We Feel Like Dead Ends

Slamming the door on his way in, Jack wiped his soaking wet Vans on the run down rug in the hallway. He took a furtive glance around his house; it appeared empty but he saw his mom’s purse on the kitchen table and his dad’s jacket was draped over the arm of the couch. Sighing, he kicked off his shoes and silently crept up the few stairs to his room.

The minute the door closed, whatever façade he had conjured up for school dropped from him like a fall of rain. Jack threw his bag down on the floor and collapsed to the ground. Tears fell down his gaunt face as he curled into a ball in the corner, drawing his knees up to his face. And he cried.
“Alex… Alex, why’d you leave me?” He whispered quietly, his voice void of any emotion. The question was empty; he’d asked it too many times to care anymore. No one ever had an answer for him. Alex’s parents had told him not to ever go back to their house, telling him Alex’s depression and anxiety was all Jack’s fault. The countless therapists that seemed to all blend into one useless memory had only ever replied to him, in sad, sympathetic tones, that they didn’t know. No one knew anything. And Jack had absolutely no idea. A year later and he still barely understood what had happened.

Alex had left a note. A small piece of lined paper ripped from his notebook, his notebook full of lyrics and poems that even Jack rarely got a glimpse at.
Make it a sweet, sweet goodbye
It could be for the last time,
And it’s not right
Don’t let yourself get in over your head
He said
Alone and far from home
I’ll find you
Crumpled up in Jack’s locker the day Alex was absent. A strange thing for Alex to do, really. He would rather talk to Jack about his songs and poetry than just leave him a page of words. Unless…
Jack had run to Alex’s house as soon as school ended. In those days, they both had perfect attendance (to compensate for what their grades were lacking, most definitely,) until Alex had started randomly missing classes in the middle of the days. At the Gaskarth’s house, Jack found the key under the small house plant on the porch and had busted through the door like an explosion. And saw Alex’s mom crying. Holding a perfect white piece of printed paper with perfect black words in a perfectly reasonable font. She curled up on the living room floor right where she was and hugged a jacket to her chest. Alex’s jacket. But yet, she looked up a Jack with quite steady eyes and whispered something she probably hadn’t thought she’d ever have to say again.

“He…. He- Alex-Suicide, Jack.” Mrs. Gaskarth whispered so quietly, so quietly that anyone else wouldn’t have been able to hear. Jack heard her quite all right, though. Tears traced their ways down his cheeks; he felt as though his heart had been ripped from his chest. And stomped on. And rolled down a cliff onto a road to be run over by a truck that was the shock and distress of Alex Gaskarth.
He should’ve seen the signs. He should’ve noticed. Noticed the way Alex laughed then turned away, his smiles lasting only as long as someone was looking. Noticed the way Alex turned down going to the movies with Rian and Zack and avoided going home with Jack to play video games. Noticed how much time Alex threw himself at risks and chances with no fear of falling. At the time, they had all assumed it was just this daredevil instinct in him, assumed it could be pride or something normal. Then again, depression is normal enough, these days. Normal enough that the paramedics come prepared for a suicide attempt.

Jack wept on the floor, eyes staring out into nothingness. Well, technically staring out into his room, which felt like nothingness without all of Alex’s things strewn all over. The Gaskarth’s had come in a week after their son was hospitalized and claimed everything he had ever left at the Barakat’s. Taken every old band shirt, every beanie, every book and every lyric he had scribbled down. All gone. And without those small traces of his best friend, Jack was so alone.
“So goddamn alone.” He sighed, resting his head in his hands.
“Jack, honey?” There was a single knock on his bedroom door, and his mother’s voice rattled into his thoughts. “Jack, why are you home so early?” At least she didn’t take the courtesy of just coming in.
“Um, I uh… didn’t feel well.” He murmured, just loud enough to be heard. It was partly the truth; he didn’t exactly feel top notch. Like, ever.

“Oh, baby, are you okay?” Joyce Barakat opened the chipped white door and took a hesitant seat next to her son against the wall. Jack sighed, closing his eyes for a second before looking back down at the floor. He was so, so tired of lying through his teeth every single time someone asked that goddamned question. Okay? Are you okay? Fuck it, they didn’t even care. It was really just as empty a question as why Alex left him. There was never meant to be an answer.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” He said, without looking at his mom.
“Jack…” Joyce frowned slightly and put a hand on his cheek to turn his face towards her. “Honey…”
“I’m OKAY. Just listen to me for once, please!” He shrugged away from her hand and shifted a couple inches from her.
“You never give me any chances to listen to you! You barely even talk to us anymore, Jack! Look, I know things have been hard for you ever since Alex was taken away-“ Jack cringed. “-but we’re here to help you.”

Yeah fucking right. Joyce had all but given up on her son. He simply didn’t care anymore. She cared, she cared so much about Jack, but he wasn’t making things easy for them. Rian and Zack were worried as hell, but they had no idea what to do. The expenses of therapy were catching up with the Barakat’s and no change had been made in Jack. No positive change, at least. After a year gone by, Joyce had noticed so much go wrong. Jack barely ate, barely made a sound. He was a broken soul dragging through his days (his existence could definitely not be called living) inside an empty shell of the human being he once was.
“Fine. FINE.” She said after a moment of silence between the two. “Goddamnit, Jack! You can’t say we never tried, okay?” Joyce stared at her son for another second, and her lip curled with the slightest hint of disgust. He glanced up for her just long enough to see the hate on her face, looking away as she stood up and slammed the door as she left. He thought of Jenna, of her favourite Blink 182 song.
Rather than fix their problems, they never solve them, it makes no sense at all