I Don't Want To Leave Without You Buried By My Side.

“Victor Vincent Fuentes!” My mother’s pissed off voice thundered through the air, up the stairs and into my room. I gasped, and whipped my head to make sure the bedroom door was still safely shut. With a sigh of relief, I grabbed the nearest tissue and pressed it to my extensively bleeding arm. It stung a little, but it was bittersweet; a feeling that I knew too well to be actually hurt by.

“What!?” I screamed back indecently, pushing my sleeves down my pulsing arms. How long has she been calling for me?

“Don't 'what' me, get down here. Are you deaf?” She yelled once more, irritated.

I sighed again and stood, wiping the bloody razor clean, and stashing it in a shoebox. I pushed it under the bed, hidden from sight.

What the hell did I do this time? I wondered as I stormed down the stairs. Mom was at the end, holding the house phone. I stared at her.

“You have a phone call. And don’t give me that look,” she complained with a glare as I snatched the phone out of her hand and thudded back up the stairs.

My mother and I don’t have the best relationship; I guess you can say that we hate each other. We usually just ignore each other, for my younger brother, Mikey’s, sake. He hates when we fight. I love him to death, but he’ll just never understand why I feel so much hatred towards her, what with the hell she put this family through. What she did caused me to come home from the University of San Diego, to look after the two of them because she was doing such a pathetic job as usual.

Well, technically, I had to come home because my mother thought I was dealing drugs. The woman found my brother’s pot stashed in my closet, where I was hiding it for him. I told Mikey not to worry about fessing up; I was already a fuck up and he didn’t need the extra stress. So I took the blame, and handed the weed over. I wasn’t surprised that my mom didn’t call the police. There’s no way we could come up with money for the fine, and we don’t need any more of a criminal record associated with drugs in the Fuentes family.

Mike rarely ever talks to me, or anyone. But while I was at University, just before the drug ordeal had happened, I got a phone call from him. He was practically begging me to come back home, that everything was a mess. I honestly didn’t see how I could make things any better, since I fucked up everything I would set my mind to. But I found out Mikey had dropped out of school to get a full time job, to support the family. He sounded like he hadn’t slept for days. Mom was still getting drunk, spending their money on more and more alcohol. So I came home. I forced Mike to go back to school, and at least quit working full time. I work a full time job as a waiter.

I’ve been supporting the family with the money I make. My mother does have a job at the local supermarket, though it’s part time. It’s kind of useless to my brother and me because we never see the money she makes; she’s always hiding things from us. The only thing she really does is get the groceries for us, though she barely eats the food I make with it. It’s like she’s not even a part of the family, like she’s just a grouchy roommate or something. I fucking hate her for putting Mike through all of this shit, and never being there when the family collapsed. I really try to get Mike to talk to me, and put the shattered pieces of our family back together, but I’m too useless to fix anything. Most of the time, I just want to slip away from life itself, because all this distress was ultimately caused by me.

I shook away my thoughts as I got to my room, and sat down on my bed. “Hello?” I tried to not sound fully miserable, just in a small hope to be talking to that one gorgeous human being.

“I’m sorry I made your mom yell at you. I called your cell like ten times, and I just need you, so I had to call the house phone though you told me not to, and I’m sorry I’m so fucking pathetic.” The words all rushed out through the receiver in a shaky, familiar voice and I felt a flutter in my chest. God, he’s adorable when he’s all apologetic. I sighed.

“Babe, calm down, it’s okay. I should have had my phone on me, I did tell you to only call my cell. What happened?” I began searching my room for my cellphone. Kellin started again.

“Ugh, Vic, you’re so perfect. You always know what to say, though I still feel terrible…” He paused, and I stayed silent for him to continue. “…I just… I had to get out of there. I almost completely lost my shit again. I would have called you sooner, but I was just so fucking terrified that I ran as fast as I could. It’s not even that I was scared of him or anyone in particular, but everything just welled up inside me and I just….” He choked up, ending mid-sentence. I can just picture him saying this, letting his dark hair fall over his eyes as he slouched, casting quick glances up at me under pinched eyebrows. He would fiddle with the drawstrings of his favorite red hoodie, or clench his fists, the way he always did when he felt nervous, flushed, or ashamed. I’ve seen it tons of times.

Kellin gets really anxious sometimes, especially when his dad comes home. He’s terrified of his dad, and I know that he beats himself up for it. It frustrates the fuck out of me, because he doesn’t deserve to feel that way. He’s too beautiful and perfect to even feel the slightest amount of self-hatred. I feel horrible when he lets himself down like this, because I should be the one stopping it. I picked up my found phone (it was stuffed in between my mattress and bedframe,) and noticed that I had ten missed calls from him, and 5 texts. If I had only had my fucking phone on me, he wouldn’t feel even worse about calling. God, I’m such a fucking screw up. I can’t even be a good boyfriend to the only person I actually care about.

But he said he ran away. Oh god, where the hell did he go? Knowing Kellin, it could be anywhere. “Where are you now?” I asked the question, praying that he knew the answer.

“Jesse’s. He’s not here though, he’s at Ashley’s. He’s letting me stay here for the night though.” I breathed a sigh of relief. Jesse was a really good person. He’s been best friends with Kellin since middle school. Kellin continued. “I couldn’t take any more of it, Vic. Dad just came home with some drunken ass slut who had no goddamn respect for any fucking thing, and she was swearing at me and calling me an ungrateful little shit and Dad wasn’t even doing anything about it. He just fucking sat there. He sat there! I fucking felt horrible all day, and this stupid bitch comes into my house… fucking…hurting all of us. But nobody even gives two shits anymore. Nobody.” His voice cracked, and I heard his breath start to hitch.

I tried hard not to make things worse, which I was golden in. “I give two shits about you,” I said in a playfully defensive tone. I wasn’t exactly sure what he meant by nobody giving two shits anymore, but I still tried to make it a little better.

He didn’t really pick up on my playful tone. “Oh Vic, I don’t know where I’d be if you weren’t here to give two shits about me, let alone one shit.” He let out a sad giggle at the last part, then a wet sniff.

I laughed lightly in return. “I’m not actually mad. But you do have people that care about you, and I know your dad does care, deep down. You can’t think that your dad doesn’t love you when he doesn’t say anything,” I finally said, on a more serious note.

“I know he loves me. But it’s just so fucking hard to see it; it makes me believe that he doesn’t. And I’m just so goddamn confused by it all.” I could hear him sigh; exasperated.

“He just doesn’t know how to show it. After everything that happened, I’m sure he just doesn’t know what to feel. You have every right to be pissed at him. But you can’t take it all out on yourself, Kell.” He let out a wet sniffle. He was probably crying. I knew what I had to do. “I’m coming over.”

“I…Okay.” He said in a small voice, “When?”

“Right now.”

~~~

I quickly padded down the stairs, down the hallway and to the front door. I had just slipped my first shoe on when her voice echoed down the hall.

“Where are you going?”

I looked up at my mother standing at the end of the hallway, just in front of the kitchen. She was holding a glass bottle of something, I couldn’t see what it was exactly, but I was sure it was alcoholic.

I resumed to tying my shoe. “Out.”

I heard her step closer, I slipped the other shoe on and began tying it quickly. “Where?” She asked sharply. I looked up at her; I could tell she had been drinking whatever was in that bottle.

“Does it matter?”

She stared at me incredulously. “Yes, Victor, it does matter.”

I stared straight back at her. “I’m going to Kellin’s.” I stood up, and began to turn around. “I’ll see you when I get back.”

I had taken barely a step when she grabbed my shoulder, hard, and pulled me back in. “No you’re not. You’re not going to that boy’s house.” My mom said ‘that boy’ with a look of disgust, and in the same tone she always used whenever he came up in conversation.

I pushed her hand off of me and faced her. “Yes, I am. I can go wherever I want. And it wouldn’t kill you to get over the fact that I can date whoever the fuck I want, and you can’t do a goddamn thing to change that.” I felt the blood pumping to my head, and I was beyond pissed. Granted, we were always pissed at each other, but whenever someone degraded Kellin, there was no turning back.

Just as I realized my words to my own mother, she swung back and struck me across the face. It was so strong, and unexpected, that I stumbled to the floor. I stared up at her with wide eyes, stunned. It’s not that I was upset she did it; I’m used to getting hit by her. But she’s never hit me like that. Never that hard. Maybe it just felt different, because maybe this was the time she swung one too many. I wasn’t sure, though, because my vision became a little cloudy on the left side and it was hard to focus.

I watched from the floor, at her screaming at me. But I could barely hear her. All I heard was white noise. My brain felt numb, though something was screaming at me in the back of my mind. My eyes, especially on the left side, were now filled with tears. Not emotional tears, but tears from the strike. I blinked a few times, and took a couple seconds to realize my surroundings and force myself to listen to the little voice. I jumped back up and faced my now hysterical mother.

“You fucking coward!” It was the first thing that left my lips. She was still firing insults at me, though I wasn’t listening; I was yelling over her. “You’re seriously going to fucking resort to alcohol and hitting your fucking kid, the kid that you NEEDED to come home from his own education, just so you can sit on your lazy ass all day and leave it to him to do all the work, and you’re fucking taking your issues out on ME again?! You don’t understand what you’ve fucking done to this family! You. Ruined. Everything!” The words were a jumbled mess, but I didn’t care. I was screaming louder than I thought I ever could, and my heart was pounding so fast it was hard to hear.

“I ruined everything? So it was my fault your father hid his drug addiction from me? It was my fault he purposefully took one too many fucking pills one night, and nobody knew until it was too late? Or are you hiding anything else from me, Vic? Did YOU know anything about his addiction?”

I knew that she was drunk, and I knew that she was aiming this at me now because she wanted to take the blame off of her. But the thing is that, I did know about his addiction. And that is what broke me right there. I could’ve stopped his death. I could have prevented this all from happening, but I was too scared and stupid and naïve to tell anyone.

Emotional tears were falling now, though I tried my hardest to contain them. I didn’t want to look weak in front of her. She can’t see that she is right.

…Though she was. She screamed all these words at me, about me being a useless, stupid disgrace to the family, and deep down, I really did feel that way. There’s so much noise going on in my head. It seems like there’s ten different voices, all screaming different things at me. One’s saying how she’s right, I am a fucking disgrace. Another is saying how pathetic she is, and another saying how pathetic I am. I tried to find a clear voice to listen to. I ignored her questioning me about knowing about my dad’s addiction. “You did fuck up this family. You seemed to fall off the face of the earth once Dad died. Mike had to fucking drop out of high school to survive and look after the both of you, and you didn’t even do anything to fix that! You fucking hate your sons, are you proud of yourself for that? Dad never deserved to die, I wish you had instead.” The words came out like acid. I could taste it, the way the words stung scared me. But I don’t regret saying them.

Her face was beating bright red. “Shut the fuck up!” She lifted her arm and, what seemed like barely a second later, I was faced with a glass bottle soaring through the air. Automatically, I lifted my arm to cover my face, while the glass and remaining liquid exploded on the door and showered over me.

Then I heard it, through the chaos. Someone was screaming. I was pinned against the wall, holding my arm. I wasn’t exactly sure why I was holding it, or why I was stuck there, I couldn’t sort my brain out properly. The sounds came closer and Mike appeared in between me and my mother in the front hallway.

“Stop! Oh god, just stop it already! Fuck, I can’t fucking take it anymore!” Tears were streaming down his face. I stood there, paralyzed, staring at the scene in front of me. My mother was now on her knees, holding her face in her hands. She ran her fingers through her hair and stared at me with eyes full of hatred. I was probably staring back with the same expression.

“Michael, stay out of this.” She said quietly to him.

But Mike just whipped around and faced her. “No!” He yelled at her. “I wish I could, but it’s impossible. You two are always screaming at each other, why can’t we just be a normal fucking family? Why do we all hate each other?”

I finally let my arm drop to my side, and felt a sharp pain in doing so. I looked down and noticed my hand was covered in blood. It was seeping into my yellow hoodie, staining it. I was sprayed with the strong scent of the gin that used to be held inside of the one-piece bottle, as well.

We all just stood there for a few seconds, letting the question hang in the air. I didn’t know what to think anymore. My ears were ringing, my thoughts were cloudy, and I felt like I was about to vomit. I wanted to leave, just run to Kellin, but I felt like I needed to stay, just for a little while longer. I’m not sure why exactly; all I knew was just that all of this is my fault. I don’t know how to fix it. I don’t hate Mike, I never could. But he feels hated, that’s for sure. And here we all were, standing around like a bunch of idiots who have no idea how to utilize real emotion. I felt a sudden, real wave of nausea rush over me and I had to cut my stupidity short as I ran past them and up the stairs. I rushed into the bathroom and began hurling. It was mostly bile and water, and soon nothing. I barely ate anything all day, I then realized. Still though, I was purging, my stomach muscles wanting to force more and more out of me when there was nothing left to force out. After a few minutes of torture, the purging finally stopped, and I was left to lie on the cool tile floor, shaking, reeking of gin and bleeding immensely. I should get up and clean myself, I should stop the bleeding, I should drink or eat something. But I couldn’t move. I was getting cloudier, the room was spinning. I heard a distant person in the room curse something before I felt myself finally slip away into the darkness.