Demolition Lovers

"Stop it!" I yelled across the hall to my mom as I turned my back to her and quickly ran back to my room, slamming the door behind me and throwing myself onto my bed. I quietly begun to cry into my pillow as I heard my mom shouting at me as she began getting closer and closer to my bedroom door. "Just leave me alone," I sobbed.

"You get back out here right now, Frank," I heard her yell down the hall, he footsteps becoming heavier as her rage became more noticeable.

This whole stupid argument had kicked off about half an hour ago when I made the foolish decision to tell my mom I was failing math and thought I might need some extra tuition, but instead of telling me I'd soon get better and make me believe everything would eventually be okay and actually pay for a tutor, she decided to flip out and tell me how much of a disgrace I was to the family. So far, every single person in my family had made it to college and university and now had a successful career. I didn't want any of that. I wanted to play music for a living. I wanted to be myself, not someone who pretended to be happy with a job they'd eventually end up hating. There was no point in that. I wanted to play guitar in a band, and tour the world and meet new people. That's wat I wanted.

"It's not my fault I whispered." I understood that I was a failure at everything. My mom made me aware of that every single day I woke up and came home from school. Math was my weaker point. And by weaker point I mean I kept getting E's and D's. I didn't really care for the subject but I wanted a good grade. I wanted to eventually be accepted into a college, or a university. My dream was to be accepted into music school, eventually anyway.

"I'm ashamed to call you my son, Frank Iero," she began. "No wonder your father left us. He knew you'd turn out to be the failure of the family and that's why he left. Because of you, you, you freak," she snarled. My cries became more frequent and louder because I really did believe her, why else would he leave us? My mother, when she's not storming around the house, can be a decent woman and she's also a very beautiful although I guess some would call me biased since she's my own mom. My father was everything I wanted to be, a talented musician, but of course I let him down and he left me alone with her. I had once told my mom that I wanted to become a musician. She thought it was a terrible idea and that I'd get no where in life. She didn't even give me a chance to get my words out.

My moms screams of abuse kept coming and I knew she could go on all night and I didn't want to be here listening to them all night. I'd only be kept up by her all night and I'd already been lacking a lot of sleep which I felt like I needed but also didn't deserve. I sat myself up on the edge of my bed and tried to push away the falling tears yet they just seemed to keep falling. I hated crying. It made me feel weak, and vulnerable; and I hated people seeing me like that. I briskly walked to my door and walked straight past my mom, not giving a care in the world if I bashed into her with my shoulder, although I knew that it'd get me into trouble when I decided to make my way back home later on in the night.

"And where do you think you're going, Frank? Hmm? Running away again? Oh please, last time the cops brought you back within two hours," she smirked. Yes, that's right, smirked. She reminded me of some sadistic killer I'd seen recently on a documentary. But of course, the police would only find me and they'd take me back home to a false mother who pretended she loved me dearly just so she wouldn't have her abuse toy in the house.

I was almost at the door before I stopped in my tracks at my mothers next choice of words. My heart stopped beating for a second and my breathing faltered.

"How about another failed suicide attempt?" She directed at me with a smug grin. She didn't care. She didn't care that she was breaking her son into a thousand little pieces that eventually wouldn't be able to be put back together again. That one look was enough to tell me she didn't give a shit about me at all.

And my tears started falling again. I ran out of that house and ran for as long as my lungs and stomach could take me. Fuck what I said about my mother being a decent woman at times, she's an all-time bitch. How dare she. How fucking dare she say that to me. More importantly, how did she know. She didn't even check on me. She was too busy to be giving a shit about me. She had a life that she didn't want me to be apart of.

I was too confused and hurt to be racking my brain with this sort of stuff, especially whilst I was running. I didn't want to have a panic attack whilst running. Those don't end well, or so I've heard.

My legs carried my to as far as the Starbucks a few streets away from my house. I have a small build and no muscle so I'm surprised I even made it this far. Luckily I always manage to have spare change in my pockets, which was handy at this moment in time.

I decided to hang around outside a little before I went in because no doubt my face looked blotchy from running and crying, not to mention my breathing was terribly uneven, and now didn't seem like the best time to be getting any unwanted attention. I hated attention, probably more than I hated my own mother.

As I walked through the door, I noticed that the place was fairly deserted. Well, it was pretty late and most of the teenagers who hang around here usually have early curfews. Suckers.

The lighting of the room was extremely bright that it made me squint my eyes to start with to adjust the dark to light my eyes were going through. The chairs were green, the tables brown, most likely made of beech by the shade of it. Don't ask me how I knew that, I just know I have a lot of spare time on my hands, especially when I mostly spend my time in libraries, in coffee shops, in malls. Anything to be away from her.

I walked up to the cashier and asked for a regular coffee, black. I usually liked adding my own cream and sugar, just to be sure I get the amount that I like. As the cashier was sorting out my coffee, I quickly scanned the room to find a table that I'd prefer and managed to spot my usual back table on the left side, free. This lady seemed to be taking a lot longer than I would've like her to have and I felt really awkward standing here with the few strangers that were sat down able to see me in such a clear view. I just wanted to fade away so no one could see me. Eventually, she brought over my coffee and I paid and quickly went and sat at the back table that I usually sit in.

I liked this table more than others. Mostly because it's dimmer here, and I'm not sat directly next to a window, they're on the right side. I'd also learnt that the seats were comfier as I'd had to make my way round several other tables when my place had been taken by someone else. It also reminded me of the summer I had spent with my best friend, Ray, before he moved away to California. We had engraved our names in the corner of the table closest to the wall.

That was three years ago, when my I was happy.

The coffee seemed to be helping my confusion and hurt feeling, however mostly it was somehow making me sleepier than before. Wasn't coffee supposed to do the complete opposite?

My eyes felt heavy and so did my heart, to put it in non poetic terms. How could my own mother say something like that to her son. It makes me feel like she really does want me gone. She probably does. She probably hopes that I will run away, or that I'll eventually get so sick of myself I'll take my own life. Maybe I will. Maybe I should do that. The endless possibilities of how I could eventually end my life came coursing through my head.

Overdose.
Cutting too deep.
Hanging.
Finding a gun and eating a bullet.
Running out in front of a train.
Falling from the highest building.

To me, the possibilities were endless. And of course they were endless when I had already had these thoughts before. It was roughly this time last year when everything went to shit. Everything just started crumbling down. It started off with a few bullies, tormenting me with words every now and then. A month or two later things got very physical. They'd beat me up at least once a week; I had to go into the hospital twice with a broken arm and a broken nose. Soon enough, the words got to me and I started ot believe everything they said. I believed I was fat, ugly, worthless. They made me feel like a piece of shit. I still believe it all now.

Maybe I should go through with it. Save everybody the burden of me weighing down on their shoulders. I had hardly no friends, and the ones I did have always blew me off for someone else. That wasn't really friendship in my opinion. My mom definitely wouldn't care at all. I think she stopped caring about me the day my dad left and of course, why shouldn't she hate me? I have so many things wrong with me that I don't blame her for hating me. But being so blunt about it. Literally talking to me about my own suicide attempt? How dare she.

Somehow it became aware to people that I wasn't the straightest ruler in the pot and that I swung mainly towards boys. However this led me to meet my first boyfriend, Billie. He was such a nice person and I loved him and I truly believed he loved me. Of course I was wrong. It turned out he was straight and used me for sex when his girlfriend refused him. Again, the word got out and the tormenting picked up again, as did the beatings. No one said anything to Billie though, of course they didn't. He wasn't weird, or ugly, or the 'emo' kid. He was the person everyone wanted to be. Actually, it didn't get out that he had been with me. Billie masked his name with someone elses.

It was a Thursday night when the usual gang were hanging around the corner of the park. I just wanted to run as I saw them approach me, but I couldn't. My legs were fixed to the floor. As the first swing to my stomach came, I tried to scream but no words came out. They beat me so I was a wreck on the floor. Blood was everywhere. In my hair, on my clothes, on the floor. Yet I picked myself up and walked home. I had already planned what would happen. I'd go home, pick up some pain relief and make my way up to the bathroom.

When I got home I did just that. I trailed up to the bathroom, my mom already asleep, and locked myself in there. I poured myself a glass of water, emptied a few of the packets leaving me with roughly thirty pills and also found out my razor set. I guess you can work out what happened from there. I awoke the next morning at about eleven, my mum out of the house at work, with me on the bathroom floor; still bleeding and incredibly drowsy. I had failed. The one thing I was so sure about, I had failed. I wanted my life to end so badly and I couldn't even do that.

I quickly came back to reality and took a sip of my coffee to find it was starting to cool. How long had I sat here? I checked my iPod to find out I'd been sat thinking for over an hour. I decided to listen to some music and people watch.

People watching was a hobby of mine. It sounds a little creepy, but I'm just so fascinated by how happy, or sad, people can be. I scanned the room and noticed hardly anyone was here, maybe six people or less. There was an elderly man, probably in his mid 60's, reading a newspaper and by the headline it seemed to be a pretty old newspaper. There was a young couple, no older than 30, who were sat opposite each other holding each others hands. It was quite a beautiful sight to be most honest. Of course, there was the cashier. She looked to be young, maybe in college and I'd say about 19. She looked incredibly bored and if I recall correctly, her name was Laura, or Lauren. I didn't quite pick up her name properly from her name tag. So, including myself, five people in total.

That was until someone else walked through the door.

He seemed to be fairly tall, taller than me anyway, with longish red hair and was dressed all in black; his clothing hugging his body tightly. He ordered what I had ordered and made his way to sit three tables away from me. I enjoy people watching, because people like him came in. People, if I could muster up the courage to takl to people, I could probably get along well with. He was just so, how shall I put it? Different. He was attractive to say the least, but then again, so was the other guy sat about six tables away from me sat with his girlfriend. I like how his hair fell messily over his face with no particular style. Some strands dangling in front of his face, other strands tucked behind his ears. And the back just falling wearily above his shoulders, too short to properly rest there.

The mystery guy looked up at me, most likely detecting someone was looking at him, and my eyes met his. He had soft hazel eyes, that seemed to be smiling even without the rest of his face showing that emotion anyway. I simply smiled at him before looking away to take a sip of my coffee. Cool coffee was the worst so I decided to get a fresh one. I wasn't too sure how long Starbucks stayed open for, but I knew I'd be staying here for as long as possible.

I made my way over to the cashier once again, looking at the newcomer to the coffee shop again. He only saw me looking again and a small blush crept on my cheeks because I knew I had been caught. Again.

I ordered the same again. I collected the same amount of sugar and cream to put in it and the little stirrer thing you used. The total was the same again, obviously. I paid, again, and walked back over to my table, not looking at the new man this time.

Back at my table, I sank into the seat, secretly putting my feet up onto the other seat. It was like a booth so I knew no one would be able to see my feet were up on the seats anyway. Not that I cared if they saw me anyway.

The elderly man was leaving now. I flashed him a small smile as he got up to which he just nodded back. I seemed to do that a lot. Smile at strangers. I think that was to let the person know I wasn't going to harm them as most people my age would probably just scowl and yell a ton to their friends. Of course, I never hung around with anyone. Okay, that's a lie. I have a friend called Jamia. Shes been my friend for a long time. She was different to other people. She was so accepting of me, of my choices. I was thankful I had a friend like her. Me and her weren't like the usual teenagers. We were actually very calm despite the fact we looked 'dark' and looked a lot like 'emos'. I didn't really care what people thought about me, but if anything upset Jamia then they'd have hell to pay, that's to put it kindly.

I seemed to have been lost in my mind for a while when the cashier came up to me to make me aware that they were shutting the place up. Jeez. What time was it? 9:59pm apparently. I simply nodded, grabbed my coffee and walked out the door and when I did, it hit me that I'd have to go back home. Back to the abuse. Back to the arguments. The screaming the shouting. Before I knew it and I had tears running down my face and I was sat on the floor leaning against the wall of the building, my head buried deep in my hands.

"It's not good for your posture to sit like that," someone informed me. I looked up to see it was the red haired guy from inside.

I simply shrugged, looking away from him to the floor.

"I really don't care," I replied in a snarky, yet quiet, tone of voice. I really wasn't in the mood to be lectured as to how I should be sitting.

"Well, whatever," he continued. The mystery man just stood there in front of me, looking down constantly at me. I didn't dare look up, he'd already caught me looking at him way too many times in the past few hours, plus I was crying and I really didn't want any sympathy from anyone. He just continued to stare and in all honesty, it made me feel a little uneasy.

"Are you just going to stay there or are you going to move along," I shot at him, not meaning to sound so rude. I finally looked up at him and I was now able to see his features much more clearly under the street light. His lips were small and pink, his chin sharp yet rounded and his pale complexion made his hair and eyes stand out that much more. His face was a little stunned at my remark.

"Uhm, no, sorry. I'll go now, it was nice to meet you, uhm..."

"Frank," I replied, a little kinder now.

"Gerard. Well, I best be going and uhm, get out of your hair then."

And with that he was off, trudging along the sidewalk into the darkness.