I've Had It With This Game

“Jack... What happened?” He runs toward me and I notice he's holding a bouquet of daises. They look handpicked, all slightly different sizes and all loosing petals. There's a guitar cord tied around them, almost like a bow, but instead, just double knotted.

I start to tear up as the bouquet falls out of his hand as he wraps his arms around me.

“Nothing.” I say, in response to his question. He pulls back and holds my wrist, my inner arm where I cut facing me.

“This isn't nothing, Jack. This is... Bad.” He finally tacks on the word “bad” to finish his sentence, still unsure what exact word to use to describe this horror set before him.

“Jaime,” I hear Zack's heavy voice from behind me. Jai lets go of my wrist and he walks over to Zack. I call his voice heavy not just because he sounds tired, but heavy because when he's sad, he does a shit job at hiding it.

I hear them whispering and I close my eyes, wind whipping around my head. I know Alex and Vinny and Flyzik and Matt and Rian are all probably just a few feet away, hiding behind Pierce The Veil's tour bus, waiting for the calm after the storm, but I don't care. I don't care, right in this moment, who sees me or who knows how fucked up my brain is. Because I'm sick of being ashamed. Sick of slightly caring when I wear a short sleeve, no matter how confident I may feel or how many dick jokes I make.

The whispers grow louder.

“Jaime, just go.” Zack says. I can tell by his tone of voice that he's trying to keep his cool, in his Aspire and Create white tank top and black skinny jeans, no matter that it's 40 degrees out. I can see him without even turning around, without my eyes open, I can see him standing in front of the bus, that look on his face like he's a new guard puppy, protecting me. I can see him, protecting me. But protecting me from what? From who? Jaime? He could never hurt me.

“This is bullshit!” I hear Jaime yell. I open my eyes. I've never heard him yell. I turn around and Jaime walks over to me, grabbing my arm, right over my cuts, and pressing, and squeezing.

“This, is bullshit.” he whispers in my ear. I close my eyes and cringe. My cuts were already stinging, and that was okay, it was a beautifully painful stinging, but now, now they hurt. They burn. They're threatening to bleed more. I open my eyes back up.

“Fuck you, Barakat. You and your meltdown.” He steps away, lets go of my arm and throws it back, like he's trying to get rid of me.

“Go have fun with Zack! Go! Have fun with that dick!” He says, backing away from us, yelling. I'm sobbing as the hot tears stream down my face. They hurt more than the cuts on my arm, like they're pieces of my heart running through my tear ducts and escaping through my tears, leaving me forever.

And suddenly, I'm on the ground. My legs are pressed to my chest and my arms are around my knees. I can't stop crying. I try but I sputter and keep going, a car that refuses to die.

I open my eyes to take a deep breath and Zack's next to me. I look away from him. I look at the concrete. And I see what Jaime left behind.

The bouquet.

The handpicked bouquet of daises with the guitar string to hold them together.

Fuck.

My eyes wrench shut and I cry more. I cry harder than I have in all my life.

And it feels good.

Like I'm letting go of something that would never work.

And then I realize, that's exactly what I'm doing. Right here, and right now, letting go.

Later, in my bunk, on our way to Portland, I start to think. I think about the look on Jaime's face when he walked away.

The whispering voices that I couldn't translate to words that most likely had something to do with me that were shared like secrets between Jaime and Zack.

This relapse was like a new start for me.

Is like a new start.

Once I stopped crying, everyone emerged from their hiding spots and we left. Without a single word. Alex wanted to drive, so he took the wheel, probably to take his mind off things, and we all just sat. I immediately went to my bunk and laid on top of my blankets, everything making me too warm. Even just on top of my blankets I'm too warm, but I can't bare to move. It makes things hurt.

Mostly my head.

Or my heart.

I think Jaime may have broken both.

It wasn't supposed to happen this way.

I keep thinking and realize that I don't have the bouquet. Those flowers are still in whatever parking lot we were in for the past day and a half or whatever.

I roll over, on my side.

I start to think about what I want. Out of life.

I want a house with that person who I'm going to spend the rest of my life with. Maybe a kid, if society will grow up and finally fully accept LGBT's. I want to kiss someone and not be worried they'll hate me for who I was or who I can be.

I want...

As I search for the end of the sentence, my brain settles on an image, like it was sifting through a pile of pictures from an old box and finally found the perfect one.

The image doesn't surprise me.

It makes me feel warm. And fluffy.

It's Zack.