to my bed and- shit I forgot to text Alan. 
I sent him a hopeful message. "Come over tomorrow? :)" 
Then laid back and began to think. By the time I'd finally fell asleep my mind had gone over and processed all the usual; how much I hated myself, how much I hated Gielle's boyfriend-along with Gielle-  why I hadn't stepped in to help Alan sooner at the bar tonight, why I loved Alan, why had I chosen my best friend, why was I continuing to hurt myself, why am I so stupid, stupid, stupid. 

-&-

"So when do you want to go to that hotel?" Alan asked, spooning mouth-fulls of nachos into his mouth. 

He had wanted to go back out tonight but I had convinced him to stay at my place instead. I made some nachos, a couple cheese burgers earlier and we were watching the football game with beer in hand. I really wasn't into football all that much, but it was an over all pretty good night. I didn't understand much of what was happening on the screen but Alan did- he got real into it, shouting over touchdowns, field goals, Ect. He was a cutie. 

"I, I was Uh, hoping we could go soon, I don't know what you've got going on, bu-but I got our studio schedule all planned out earlier." I smiled at him hopefully as he nodded. 

"I seriously think I'm never going to have anything to do again," he laughed, "I am free as a bird. What's our schedule?" 
I laughed and signaled for him to wait a minute while I went to the kitchen to get the written schedule. 

"Here you go." I handed him the paper, sitting to look at it over his shoulder. He looked over it for a while before he handed it back to me. 

"Well like I said, I don't have anything to do, so these three days right here," he pointed to the paper, "We could go. We could stay two nights this time." He smiled. 
That sounded pretty great. 

"All right. But I have to do something Thursday afternoon, we could leave right after, sound good?" 

"It's a date." 

-&-

"Thank you, I'll see you s-same time next week?" 

"Just doing my job, and yeah as long as our plans don't get changed. Take care of yourself, Austin." 

I nodded and smiled, pushing the door open to walk outside. I was going to pick up Alan then we were on our way to the hotel. 

I had a really odd feeling about this. I kept getting huge waves of butterflies in my stomach and every once in a while, for just a few seconds my breathing would come fast. I felt so nervous about the next few days, like something bad was going to happen. But nothing bad could happen while I was with Alan, it was probably just my head messing with my body. 

My passenger door opened, a read headed boy sliding into the seat next to me and I couldn't hold back my smile. No, there was no way this could go wrong. 

"Let's get out of here." 

"Took the words right out of my mouth." 

-&- 

"Are we getting the same room as last time?" Alan questioned, stepping inside the elevator. I shook my head, hitting the button to go to the sixth floor. 

"Nope. I got us a room at the top, it's even better than the last one." I grinned. 

Truthfully though, I'm scared of elevators. Something about the bounce at the end caused my stomach to flip, my fingers to wrap tightly around the railing on the wall. I was also paranoid about getting stuck in one. I've never actually gotten stuck in an elevator, but there was this one time I was in an elevator and it had taken longer than usual to open. I had begun to think it was stuck and I had almost started panicking. It didn't help that I got claustrophobic, either. 
I've seen too many times in movies and on tv, hearing stories, of people getting stuck or the elevator breaking and all of the trapped and helpless people fell to the bottom to their death. 
And so I was relieved when the doors opened and I could breathe again. 

I lead Alan down the hall where I opened our door, letting him walk in while I held the door. 
He set his things down on the main floor. 

"Dude, this is awesome." 

The room was set up more like an apartment; there was a livingroom with a love seat and a flat-screen tv, when you first walked in there was a small kitchen complete with a mini fridge, stove, sink, and microwave. Then past that there was an entrance to the bedroom. There was a king-size pillow top (awesome) and another smaller tv. The wall across from the bed was entirely mirrors, and there was another short hallway to the bathroom- tile floors, granite counter, glass shower door- to the right of the bedroom. So yeah. This place was fucking awesome. 

"Only the best for you, princess." I smiled, putting everything in the bedroom. 
It may only be five-ish, but I still couldn't wait to sleep in that bed. Not to mention next to Alan, but who said that? Not me. 

"Okay," I slapped my hands together, walking back into the livingroom "sooner we get down there, the sooner we can get back, have room service and sleep in the hotel bed. You rea-" I stopped and laughed to myself. He was already in his swim-shorts, a towel draped over his arm. 
"Well, damn. I'll be right back." We laughed and I went back to the bedroom to get changed myself. As soon as I was done we went down to the pools. Nothing had changed since the last time we were here, and I again occupied myself in the wave pool while Alan looked around. 
 But it really wasn't all that boring; I enjoyed the churning water and I also enjoyed watching Alan when he wasn't in the pool with me. I liked it even better when he was, though. 

Considering we got there late, it wasn't long before Alan was complaining about how terribly hungry he was. 

"Let's go back upstairs, I wanna get some of those hot wings."
He shook his head, water droplets flying against my cheek as I gave him his towel. 

"There will still be hot wings when we get there, don't worry. And if there isn't...that sucks." He made a faux-grumpy face at me and I chuckled, stepping into the elevator. 

"If there isn't, I'll make you some myself." 

-&- 

"I am so glad they still had some, I don't think you could make them this good." Alan was on his second plate of chicken wings and he was still going. I had eaten a couple off of his plate when he wasn't looking, not feeling very hungry. 
The one time he saw me steal his precious food I had given him a cutely-smug smile and he carried on eating. 

"Are you saying I can't cook?" 
Probably. I sucked at everything else so, why not. 

"Naw, I'm just kidding with ya. You should definitely make me some sometime." 

"You really like those things don't you?" I giggled. 

"Yeah, been eating them my whole life." 
Suddenly an old phrase popped into my head; you are what you eat. Not to say he was a chicken, by the way. 
"So that's why your hair is this color." I picked up one of the wings and brought it close to his head, laughing. 
"Where'd the chicken go?! It's the same color as your hair I can't see it!" 
He smacked my hand away, swallowing quickly so he could laugh. 

"Shut up." And he looked at me with that stupid half-grin that never failed to make my breath hitch in my throat. 
It was then that I spotted it- I reached my hand out and swiped the hot sauce off of his chin, smiling at him after. 
"Y-you had a little uh..." I held my thumb up for him to see the red sauce, feeling my face turn to what felt like the same color. Dammit, I must look so stupid, he's probably freaked out as to why I'm blushing. 
Why can't my body just work with me for once? 

"Thanks." he ducked his head back down and finished eating. 

-&- 

"You wanna go for ice cream?" 
Sometimes I look at Alan, and I just want to do things for him. Is that weird? Don't judge me. 
Like today. I don't know what made me think of it, But I wanted to take him to get ice cream; I didn't even want ice cream. 

I hadn't had much of an appetite lately. I had a bowl of cereal yesterday morning and then the stolen chicken wings that evening but other than that, I hadn't wanted to eat. And I'm still not hungry. 

"Is that even a question?" 
I laughed from the drivers seat as I pulled into the shop parking lot. 
There weren't many people here-actually, none at all- so I ordered and payed for Alan's treat fairly quickly. But when we sat down, I was hit with the inevitable. 

"You didn't get one?" He cocked an eyebrow upwards, giving a lick to the cone he was holding. 

"No I'm no-not really hungry." 

"But it's ice cream, dude." He really looked confused. 

"Or maybe it's j-just that you're obsessed with food." I smirked. 

"Are you calling me fat?" 

"I wouldn't have you any other way." I joked, and he seemed to find it funny too. 
"No you're not fat, you string-bean." I teased back. 

"Actually, I think I'm gettin' a tummy." He pinched at his stomach giving it a shake. 

"Alan you just grabbed your skin that's-" 

"I know." He laughed. "I was kidding." 

"Oh, woopsies." I grinned. 
He cleared his throat, after taking another bite.

"Could we go down to the bar tonight? The one in the hotel basement floor?" 

Oh no. 
I didn't really want him to go down there. He wasn't himself when he's drunk and I don't think it'd be as much fun. But if that's what he wanted...

-

"Austin, you know, you're really hot." Alan's hand was placed at my cheek, his eyes boring into mine. My face and neck grew hot at his words, and I had to remind myself that he was drunk. 

He had been hitting on me all night, and really, it was really, really frustrating. Both mentally and honestly, sexually. I swear if he keeps it up my already tight pants are done for. 

"Thank you, Alan. Now can we go ba-" 
I was cut off by a pair of lips, sliding right into place with my own. 
I was startled at first, but- I don't know why I did this, it's bound to turn around and bite me in the ass later- I started kissing back. 
Alan has kissed me while drunk before but this time was different. Usually his kisses were just hungry, lust filled. But there was something else this time. And I kinda, sort of, really liked it. 
This went on, a few minutes spent in the corner of the hotel bar, making out with my best friend. And what came next was so terribly wrong. 
Alan leaned in and whispered in my ear. 
"Let's go." 
I shivered at the sound of his voice as he lead me along to the elevator back to our room.