Status: let's see how this goes, shall we?

Trace Your Shadows

we're so miserable and stunning

THEN

Fiona was paralyzed in fear, her heart beating right out of her chest, while Pete just raised a hand and waved to her with a silly little grin like it was completely normal to wait outside your neighbor’s window at four in the morning. She had half the mind to just leave him out there, pull the curtain across and forget any of this even happened, but she could just see him tap-tap-tapping on her window until sunrise if she did.

Instead, even against her better judgement, she leaned forward to unlatch the window, pushing it open enough for Pete to curl his fingers around the frame and pull himself inside. Fiona waited until he’d managed to get all of himself in and shut the window behind him, before giving him a perfect glare.

“What in the holy sweet hell were you doing outside my window at four in the freaking morning?” she whispered, trying to keep in mind that her parents were only down the hall and if they woke up to find this scene, it wouldn’t end well for her.

“I was thinking about what you said before, you know, about if I wanted to talk,” Pete started off, not at all looking bothered at how annoyed she was to be woken up at such a dumb hour. “And I think I’d like to. Talk, that is. To you.”

Fiona blinked once, twice. This was not what she was expecting, at all. “At four in the morning, though?” she questioned, but with less heat behind her words.

“I have insomnia, can’t sleep much,” Pete said with a shrug, still not looking apologetic in the slightest and Fiona gave up on trying to get any sort of guilt out of him.

Sighing, she nodded and padded back over to her bed, slipping under the covers before looking up at Pete and patting the end of the bed as an invitation. Obediently, he sat down, only to pull his legs up so he was sitting cross legged and looking at her expectantly, waiting for something to happen only she wasn’t sure what.

“Insomnia?” she tried, figuring it was a good place to start.

Pete nodded quickly, grateful to be thrown a line. “Yeah, it’s like, you can’t sleep, or you can’t sleep as much as you would like to, or even need to really, and your sleeping pattern gets all fucked up. I’ve got pills for it, I’ve got pills for everything really, but it doesn’t… it doesn’t always help.”

Fiona frowned at this. “What do you mean by pills for everything? What kind of pills?”

“Well, insomnia for starters. Anxiety, depression. Had some for ADHD for a while until we figured out I’d been misdiagnosed. I fucking hate it thought because I hate who the pills make me, they change me completely and I feel numb, out of it, like I’m not even myself anymore. But I can’t be without them, because it’s almost just as bad. I’m sick of being medicated but I’m scared to be without. I’m a fucking disaster, Fi, a crazy fuck up and no amount of pills is going to fix that. I just need them to feel okay, but I can’t even get that.”

“I wouldn’t say you were fucked up, Pete,” Fiona stated quietly, as the boy opposite her looked up sharply. “There’s a lot of stuff wrong in this world and maybe we’re just the by-products of it. It’s easy to feel lost when no one knows where they’re going.”

Pete was silent, eyes wide. Fiona could see the gears churning inside his mind and hoped she hadn’t said the wrong thing because the situation was fragile, delicate, and she didn’t want to be the one to mess it up.

“Fuck,” he breathed out, overwhelmed. “That actually made sense. There’s just, there’s so much wrong with me, you know? I wouldn’t even be able to tell you half the things that go on in my head, the things that keep me awake and in a constant state of panic. It’s like my thoughts are just stacking up, piles and piles of ‘em, like water building up in my lungs. I’m so close to drowning. The things I think about, dream about, they’re making me go nuts. I can’t turn ‘em off.”

“And the pills don’t help, right? It’s just as bad with them than without them,” Fiona continued, trying to add up this strange equation of a boy.

Pete nodded, exhaling loudly. “Things just got too noisy, Fi. I couldn’t keep up, I couldn’t tone things down and so I took more. I took heaps. I just wanted some quiet for a while, and then when I realized how many I’d swallowed, I thought I might die. It only really occurred to me after I’d taken them that I could just disappear. But I wasn’t scared, I was just… relieved. That maybe there was a way out after all.”

“So you never really attempted to do it, it just… happened?” Fiona asked slowly, trying her best to understand.

“Yeah, I guess it wasn’t a conscious decision but when I realized, I accepted it pretty quickly. That’s why I won’t call it an accident, even if my family are dead set on it. Because an accident means a mistake, something that wasn’t intentional that you don’t want to repeat. I may have not intended to do it, but I definitely didn’t regret, not when my thoughts were finally slowing down and I had a few, perfect moments of pure, crystal clear consciousness,” Pete explained, his eyes distant as he thought back to those precious seconds.

“I asked you the other day if you would try it again, and you said maybe. Did you mean that? Do you want to, just for that clarity?” Fiona could feel herself trembling, not from the cold, but from the intensity of this conversation. She was scared, terrified even, by the subject matter but she didn’t want to say that, to turn Pete away and leave him feeling as though he really was crazy, and that no one understands.

Pete gave a little hum of indecisiveness. “I don’t know anymore. Part of me craves that silence, it’s a huge driving factor. I keep thinking, you know, that suicide’s this big taboo subject, not because of the big fucking social stigma around but because it’s a way to win, it’s a way to get out. If we really are just God’s little play things, suicide can be the only move you make entirely on your own, without anybody’s influence, and it’s a way to win against God himself. It’s the one decision that’s all mine.”

“But?” Fiona prompted, hoping that there was a but in among all this.

“But,” Pete continued, a small smile on his lips, “there are things that I would miss if I go, things that I didn’t realize were so important to me until I thought I was gonna die. Also I can’t stop thinking what might be waiting for me just down the track, what’ll come round if I wait a little longer. I guess I just don’t want to miss out.”

“I think, if you look hard enough, there’s always something to live for,” Fiona mentioned quietly, looking up to meet Pete’s gaze with unsure eyes.

Pete let out a little laugh, one bitter and cynical that hurt to hear. “Maybe for you, yeah. You’re just a kid, all innocent and happy and protected. Still under the influence that the world will look after ya.”

Fiona narrowed her eyes at this. “You know, I’m not that much younger than you.”

“Physically, yeah. But mentally, no. Look, I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, you know? Just that one day you’ll figure it out that the world ain’t as nice as it always seems to be, that things get tough, really fucking tough, and then you’ll see it. I’m not saying you’ll want to end, god, I don’t fucking want you to ever feel the way I do, but you’ll at least understand why other people consider it, why other people maybe can’t take the strain of the world as well as others can,” Pete said, his eyes sad. “If I could keep one person from feeling this hollow, this miserable, I’d take that pain for them. It’s so fucking terrible I can’t take the thought of someone else sharing this feeling.”

Fiona got caught up on the last part of Pete’s monologue, unable to even respond as she churned the phrase over in her mind. She couldn't figure out if it’s the most selfish or selfless thing she’d ever heard, and it made her head hurt to even try. She looked at the boy in front of her, the dark rings around his eyes telling tales he’d probably never say out loud, and she felt a sudden rush of affection for the guy that she barely knew. He was all hidden doors and distorted mirrors and never straight answers, endlessly fascinating, and like no one she’d ever met before. She didn’t want to think about how she had been so close to having never met him, to ever see this side of him, and suddenly the silence that had fallen between them is broken by her sudden, impulsive confession.

“Pete?” Pete raised his head, expression questioning. “I’m glad you didn’t die,” Fiona finished softly, her eyes avoiding his in case it was all the wrong types of thing to say. More silence, and Fiona didn’t know what she was expecting.

“I’m glad I got to talk to you about this,” Pete replied and when Fiona finally managed to look at him again, his smile was gentle, fond.

“Why me, though? Like you said, I’m just some kid, one that you didn’t even know a few weeks ago and we’ve only spoken a handful of times. Of all the people in your life you could talk to about this, why me?” Fiona questioned. “Not… not that I don’t want you to talk to me about it, because I do. I want you to talk to me about it, if it helps. I’m just… curious.”

“Honestly? Because you didn’t look at me like I should be bundled off to the nearest loony bin. When I came back from the hospital, everyone treated me different, especially my family, all tiptoeing around me like anything could set me off. Then there was you, coming around to drop off the stupid dog and you just… you asked. You flat out asked what I didn’t realise I’d been waiting for someone to say. You didn’t shy away and I needed that, I need that still. You cared when you didn’t have to; asking Andrew how I was, and well, you just get it. Maybe you think you don’t, but underneath it all, you understand.”

Pete got to his feet, stretching easily as though they’d been having a casual chat about the weather and made his way over to the window before turning back with that languid grin. “So hey, thanks for making the first few hours of my birthday not so shitty.”

Fiona gaped at him. “Pete, it’s your birthday today? You didn’t say!”

“Not much of a reason to, I guess. But hey, no longer a teenage so that’s something.” Pete shrugged.

“Well regardless, happy birthday Pete. Happy twentieth year of life,” Fiona regarded him with a smile, and Pete couldn’t fight off a matching grin.

“I should let you get back to sleep, it is a school night,” he teased, laughing quietly when Fiona groaned.

“You suck,” she whined before giving Pete a careful look. “But hey, if you ah, wanna do this again, maybe at a more reasonable time but whatever, I’m here okay? I want you to talk.”

Pete nodded, ducking his head and breaking his gaze. “Yeah, okay. Yeah. Goodnight, Fi.”

“Goodnight Pete. Get some sleep, okay?”

Pete looked up to see that Fiona was grinning, and so he did the same. “Very funny,” he told her, still smiling, and then he was out the window, shutting it behind him silently before effortlessly shimming down the pipe he had used to get up there in the first place and disappearing into the dark.

Fiona knew she would be wrecked tomorrow, burned out from a night of not sleeping, but when she considered the lightness in her chest and the smile Pete had left with, she figured it was all worth it.
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whoa hey there, sorry for the wait! things got crazy this week uni-wise but it was so lovely to come back to such wonderful comments! thank you so much for taking the time to read this and let me know what you think of it, it means the world to me!