Status: in progress
Walls
Ten.
WARNING. Please don't read this if you're easily triggered, or even if you just don't wanna be a little sad today. Have a wonderful day, you amazing human being, keep your chin up :) x
The yellow tape, the body bag, the noose that remained dangling from the highest branch of the tree.
The police, the forensics department, the crowd of confused teens that seemed to have developed a sudden concern for the life, or now lack of, of Alexander William Gaskarth.
Jack hadn't stopped shaking, and he'd thrown up more times than he could count, only ceasing when his stomach ran out of contents to churn up, but he wasn't worried about himself, or his unsettled insides. After the events of the early morning on November 16th, 2014, Jack would never (and could never) have a single care for his own safety, and stability, because nothing, none of his cliché teenage insecurities would ever amount to the intensity of what Alex had deemed necessary to do.
The school nurse, who hadn't left Jack's side since the discovery of the incident, kept assuring Jack that it wasn't his fault, that Alex had been suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, coupled with an inherited case of depression. Alex's mum died of leukemia, when he was 12, and his dad, who presumably had never felt more alone (considering that his son was attending a boarding school, and his wife had just passed) started binge drinking, and all it took was one drunken Halloween night on the road, and a crash with a motorcyclist before it was lights out for Mr Gaskarth.
Jack felt like a total arsehole, he'd been a dick anyway, but it was the fact that he'd been a dick to someone who needed him to be so much better. He'd let Alex down, and Alex was the one to suffer. Jack knew Alex had been ill, and the recent breakdowns made sense, I mean, if both your parents had died on separate occasions at roughly the same time of year, and that time of year had come around again, who wouldn't be completely on edge?
Jack wished Alex had told him, so that he could've reduced the concentration of his douchey behaviour, but not knowing is no excuse. He shouldn't have been a jerk anyway, especially not to the boy he loved. Yeah, loved. That's what it was, wasn't it? Love.
Jack had suspected it of himself, and was waiting to be certain before telling Alex, but I guess he only knew he loved him when it was all over.
When the nurse was about to take Jack to his room to collect some things, and then to the infirmary, where the headmaster had deemed it safest for him to stay, the head called Jack over.
"Jack, we're going to hold a funeral for Alex, at the school chapel. Can you please make a list of those you think Alex would've wanted to attend?" Jack nodded, biting his lip to hold back tears at the mention of Alex's name. "You can make a speech, obviously. I know you will anyway, but just, be respectful." The head patted him on the back as he turned to walk back to nurse.
The walk back to house was silent on Jack's part, there were only a few comments from the nurse- her feeble attempt to distract the boy from the days earlier happenings, all falling flat.
The nurse waited outside for Jack to collect the things he deemed essential for the next few days- clothes, toiletries, electronics, whatever. It was when he leaned over to pick up a hoodie off of Alex's bed (Jack had lent it to the other boy on several occasions, before the mutual decision came that it looked better on Alex anyway, and so it became his, and therefore smelt of him), that he caught sight of one of Alex's famous little black books.
Jack.
I don't know how to say this, but as much as I believe that I should be forgotten along with the body that you bury, I thought you deserved a little more than nothing, especially considering that you really were my everything. I'd never told you that, now I wish I had. I guess I didn't think you'd appreciate the burden.
I've known you my entire school career, but I only /got to know you/ in the past few months. Imagine if we hadn't been paired as roommates.. You'd be far better off. I remember at the start of the year I was worrying about how awkward it was that I was gay and you were hot, and now I'm worrying about how disgusted you'll be when you see my frail body, devoid of all life, collapsed into a wooden box set to decompose for the next 50 to a few hundred years, you know, depending on the soil type.
I need you to know that it, this, wasn't your fault. You were trying to rebuild a house that had no foundations, to solve a jigsaw with missing pieces. Failure was the only option. But don't blame yourself for that. You tried, and that's more than I could've asked for. I admire your optimism, it's more than most people have. When we argued, well, none of those times were your fault either, I blame those on my pathetic and insecure mind, and I'm sorry I made such a huge deal out of things. I wish I hadn't, I feel like I wasted time we could've spent making positive memories, or exploring each others bodies and whatnot.
I was too broken to live, so I need you to live for me. I want the next time we meet to be decades from now, when your face is wrinkled, and you need help getting up the stairs. I want to hear stories of things I never got to do; university, your gap year, parties, first job, who you fall for, who you marry, your kids, their kids. Everything. But of course I'll only be able to hear all of that if I discover (to my disdain) that death is not the end. I hope it is, I need all of this to be over, yet I swear to whatever God is listening, that whether there be an after life or not, whether I'm in heaven or hell, I'll find a way to watch you, to be with you. I want you to know that although I couldn't support myself, I'm going to support you all the way, through everything. I'll be your metaphorical shoulder to lean on, I'll be whatever you need me to be, as long as you move on.
This is my greatest regret, leaving you to deal with this alone, to clean up my mess. Promise me that you'll forget about me. Don't let me cross your mind until the day comes where you join me, okay? Pretend we were never roommates, act like one of those students who will give their "sincere" condolances to all it may concern, and then move the fuck on. It shouldn't have been you that got lumbered with the defective, pathetic excuse for a person, it shouldn't have been anyone, you got involved by a mistake in the universe, a fault in our stars (do you remember that film we saw? I remember loving the way your arm felt around my shoulder).
Don't distance yourself from your friends, stay open with them, stay honest. They're called 'friends' for a reason. Smile with them, laugh with them. Live with them.
I want to end this with "take care of yourself", but considering that I literally did the bipolar opposite.. Well, I wouldn't want to be remembered as a hypocrite. Instead I'll end this with the repeated phrase- 'move on'-
Move on, move on, move on. Please Jack, and like I said, don't think of me until you're joining me, and don't you dare make that any day soon. Until then, my love.
Alex.
Jack genuinely thought the tears would never cease. They streamed down from his glass eyes over his pale cheeks, staining them, dragging out whatever life he had left. He mustered the energy to tear out the page, and he folded it neatly, because he knew Alex would appreciate that. He put it into his phone case, because it was his, and he didn't want anyone else to find it. He continued crying as he gathered his belongings, and he cried for the rest of the evening, until he fell asleep, exhausted from all the crying. He didn't sleep well, his dreams were tortured with images of Alex, and him and Alex, and how happy they were, until all of a sudden he was in the forest, staring at Alex's nimble body hanging from a tree by a rope, and he woke up screaming.
The yellow tape, the body bag, the noose that remained dangling from the highest branch of the tree.
The police, the forensics department, the crowd of confused teens that seemed to have developed a sudden concern for the life, or now lack of, of Alexander William Gaskarth.
Jack hadn't stopped shaking, and he'd thrown up more times than he could count, only ceasing when his stomach ran out of contents to churn up, but he wasn't worried about himself, or his unsettled insides. After the events of the early morning on November 16th, 2014, Jack would never (and could never) have a single care for his own safety, and stability, because nothing, none of his cliché teenage insecurities would ever amount to the intensity of what Alex had deemed necessary to do.
The school nurse, who hadn't left Jack's side since the discovery of the incident, kept assuring Jack that it wasn't his fault, that Alex had been suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, coupled with an inherited case of depression. Alex's mum died of leukemia, when he was 12, and his dad, who presumably had never felt more alone (considering that his son was attending a boarding school, and his wife had just passed) started binge drinking, and all it took was one drunken Halloween night on the road, and a crash with a motorcyclist before it was lights out for Mr Gaskarth.
Jack felt like a total arsehole, he'd been a dick anyway, but it was the fact that he'd been a dick to someone who needed him to be so much better. He'd let Alex down, and Alex was the one to suffer. Jack knew Alex had been ill, and the recent breakdowns made sense, I mean, if both your parents had died on separate occasions at roughly the same time of year, and that time of year had come around again, who wouldn't be completely on edge?
Jack wished Alex had told him, so that he could've reduced the concentration of his douchey behaviour, but not knowing is no excuse. He shouldn't have been a jerk anyway, especially not to the boy he loved. Yeah, loved. That's what it was, wasn't it? Love.
Jack had suspected it of himself, and was waiting to be certain before telling Alex, but I guess he only knew he loved him when it was all over.
When the nurse was about to take Jack to his room to collect some things, and then to the infirmary, where the headmaster had deemed it safest for him to stay, the head called Jack over.
"Jack, we're going to hold a funeral for Alex, at the school chapel. Can you please make a list of those you think Alex would've wanted to attend?" Jack nodded, biting his lip to hold back tears at the mention of Alex's name. "You can make a speech, obviously. I know you will anyway, but just, be respectful." The head patted him on the back as he turned to walk back to nurse.
The walk back to house was silent on Jack's part, there were only a few comments from the nurse- her feeble attempt to distract the boy from the days earlier happenings, all falling flat.
The nurse waited outside for Jack to collect the things he deemed essential for the next few days- clothes, toiletries, electronics, whatever. It was when he leaned over to pick up a hoodie off of Alex's bed (Jack had lent it to the other boy on several occasions, before the mutual decision came that it looked better on Alex anyway, and so it became his, and therefore smelt of him), that he caught sight of one of Alex's famous little black books.
Jack.
I don't know how to say this, but as much as I believe that I should be forgotten along with the body that you bury, I thought you deserved a little more than nothing, especially considering that you really were my everything. I'd never told you that, now I wish I had. I guess I didn't think you'd appreciate the burden.
I've known you my entire school career, but I only /got to know you/ in the past few months. Imagine if we hadn't been paired as roommates.. You'd be far better off. I remember at the start of the year I was worrying about how awkward it was that I was gay and you were hot, and now I'm worrying about how disgusted you'll be when you see my frail body, devoid of all life, collapsed into a wooden box set to decompose for the next 50 to a few hundred years, you know, depending on the soil type.
I need you to know that it, this, wasn't your fault. You were trying to rebuild a house that had no foundations, to solve a jigsaw with missing pieces. Failure was the only option. But don't blame yourself for that. You tried, and that's more than I could've asked for. I admire your optimism, it's more than most people have. When we argued, well, none of those times were your fault either, I blame those on my pathetic and insecure mind, and I'm sorry I made such a huge deal out of things. I wish I hadn't, I feel like I wasted time we could've spent making positive memories, or exploring each others bodies and whatnot.
I was too broken to live, so I need you to live for me. I want the next time we meet to be decades from now, when your face is wrinkled, and you need help getting up the stairs. I want to hear stories of things I never got to do; university, your gap year, parties, first job, who you fall for, who you marry, your kids, their kids. Everything. But of course I'll only be able to hear all of that if I discover (to my disdain) that death is not the end. I hope it is, I need all of this to be over, yet I swear to whatever God is listening, that whether there be an after life or not, whether I'm in heaven or hell, I'll find a way to watch you, to be with you. I want you to know that although I couldn't support myself, I'm going to support you all the way, through everything. I'll be your metaphorical shoulder to lean on, I'll be whatever you need me to be, as long as you move on.
This is my greatest regret, leaving you to deal with this alone, to clean up my mess. Promise me that you'll forget about me. Don't let me cross your mind until the day comes where you join me, okay? Pretend we were never roommates, act like one of those students who will give their "sincere" condolances to all it may concern, and then move the fuck on. It shouldn't have been you that got lumbered with the defective, pathetic excuse for a person, it shouldn't have been anyone, you got involved by a mistake in the universe, a fault in our stars (do you remember that film we saw? I remember loving the way your arm felt around my shoulder).
Don't distance yourself from your friends, stay open with them, stay honest. They're called 'friends' for a reason. Smile with them, laugh with them. Live with them.
I want to end this with "take care of yourself", but considering that I literally did the bipolar opposite.. Well, I wouldn't want to be remembered as a hypocrite. Instead I'll end this with the repeated phrase- 'move on'-
Move on, move on, move on. Please Jack, and like I said, don't think of me until you're joining me, and don't you dare make that any day soon. Until then, my love.
Alex.
Jack genuinely thought the tears would never cease. They streamed down from his glass eyes over his pale cheeks, staining them, dragging out whatever life he had left. He mustered the energy to tear out the page, and he folded it neatly, because he knew Alex would appreciate that. He put it into his phone case, because it was his, and he didn't want anyone else to find it. He continued crying as he gathered his belongings, and he cried for the rest of the evening, until he fell asleep, exhausted from all the crying. He didn't sleep well, his dreams were tortured with images of Alex, and him and Alex, and how happy they were, until all of a sudden he was in the forest, staring at Alex's nimble body hanging from a tree by a rope, and he woke up screaming.
♠ ♠ ♠
i'm sorry don't hate me read the next chapter quickly go now