My 30 Day Challenge

Day 5: What part of self-harm do you dislike the most? Part II

Vic’s POV

Blearily wiping my eyes, I turned off my alarm and got out of bed. 5 am was a ridiculous time to get up, but I didn’t know if Kellin would be awake or not, or whether or I’d see him. Grabbing a pen and paper, I did my best to make my writing legible and scrawled ‘Morning Kellin. Today’s question is ‘What part of self-harm d you dislike the most?’ We’ll discuss it later. –Vic.’

Careful not to wake anyone, I tiptoed over to Kellin’s room at the end of the hall. The door squeaked a little as I opened it, and I glanced at him in the pale light of the hour before dawn. He was asleep, which was good – I could tell that he didn’t get much usually. Every time I’d left a note, though, I’d managed to catch him when he was asleep. He was lying on his side, hair sticking up, mouth slightly open. I smiled. It was so weird that some boy from Oregon was making me question my sexuality, yet here I was, standing in his door frame, smiling at him like an idiot and thinking that I should be lying there too with my arm around him.

Shaking off those thoughts, and wondering where they came from and why, I quietly stuck the note to his door and closed it behind me. I went back to my room, and finished off the homework I’d left last night. I was never very gifted academically, and so I had to work really hard to even pass most of my classes. Music and Media aside, I was pretty stupid.

An hour and a half later, Mom and Dad stirred and I could hear them downstairs, so I headed down there myself.

“Morning,” I said, quietly but brightly. I loved my parents more than anyone, almost.

“Morning, Victor,” my Dad smiled. “I heard you practicing your guitar last night. It is sounding very good, which song was it? I didn't recognise it.”

“I came up with it myself, actually. I was just messing around and it was sounding good, so I recorded it and started putting it together as a song.”

He smiled proudly. “My little songwriter.”

“How is Kellin doing, Vic? The two of you seem like you’re getting along quite well. He’s a nice boy, I hope he’s enjoying himself here,” Mom asked.

“He’s… he’s good, I suppose. It can’t be easy, having depression. I think he might be doing a little better. Man, it feels like he’s been here ages,” I said, making myself a cup of coffee.

“Time flies when you’re having fun,” she said. “I can hear signs of life upstairs, but I think we all know they’re not Mike’s. would you mind waking him?”

I headed upstairs, and sure enough, the shower was running, but I could still hear Mike snoring from his room. I hoped he’d grow out of that habit soon; it was kind of annoying.

God, I was still so pissed off with him after last night. I couldn’t believe he was still in contact with Oli, and there was no way that Oli would have stopped what he was doing. He was in too deep in the wrong crowd, and as long as I lived, I would not let Mike go down the same route.

“Get up, I said loudly, and kicked the bed. He groaned.

“Fuck off.”

“No,” I said harshly. “You’re going to get up, and you’re going to explain to Mom and Dad that you will not be going to Danny’s tonight.”

“What the hell? Of course I am,” he said, sitting up.

“No, you’re not. Unless you want Mom and Dad to find out about your escapades last year and where you were last night.” It was a low blow, pulling out the ‘I’m telling on you’ card, but it was necessary. So long as he didn’t see Oli anymore.

“Is this because you’re still pissed off? Get over it, dude.”

“No, this is because you need to get it through your thick skull that Oli is not who he used to be and if you do stupid shit, there are consequences. This is a lot better than what could have happened. I talked to Jaime and Tony about it last night, and they agree with me. If you don’t stay at home tonight, we will rat you out to Mom and Dad, and Tony assures me he can get you back into shit with Matt.”

“If you’d just listen to me - ”

“I don’t want to hear it, Mike. There is no excusing that. You swore you wouldn’t see or talk to Oli anymore, and yet there you were last night, doing both of those things last night. Just… get ready and come downstairs. Explain that you’re not coming. End of.” With that, I left.

He trudged downstairs a few minutes later, dressed and looking as surly as he possibly could. Taking a seat opposite me, he muttered a greeting to our parents. Kellin appeared moments later.

“Morning, Kellin. I was just about to ask you boys what the final plans for this evening were,” Mom said.

Mike didn’t speak up immediately, so I kicked him under the table. He jerked a little, then said, “I don’t really want to go, Mom. Danny’s a tool.”

“Now, now. I’m sure he’s not, and that both he and I would appreciate you not using that language,” she scolded. “Vic, Kellin, are you two still going?”

I still hadn’t decided. On one hand, I really wanted to stay and make absolutely sure that Mike didn’t try to go see Oli again. On the other hand, I also really wanted to go for Kellin’s sake. I didn’t imagine he’d been to many parties back at home, and I knew that the more time he spent as a regular teenager, the easier it would be for him to try to move on from his depression.

“I don’t know yet, I’ll see after school.” I was hedging my bets. I’d talk to Jaime and Tony and see what they thought.

“I don’t know either,” Kellin murmured.

“Kellin, you finished?” I asked. I was done, and sitting there with Mike glaring at me, trying to make me feel guilty, wasn’t my idea of fun. It was honestly just making me angrier. He nodded. “Good. Let’s go.”

“Wait for me?” Mike asked.

“No. You can get the bus.” I tried to keep my voice even, and I didn’t turn around to see Mom and Dad’s surely upset faces. I wasn’t normally like this, but I just didn’t want to spend time around Mike at the moment.

I felt really guilty, though, because I didn’t want Kellin to think badly of me, so I apologised as I started driving to school. “Sorry, Kellin, I’m just really pissed off with Mike. He swore he’d never see Oli again after what happened, so I told him that if he didn’t want me to tell Mom he’d seen Oli then he wouldn’t go to the party.”

“What happened?” he asked timidly. I knew this was coming, so I sighed and launched into the explanation of Oli. In my infrequent glances at Kellin, I could see his face getting slowly more and more shocked.

“That’s… wow. Is that how that guy at the party knew who you were?”

Yeah, Jona had been one of the guys Oli had introduced us to last year. He was, I supposed, one of the gateway friends. Nowhere near as bad as the guys Oli ended up with, but still not good. I could never really tolerate him, but he was okay. I nodded.

“Hey, Vic, can I ask you something?”

“Clearly.”

“Someone at school told me… that Mike almost, um, got sent to juvie last year. Is that true?”

How the hell did he hear that? I’d thought that everyone had moved on from that. It was months ago. Mike just got off with a bunch of detentions that he was still doing. “Who told you that?” I wanted to know who was potentially spreading more rumours about him.

“I don’t remember.”

“Well, yeah, it is true. I don’t know the finer details of what happened – I didn’t ask, because I didn’t want to know – but it was about the same time as him and Oli started doing all that stupid crap. If you want to know, just ask him. He won’t get pissed, I promise. Is that why you’ve been avoiding him?”

“Uh, yeah, a little.” I laughed; he looked so guilty. I was over this subject though.

“So you got today’s note?”

He almost visibly went back into his shell. I knew he didn’t like talking about this, but it was necessary, and I really wanted him to get better. “Yeah.”

“Nothing to add?”

“I need to think about it a bit more,” he said softly. He said this almost every day, and I was pretty sure he just forgot it, but it didn’t matter. I let it go for the time being.

“Anyway, what do you plan on doing tonight? I haven’t decided what to do about Mike. I’m not sure if I should go, or stay at home and make sure he doesn’t go back there,” I changed the subject yet again.

“I probably won’t go if you decide not to,” he said slowly.

“I see.”

The rest of the drive was spent in silence, but that had swayed me. I would go, but I’d make up some excuse to Mom and Dad so they’d keep an eye on Mike. As we arrived at school, I told Kellin my decision and reminded him that we would indeed still be discussing the question.

In homeroom, I found Tony and Jaime and explained my decision and asked what they thought.

“Are you sure, man? Who’s going to look after Mike?” Tony asked. The two were closer than Mike and Jaime were, and Tony worried about him almost as much as I did. But not quite.

“I’ll tell Mom and Dad that he feels, like, distanced from them and he wants to spend time with them so they'll watch a movie or something together and make sure he doesn’t go anywhere.”

“Do you want me to stay with him?”

“No, he’ll be fine. He knows I’ll rat him out if I catch him at Oli’s again, and besides, he has no way of getting there. Mom and Dad will notice if some car pulls up and Mike goes and gets in it. They’ll be able to handle it.”

“Whatever you say, man. How are you doing?” Jaime asked. He’d been more concerned about me since my little episode on the weekend, and had been checking up a couple of times every day.

“Yeah, I’m okay. Pissed off with Mike, and that hasn’t gone away since we found him, but I’m fine. I do need to talk to you guys about something, though.” And so I explained my predicament with Kellin. Never once before had I had feelings for a male, but since he moved here I’d thought he was cute and I was pretty much convinced after this morning.

It didn’t take me long. Jaime broke the silence among us and said, “Well, it’s not completely unexpected. You have always had better fashion sense than everyone here.” I shoved him playfully. “No, but seriously, Vic, are you positive? Like, I’m totally okay if you are – ”

“Me too,” Tony interjected.

“But are you ready to come out as gay? Or bi? Whichever. You shouldn’t until you’re one hundred per cent sure. Have you told Mike?” I shook my head no. “Maybe talk to him.”

Just then, the bell went, and I wouldn’t see either of them until lunch.

“I think I am. I’m not ready to… come out, or whatever, though. I’ll talk to you later though, okay?”
“Later,” Tony said, and Jaime nodded.

The school day was boring, though. I sat with Kellin in class, which made it difficult for me to concentrate. In Math we got the last test back and I’d got a 53, which was pretty standard for me. Kellin got, like, 78 or something. I’d sighed inwardly and thought to myself, ‘Just wait until Music, then you’ll be fine.’

Kellin didn’t sit with us at lunch, which saddened me slightly. Already I didn’t like sharing him with the music nerds, even though I liked them enough as people. They were all sitting laughing, and Kellin actually looked like he was enjoying himself, which made me smile a little. Mike sat with us, but I had calmed down enough to apologise for my behaviour and he graciously accepted by saying, “Thanks for making me take the bus, asshole.” We filled him in on our conversation from homeroom this morning, and unsurprisingly, he said much the same as Jaime and Tony had.

After school, I got into my car and Mike followed suit, sliding into the back.

“Kellin coming with us today?”

“Yeah, he should be here soon. By the way, I explained everything to him this morning,” I said.

He sighed. “I guess he had to know at some point. I just like it when people don’t know about all that, and they talk to me anyway, because they’re not judging me, you know?”

“Yeah, I know. Apparently someone told him about the juvie incident, too.”

“What? Who? What did they say?”

“He didn’t remember, but apparently just that you almost got sent. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, fine, I’m just going to beat the shit out of whoever is starting rumours.”

“Don’t do that.”

“I guess. It’s kind of what got me there in the first place.”

I think it kind of bothered him that I never asked what happened, but I just really didn’t want to know. I couldn’t bear to think of my baby brother doing something bad enough to get him sent away to juvie. I just kept it in mind that it wasn’t really him, it was the drugs. He’d hinted enough that I had a vague idea, but I tried not to think about it. “You know I don’t want to know.”

“Yeah.”

At that moment Kellin showed up, noticing Mike’s presence and getting into the frnt seat. I started the car and pulled out of the parking lot.

“I hope you don’t mind Mike’s presence with us this afternoon, Kellin,” I said. It struck me afterwards that he’d think I was still mad, but neither Mike nor I said anything contrary.

“No, on problem,” he said. I could tell there was a problem, though. He looked awkward and his face was almost scared. I decided to leave the question until we got home.

Upon our arrival, Mike went up to his room and I followed Kellin to his, closing the door behind me.
“I figured you didn’t want to do today’s question in front of Mike,” I said. He nodded guiltily. “Don’t worry about it. I don’t think he knows you’re doing it, and I don’t think he’d particularly care or want to be much of a part of it. He isn’t the world’s most sensitive person, and thankfully he’s aware of that, so he doesn’t try to be a shoulder for people to cry on.” He smiled. “So, just a reminder, today’s question is what do you dislike the most about self-harm?”

He responded immediately. “The pain. Physically, I mean.” Usually he had to think, so this was a bit of a curveball.

“That was quick. Why?”

“Well, I guess I remember times when everything got really bad, right, and… well, this one time, I cut my arms, and the next day, I could barely move them because it hurt so much. I was clean for a week after that.”

He couldn’t move? That must have been horrible! And they had to have been bad for him to have been clean for a week. He’d been bad when he first got here. I couldn’t even imagine what that had been like for him.

“You could… how deep were they?”

He shrugged. “Not very deep, but not shallow, either. There were just a lot of them and it hurt to move.”

We were silent. It seemed like the time to hug him, so I sat against the wall on his bed next to him and slipped my arm around his waist.

“How are the most recent ones doing?” I asked gently. I still felt guilty about them. He unbuttoned his shirt and rolled up his sleeves to show me. They weren’t deep, and so had healed fairly quickly. Only a few little scabs on the faint scars gave away their disguise. It was good that they hadn’t scarred badly; he didn’t really need anymore. I was also pleased he hadn’t added any more.

“Anyway. Are you going to go to the party or not?” I asked. His decision could still affect mine.
“I probably should, but I don’t really want to.”

“Why not? It’ll be fun. Come on, you haven’t lived until you’ve seen Tony drunk,” I joked. I was pretty sure it would be good for him to be in an atmosphere that any regular person of our age would. “Please? I really want you to come. And you already told Jack you would.” Anything to get him to go. I supposed it was also slightly because I wanted ot go for selfish reasons, such as getting some alcohol in me for the first time in months, and possibly something happening with him.

After a few moments, he surrendered. “Fine.”

“Yes!” I cried. In a genius example of my innovation, I jumped off the bed and did some sort of victory dance, with lots of clicks and head shakes. He giggled, and I saw, and did it again. In a few moments he was doubled over laughing, and I was on the floor in tears. I didn’t let him see them though. It felt good to make him laugh; it was the first time he had in front of me. I wanted to be the person who made him laugh the most.

That was probably when I fell in love with him, even though I didn’t realise it.

***

“Hey Mom, can I talk to you?” I called as I ran down the stairs.

“Sure, sweetie, what is it?” she answered. “Aren’t Kellin’s friends going to be here soon?”

“In a couple minutes. Anyway, can you please, uh, keep an eye on Mike tonight? He had a rough day and he won’t want to talk about it, so don’t ask him. But maybe you and Dad could, like, I don’t know, watch Harry Potter with him or something? And Dad could help him with this one drum solo he’s been working on,” I said in a rush.

“Oh, dear, is he okay?”

“Yeah, he’s fine, just a bad day, I think. I’d stay with him, but I want to keep an eye on Kellin tonight,” I said carefully.

Just then, I heard a knock on the door, and went to answer it.

“Hey, uh, Vic, it’s Jack. Are you guys ready?” This kid seemed like a nice dude, but either way too intimidated by me or just awkward. I didn’t really get why people were so scared of me; I mean, it was Mike that all that stuff happened to, and I’m five foot six.

“I’m ready, but I don’t know about Kellin. I’ll go see. Come in,” I said, like the good host I am.

“No, it’s fine, I’ll wait in the car, make sure no one kills anyone else,” he said.

I tried not to let my eyebrows rise in the judgmental stare that everyone hates. “Alright.”

Back inside, there was no sign of Kellin. “Kellin! Hurry up! Jack’s here!” Almost immediately he appeared at the top of the stairs, tripping a little on the way down. Jaime hadn’t lied when he’d said I had good fashion taste – Kellin was looking cute as hell in dark blue jeans and a white button down. “Come on, let’s go.”

I sat in the back of Jack’s van next to Kellin, and felt slightly awkward, but the guys did include me in their conversation a little. I was still thankful when the ride was over. I’d been to Danny Worsnop’s house before, and I actually knew him pretty well. I was friends with a lot of the more popular people at school, even though I didn’t really like them or spend time with them. Danny himself greeted me as I walked in.

“Hey, Vic, how are you doing?” he asked, grabbing my arm and pulling me away to the living room.

“I’m good, man, how are you? Drunk off your ass, as usual?” I grinned back.

“Maybe,” he laughed. “Hey, do you want to play beer pong? Ben’s trying to prove his worth after I destroyed him. Should be an easy win.”

“Sure.” I wanted to get really drunk really fast, and I sucked at beer pong. I just wanted to forget my responsibilities and be a normal teenager, just forget what had been bugging me all day, forget about my worries about Mike. I wanted to have fun.

Ten minutes later, I had lost in what was probably the most embarrassing defeat ever. Also maybe the quickest. Ben was already pretty drunk himself, and I was sober when the game first started. Then again, I did start having some other drinks between throws. I was pretty out of it.

As I lost, I saw Kellin walking outside on his own, into the cold of the garden where there were no people. Why was he on his own? I thought he came here so he wasn’t on his own anymore. Wait, I was supposed to be making him not alone. I stumbled out there after him, and found him sitting against the wall looking out at the ocean. I loved the ocean. Maybe he did too. He looked really gorgeous sitting there, lost in his own world. His black hair was obscuring me from him, so I went and sat down next to him.

“Hey,” I slurred a little. “I saw you come out here and thought I should check up on you.”

“I’m fine. I think it should be me checking up on you though,” he murmured. God, I just wanted to kiss him. “How much have you had to drink already?”

“A bit.” It was so, so hard not to kiss him already. Some stupid sober part of my head was stopping me though. I mean, what if he wasn’t? “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“For now I am, I guess.” I looked at him, raising my eyebrows. “I just felt a little cramped and awkward so I came out here to be alone for a bit.”

“No one should be alone.” Especially not you, you amazing little bastard. Then the words started pouring out of my mouth. “Hey, Kellin, can I tell you anything?” This was a terrible idea and I would surely regret it in the morning.

“Sure,” he said.

“And, like, you won’t tell anyone?”

“Not if you don’t want me to.”

“I think… I think I might be gay.”

Silence. He was just staring at me, looking shocked. Was he disgusted? Horrified? Offended by having me in his eyesight? Oh god, this was bad. I knew I should have kept it to myself. I started to tear up a little.

“I’m sorry,” I snivelled. “I shouldn’t have told you. You hate me now, don’t you?”

“What? No! Of course I don’t hate you, Vic. I mean… are you sure?” he asked.

“Not yet, but I just keep looking at – and thinking, I mean… you know?”

“Not really,” he laughed. “You are really drunk, aren’t you? Well, I don’t hate you, Vic. I promise you that. Because… well, I’m gay.”

That stopped me crying. “Wait. You are?”

He nodded, and we fell into silence again, but it was comfortable. I looked up at the stars, trying to find some of the constellations my Mom showed me as a kid. There were too many lights around, though, and there were only a couple of stars out. Plus I was too drunk to remember. My head started spinning a little, so I looked back at Kellin, who turned to face me as well.

“How did you… how did you figure it out?” I asked.

“I think I figured it out this evening. I always got called, like, fag and queer and stuff back home…” he broke off and looked away.

“Hey. This is home now. If the people back in Oregon treated you like that, then they don’t deserve to get you back. Okay?” I lifted his chin to look him in the eye. “You’re amazing.”

He cleared his throat. “What makes you think you might be?”

I laughed softly, and my drunkenness gave way to a new confidence. “You.”

Then my lips were on his, and it was so perfect. They were just as soft as I’d imagined. One of my hands was in his hair, and the other was at the small of his back, pulling him closer to me. His arms were around me. He was so warm. We stopped kissing, then, and he just rested his head on my shoulder like he had earlier, and we listened to the faint sounds of the music with the waves crashing against the cliff below.