Hold My Heart

TRIGGER WARNING

When I woke up, I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and opened them slowly. I looked up to see light flooding the room - a room that wasn't mine. I sat up quickly, but soon realized that was not a good idea when my ribs started to ache intensely. I was in a bed, but all of my surroundings were unfamiliar. Where am I? I turned my head to the right and noticed that I wasn't the only one in the bed. I was sitting right next to a still sleeping Vic. That's when I remembered what happened that night. I went to the movies, took some pills, got beat up, then was saved by Vic. But why am I in his bed? I went home, didn't I? Now that I think about it, I don't remember even driving into my neighborhood. I probably passed out or something. I looked down quickly to make sure that I was still clothed, which I was. I don't remember anything that happened last night, and I was so out of it, who knows what I could've done?

It was just now that Vic started to stir around and groan as he woke up. I watched him as he turned onto his side, sat up, and rubbed his eyes. It might've looked creepy that I was watching him, but I didn't really care. Fuck, he was just so gorgeous. He eventually looked over at me.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey," I replied. "What happened last night?"

"You called me from the movie theater and asked me to pick you up, so I did. You were all bloody and said you'd been beaten up. I was going to take you home, but you passed out in my car, so I decided to just take you here since my house was closer," he explained.

"But why am I in your bed?" I asked.

"I carried you into the house last night, and you looked really bad so I thought I would let you sleep in the bed because I didn't want to to have to sleep on the hard floor," he said. I was going to ask why he didn't sleep on the floor instead, but I let it go. I figured that I had asked enough questions, and I wanted to go home. I stood up from the bed and faced him.

"I guess I'd better be getting back home," I said. Vic nodded.

"Yeah, I'll drive you."

When we got into the car, I told Vic where to go, and we headed off. We sat in silence for most of the ride. I looked at the clock on the dashboard and realized that it was 11 o'clock. Billie was probably still asleep if he was partying hard last night. I hoped that none of his friends would still be there.

When we got back to my house, it didn't look like there were any extra cars there, so I was relieved. I unbuckled my seatbelt and started to open the door with one of my hands still resting on the seat.

"Thanks so much for picking me up last night," I said. Vic smiled.

"Yeah, it's no problem," he replied. I knew that he probably didn't think much of the incident, but I was extremely grateful, and I wanted him to know that. I became very serious.

"No, seriously, thank you. I might not even be alive if it weren't for you," I said. He put his hand gently over top of mine. His touch sent shivers up and down my spine.

"I'll always be there if you need me," he said. He took his hand away, and I got out of the car.

"Hey, what are you doing tonight?" he asked.

"Um, nothing that I know of. Why?" I replied.

"I just wanted to see if you wanted to hang out," he said. I was surprised that he wanted to hang out so soon, but I wasn't going to let this opportunity pass by.

"Yeah, that'd be great! I'll talk to my uncle about it later," I said cheerily. Vic smiled.

"Cool. See you later, Kellin."

"Bye."

I watched Vic as he turned his car around in my driveway and pull off in the same direction that we came. I walked into the house, which was conveniently unlocked. I closed the door and leaned back against it, smiling. I couldn't get over the fact that Vic actually didn't hate me. And now he wanted to hang out! Maybe everything really was starting to get better. I walked giddily into the kitchen, and stopped in my tracks. There was a man standing next to the open fridge, pulling out random items of food. He stopped when he saw me. I had no idea who he was, but he must be one of my uncle's friends that stayed the night after the party.

"Oh, hi, you must be Kellin," he said.

"Um, yeah. Do you know where Billie is?" I asked awkwardly.

"Oh, he's in the hospital right now. Last night he was really drunk and fell down the stairs and broke his arm. He's okay, but they said they're going to keep him there tonight though to help him with his drinking to see if he needs rehab or something."

"What?!" I exclaimed. I was glad that he was okay, but I didn't want him to have to go away for rehab.

"Yeah, I don't really know anything else. I'm gonna get going. Bye, kid," the man said. He set down all the food that he'd been holding except for a bag of chips and walked out of the house. I sighed, pulled an apple out of the fridge, sat down and started eating. Now everything was confusing again. I hated it when everything got confusing. Suddenly, I felt my phone buzz in my pocket and I pulled it out.

So what time do you want to hang out? - Vic

I set down my apple and replied.

It doesn't matter. Any time.

Alright, I'll be at your house at around six. Order pizza. -Vic

I rolled my eyes and chuckled at his requests. I was glad that he wanted to come over to my house, because I really didn't feel like going anywhere tonight. I spent the rest of the day cleaning the house, since it was still a bit of a mess from the party. By the time I got the house looking half-way decent, it was already three, so I decided to take a shower.

I grabbed my iPod and the small speaker that I could attach to it, and took them into the bathroom. I put my music on shuffle and started to undress. It wasn't until now that I had seen myself in the mirror, and I gasped. I had a large cut on my lip, and my right cheek was bruised. I also had deep purple and blue bruises all over my body. I slowly turned to the side and stared at the two cuts. There was a little blood smeared around them that had dried there, but it wasn't that bad. I sighed and got into the shower. I turned the water on so that it was hot, but not scalding. I gently scrubbed my entire body, careful not to press down too hard on any of the bruises.

I suddenly became very angry. Why did this have to happen to me? Did I do something wrong to deserve to be beaten up and have little to no one care about me? I suddenly got out of the shower without bothering to dry off or turn off the water. I reached under the cabinet and felt around for a familiar bag that I always ended up running to. I pulled out a blade and stepped back into the shower. This time instead of assaulting my sides, I cut my arm, just high up enough that you wouldn't see it if I was wearing a short sleeved shirt. But this time, once I did it, I couldn't stop. One cut for being stupid. One cut for being ugly. One cut for being gay. I kept going until I had cuts all the way up to my shoulder. I stopped and just looked at what I had done. Blood was trickling out of the wounds and down my arm. It was really painful. I had fucked up this time. Then again, when don't I fuck something up? Vic was coming over in a few hours, and I didn't want him to notice anything. I washed all of the blood away, wincing as I felt the water sting my arm.

After I got out of the shower, I put on a pair of black skinny jeans and a plain red t-shirt, making sure that the sleeves were long enough to cover up the cuts. I threw the dirty clothes into the wash and went back into my room. It was almost five, so I had about an hour left before Vic came over. I spent most of that time just straightening up my room. I ordered pizza at ten till six, and then just waited for Vic to arrive.

At exactly six o'clock, I heard the doorbell ring, and I excitedly ran to answer it. I swung the door open and looked at Vic, who was standing there smiling, looking as sexy as ever. I mean, damn. Could he be any more attractive?

"Hey, Kellin," he said.

"Hi. Come on in," I said, moving out of the doorway. Vic entered the house and looked around for a minute as I shut the door. "I ordered the pizza about ten minutes ago, so it should be here soon."

"Cool," he said. I noticed that he was holding something.

"What's that?" I asked. He looked down at it for a second.

"I brought a movie to watch. Have you seen 'This Is The End'?"

"No, let's watch it," I replied taking the box out of his hands. I went upstairs to my room and he followed.

Vic sat down on my bed as I put the movie into the DVD player and started it. I then grabbed the remote and sat down next to him, but not so close that it was weird. We were about fifteen minutes into the movie when the pizza arrived. Vic and I both went downstairs to retrieve it. I took the pizza in one hand and gave the delivery boy the pizza with the other.

"Thank you," I said smiling as he turned and left. When I closed the door and turned around, Vic wasn't standing behind me in the living room as I'd expected him to be. I frowned, wondering where he had gone off to, before I heard the faint sound of a guitar coming from down the hallway to the right. Confused, I followed the melodic noise down the hall until I reached my uncle's bedroom. I stood in the doorway and watched Vic's expert fingers quickly sweep against the guitar strings. I didn't even know that he could play, let alone this well. After he finished the song he was playing he looked up and seemed to notice me for the first time.

"That was amazing!" I exclaimed. He blushed.

"Oh, yeah, I learned how to play a few years ago. Right now it's just something I like to do in my spare time, like write songs and stuff. But I want to be a musician someday," he told me. He set Billie's guitar back down on the stand where he found and stood up.

"Let's go finish the movie," he said, and we walked back up the stairs.

During the whole movie, I kept glancing at Vic out of the corner of my eye. It had become a habit, plus he was very nice to look at. One time, I looked at him, only to find him staring back. I blushed. I knew that I had been caught.

"You know, it's not nice to stare, Kells," Vic said quietly with a smirk. I looked down at my hands.

"I wasn't staring," I replied, but it was a lie. I had totally been staring.

"Okay, whatever you say," he said jokingly. Just because we were friends doesn't mean that we were spared of any awkwardness. A thought suddenly popped into my head, one that I had been trying to hold back ever since he got here. I didn't want to make him uncomfortable, but I had to ask sometime.

"Why did you tell me the other day that you didn't want to be friends anymore?" I asked. His face suddenly went blank, and he looked down like he was searching for an answer.

"Um, it's complicated. It doesn't matter," he said, trying to brush it off. But I was intent on getting an answer.

"No, it does matter. Just tell me," I said, trying not to be harsh, but also letting him know that I wasn't going to let him out of this. He sighed and closed his eyes. He opened his mouth like he was about to speak, then decided against it and bit his lip.

"Alright, just . . . don't tell anybody what I'm about to say, okay?" he pleaded. I nodded my head.

"Well, when you asked me before if it was because you're gay, it kind of was, but it's not because I don't like gay people or anything. Actually, I'm gay," he said slowly. My eyes widened in shock. I guess I just assumed before that he was straight. I nodded my head to encourage him to keep talking.

"I'd had a crush on you since we first met, and I didn't say anything because I thought you were straight. But when I found out you weren't, I kind of panicked because even though I liked you, I didn't want it to turn into anything because I'm not ready to come out yet. So I just kind of decided that the best way to keep anything from happening was to cut you out of my life. But then last night when you called me and said you needed help, I couldn't just leave you there because I still cared about you," Vic explained.

"Oh," was my only response.

"So . . . are we okay?" he asked. I smiled.

"Yeah. And I promise that I won't tell anybody." Vic smiled and relief flooded over his face.

"Okay. Thanks," he said.

We both turned our attention back to the movie. When it was over we just sat there and talked about random things for a few hours. Part of me wanted to start flirting now that I knew that he had a crush on me, but the more rational side knew that he didn't want a relationship right now, and that flirting might drive him away. I still didn't know if he knew that I had a crush on him, but I assumed that he did since he had caught me staring several times. When it got to be eleven o'clock, he said that he had to be getting back home, so I gave him his DVD back and walked him down to my front door.

"Thanks for letting me come over," Vic said as he stood in the doorway.

"Yeah, no problem. It was fun," I said, grinning. We stood there for a moment, just looking at each other. Vic glanced down at my lips like he was thinking about kissing them, and I hoped that he would, but I guess he decided against it, because before I knew it he murmured a good bye and left.