Sanctuary

Alex was in the dead center of the largest crowd he had ever seen in his life. Everywhere he turned, as far as his eyes could see, there were unfamiliar faces staring back at him. He felt extremely claustrophobic, smothered by the bodies pressed against his own.

Something about these faces were different, too. They never remained the same. They shifted, some drastically and some only subtly, but regardless they were different each time he looked at them.

Alex couldn't stand being the center of attention, especially by this many people. His stomach churned. He covered his face in an attempt to shield himself from their staring eyes, but he could still feel the glares burning into him. He was going into panic mode.

In the distance, the crowd began parting and then closing in on itself once again, as if to let someone through. The movement grew closer to Alex, and once it was only a few yards away, the crowd immediately backed away from the Brit, leaving him dead center of a large circle. Jack stepped out from the crowd. His face was crystal clear, each orifice and eyelash, every inch of his lanky body.

The crowd watched on as Jack slowly moved closer to Alex, never breaking eye contact. Once they were only a foot apart, a bony hand was coming toward his face. Jack's skin was soft as cotton as the back of his fingers gently stroked his cheek. "It's okay. I'm here now," he said quietly as if the crowd wasn't permitted to hear what he was saying.

Alex felt peace instantly.

"Good morning, sunshine. It's time to wake uuuuup," a lightly accented voice cooed.

Alex's eyelids fluttered open and everything slowly slid into focus. He wasn't in a large crowd. He was in his bed, his bedroom pitch dark save for the faint glow leaking in from the half open door. Blocking out some of the light was the short, but well-built silhouette of his mum. 'It was all a dream…'

Being the most anti-morning person in the world and slightly annoyed that he had been woken up from such a bizarre yet satisfying dream, Alex groaned loudly at his mum's obnoxious wake-up call. Only occasionally did she replace his alarm clock, but when she did, it was one of the most nerve racking things Alex had to endure. "Ten more minutes," he growled, "and I'm not six anymore, mom."

He heard the defeat in the way his mother sighed. It was like she had honestly forgotten that he was no longer a little boy, and was actually hurt by his reminder. "Come on, Alex. It's Friday, and I made omelets and sausages and scones."

Immediately after she had spoken, a delicious aroma wafted in through the doorway. Alex's stomach rumbled. Perhaps he could he could subside being angry for just a bit, if only to have a plate of his mum's famous omelets.

As he made his way down the stairs lethargically, he couldn't help but think about the dream, which replayed itself continuously in his head. When he had seen Jack, his heart had sped up and all of his anxieties melted away at the feeling of his touch. He felt sick from it. He shouldn't feel this way about Jack. But he just couldn't stop thinking about the way his skin felt against his own, even if it was only a dream.

❀ ❀ ❀ ❀

It wasn't until Alex arrived at school that he remembered Jack wouldn't be there that day.

The two boys had no classes together, but the few times a day when their paths crossed in the hallways, Jack never failed to give him that cheesy grin and a tap on his knuckles. That small daily encounter was what Alex lived for. Holding conversation with the older boy was his medication when the world around him only brought him down. But with him being gone the entire day, Alex wasn't sure how well he would be able to hold on.

What was even worse was that Jack wouldn't even be available to text after school. He was on a religious retreat, something that was required attendance for all grade levels at St. Raphael. It just so happened that the senior retreat was 45 minutes away and lasted from seven something in the morning to ten o'clock that night. Jack was also quick to fall asleep, so the odds of them talking at all that day were slim.

Alex was already feeling defeated by the time he sank into his seat in third period religion. There was no way he could go on for the remainder of the school day feeling like a zombie.

The way he felt seemed to worsen each time he thought about how dependent he was becoming of Jack. He was just some stupid senior with the same music taste as him, why was he getting his panties in a twist? He'd survived just fine before he knew Jack. Come to think of it… no he hadn't. He was a wreck before Jack.

"So I think that today we will be answering questions from the question box," announced Ms. Dunn, a young brunette who looked barely out of college. She then shuffled over to retrieve the nearby shoe box with a hole cut in the top, which served as a place in which students could slip small bits of paper with questions written on them (most of which didn't pertain to religion and were just disrespectful students' ways of wasting class time.)

After the scraps were sifted through, two piles were made. One could only assume that the larger pile consisted of dumb questions like "Why is the sky blue?" and the pathetic pile contained actual questions.

The first piece of paper was pulled and opened.

"What is heaven like?"

The young woman then went into a long, detailed explanation of what the Catholic church predicted heaven was like. Alex, being the respectful individual he was, tried to push aside his misery and actually pay attention to the woman's speech. In all honesty, it was actually a very fascinating argument. Still, he didn't feel very motivated to "Come to Jesus."

The second piece of paper was pulled and opened.

"Do those who commit suicide go to heaven?"

Alex's head perked up. "This is actually a really good question because…" was all he heard before his mind went elsewhere.

The Brit was always skeptical when it came to the whole "heaven and hell" theory. He never really had a standpoint on it; it was such a deep topic, plus he didn't have the time nor patience to really get some answers on it, so it remained all a mystery to him. The question did get him thinking about one thing, though, which got him thinking about another thing, and suddenly he found himself concentrating on Seth.

'No. No. Please no.' But it was too late, he was already spiraling downward from the pit where he had already been. His bouts of self-blaming were few and far between, but when they came, they hit hard. It took all of his strength to not have a total breakdown in the middle of the full classroom.

'Your fault. It's all your fault.' 'Didn't you hear the teacher? He's burning in hell now.' 'Great job, Gaskarth.'

He survived two more periods. By fifth period he had given into temptation and found himself pulling open the glass door to the main office with shaky hands, marching up to the counter, and claiming that he was feeling nauseous. This was almost true, he did feel sick to his stomach.

The little old blonde sitting behind the counter didn't even blink as she pushed the old telephone closer to him and asked in a way-too-perky voice if he needed a number to be looked up.

Half an hour later, his mum was fumbling with her keys to unlock the door to his house for him, soon to be due back at work since she had taken her lunch break to come and get him from school.

"Do you need anything, sweetheart?" she asked, already halfway back to her car. It was a good thing he didn't need anything, because she was gone before he could respond. Then he was alone in the large, empty house. It was only him, his thoughts, and the paintings on the walls.

With a heart-wrenching sob, the boy fell to his knees, his hands at his face. "I'm s-sorry!" he wailed into the living room rug, his yell filling the empty room. "I'm so sorry." The weight was slowly falling from his back, reliving him from the pressure that was constantly building up inside. But Alex was aware that there was only way to calm himself, to quench is need for peace.

The thing about self-harm is that it's a hole that's a mile deep. When you first begin, the hole is only a foot deep. Each time you resort to it, you dig yourself deeper and deeper until the light at the top is no longer visible. Then, you spend your days slowly climbing up the walls. But no matter how far you climb, you'll never reach the top. You'll just find yourself falling back down to the bottom of the pit again.

Alex was sitting crisscrossed on his bed, the cold metal resting on his wrist. It took only one swipe, just one movement of the hand and all of this pain would slowly melt away.

He thought about Jack. What if he saw this? Would he care, or would be freaked out and completely ignore him for the rest of the year? It briefly crossed his mind that maybe Jack had a secret too. But regardless, he more than likely wouldn't want Alex doing this to himself.

The Brit put the piece of metal back in his side table drawer and settled down for a nap.

❀ ❀ ❀ ❀

Alex had awoken around the time his mother arrived home from work and chose to remain in bed, just staring at the ceiling for several hours. He felt much more rested and a not nearly as panicked as before, but he just couldn't work up the strength to leave his comfortable bed quite yet. Thankfully, his mother brought him a bowl of chicken noodle soup just as he was beginning to feel hungry.

For the longest time, he considered texting Jack, telling him what was up and asking how the retreat was going. But the senior probably wasn't allowed to use his phone, and honestly, he probably didn't care about Alex's stupid problems. Especially issues relating to his brother.

Alex never really talked about Seth, he was always the "don't ask, don't tell," type of guy. Instead, he locked all of his personal problems and thoughts away, like a shaken bottle of Coke, bound to explode at some point. That point was today, and now he was back to being an empty bottle, slowly being refilled with each day until the next explosion.

❀ ❀ ❀ ❀

That evening, as the Gaskarth family sat around their dinner table eating their spaghetti, Alex spoke up to break the awkward silence.

"I have a friend now," he said softly, pushing noodles to one corner of his plate.

His parents' faces lit up, and there was an audible clank of their forks hitting their glass plates.

"Oh?" his mother asked, signs of a smile showing on her face. Even his father, a very dry cut, no-nonsense man was cracking a smile. They were glad he had finally found someone after he had spent every family meal complaining about how he had no friends and absolutely despised this new school. "What's his name? Or her, I don't know."

"Jack," Alex said, a grin on his face and a blush on his cheeks, "his name's Jack."

"Oh, sweetheart, that's wonderful," chimed Isobel, "why don't you invite him over tomorrow?"

"Alright, mum," Alex lied. He probably wouldn't invite him over. They had only known one another for a week, wouldn't it be creepy if he just suddenly invited the older boy to his house? 'Hey, I practically just met you, but you wanna come over and talk about how I can't stop thinking about you for some stupid reason?' Then again, it had been a while since Alex had had a friend over.

That night, Alex decided to hit the hay earlier than usual. He was somehow exhausted despite his four hour nap earlier that day, plus he had nothing better to be doing. Strange how empty your life feels when a very friendly someone is suddenly unavailable to chat.

He was almost asleep when his phone vibrated on the bedside table. His arm snapped out to grab the phone like a lizard catching an insect. Nothing had ever given him as good of a feeling as seeing Jack's name on the screen.

'Hey! Finally home!'

'Thank god. Today was terrible.'

'What happened, little dude? :['

'I checked out during fifth period. I just really didn't feel that great. Some shit happened.'

'Anything you want to talk about?'

'It doesn't really matter'

'Does too'

'it's just… personal issues. I'd rather talk to you about it somewhere else other than text.'

'One sec.'

Ten minutes had passed and Jack had yet to return from whatever it was that was occupying him. Alex was actually on the verge of falling asleep again when his phone began ringing. A phone call. 'Shit.' He was absolutely awful when it came to speaking on the phone and he usually just denied it and made up excuses, but this time he cleared his throat and hit the green button anyway.

"Uh… hello?" Alex mumbled into the phone, sitting up a bit in his bed.

"Alex? Hey! Sorry, I'm not bothering you, am I?"

There was a sense of concern in the voice on the other end of the line.

"Oh, no. You aren't."

"Sweet. So… how goes it?"

Alex wanted to spill his guts. He wanted to confess the story of his troubling past and admit that he had chosen not to cut thanks to him and tell Jack how he couldn't get him off of his mind like… like some kind of queer. His heart sank. Surely that wasn't what it was… He liked girls. He was sure of it. He liked tits and ass and long, dark hair. So what was this feeling?

"I'm alright."

"Are you sure? You don't sound alright… You sound kinda like someone just kicked your dog or something."

Alex laughed, relaxing back into his bed and making himself comfortable.

"Really, I'm… I'm alright. It's just… we talked about touchy things in religion and… I dunno. I didn't have anyone to talk to without you…"

Alex was expecting this to make things awkward, but Jack only cooed at him.

"I missed you too, Alex. If there's anything, and I mean anything you need to talk about, I'm here for you. I mean that. I know we've only known each other a week, but I try to be there for people when they need me."

Alex's shell never cracked. He never opened himself up to people, especially not people he barely knew. But on this night his walls came down.

"We talked about whether or not people who commit suicide go to hell," he said softly.

The line went quiet.

"Oh… I…," Jack began. It was evident he was lost as to how this was such a big deal.

"My brother… Seth…" Alex's voice broke. 'God fucking dammit. I am not about to cry while I'm on the phone with this kid.' He could practically taste the judgment from the other side of the line.

"Alex! Don't cry," Jack gasped suddenly, "I'm so sorry. I really can't imagine what it's like to lose a sibling. I know when my grandpa died, I blamed myself for the longest time. But... it isn't your fault. You can't blame yourself over something that he did, Alex. That's like blaming yourself for the striking of a tsunami. Things will get better, alright?" There was a moment of hesitation. "Do you believe me?"

Alex choked on a sob without even trying to cover it. "I just… I always feel so alone now that he's gone. I feel like I can't connect with anyone at all. It's just so stupid."

There was another long pause.

"I think I need to come over tomorrow," Jack practically whispered.

"Me too," whimpered the younger boy. "Me too."