You Still Have All of My Heart

Was that actually real? I could have sworn that Kellin was just standing there, in the middle of the hallway. But he looks a lot rougher than he did the last time I saw him – and not in a good way either. Although his scruffy, unkempt hair does take my breath away (I must have something for the scruffy guys, or maybe it is just because it is Kellin, because it highlights something that I will never be able to be; a kind of rebellious teen.) it is clear that he hasn't been sleeping properly lately due to the dark circles that ring his eyes, and his abnormally scrawny arm suggests he hasn't been eating too well either, or that he has fallen back into the dark world of drugs. Could that be because of our breakup? I don't know whether to feel hopeful or guilty at the thought that it could possibly be because of us; on one hand it suggests that it is all my fault, but on the other hand it would mean that he actually cared so much about me that he literally lost sleep over it. No, Vic, stop deluding yourself, my head yells at me, and for God's sake leave before he sees you! How could I be so stupid to even think that he might have cared about me? With one last glance shot over my shoulder towards him, it seems as though he has moved because I can't actually see him this time, Maybe he wasn't even there in the first place, that wouldn't surprise me with how often I convince myself that he still loves me when – I know he doesn't and probably never did. Although it did feel as though he loved me at one point.

By the time I get to class – felling as though I might as well just hide and skip it because business economics really isn't all that fun – I have already managed to convince the larger part of myself that I was simply daydreaming. There is no way he could be here, and if he was it wouldn't have been for me; the last time I saw him he was a high school drop out who apparently couldn't have cared less about me. He made that perfectly clear when he reached in, promising me a lifetime of love that would never end, only to rip my heart right out of my chest and leave me there to die, both figuratively, and literally. Tainted love, that's what Mike called our relationship, saying that the only thing that also brought us apart. I never really knew what he meant by that though, from what I could tell we were perfectly normal... well in some ways.

I don't know what it is about Kellin that draws me in but makes me so afraid as well,
“Vic can you answer it?”
“Huh? What? 52?” I start without even know what it is I am supposed to be answering. The whole class erupt into fits of laughter and I do my best to hide my embarrassment. But I can feel my face heating up, and I quickly excuse myself to the toilet.
“Vic, I was just asking if you were listening.” Sir says, to which I nod and leave, reprimanding myself for doing something so stupid.

My face, flushed, I try all but punching the walls in with my bare knuckles to let this out. How fucking stupid can you get? Ugh! Slamming the door to the boys toilet behind me I turn on the cold tap as hard and fast as it would go, let in run for a few seconds, before plunging my head under it. The icy fall of the water cooling me down and slowly numbing my brain from thinking.

My hair is soaked when I finally remove my head from under the tap and is plastered to the sides of my face in a soppy, wet, puppy dog look. How pathetic! Grabbing some paper towels, and taking a risk on how clean they actually are, I begin to dry my hair just enough to stop it from falling flat and lifeless over my face. When I glance up and catch my reflection in the mirror I nearly laugh aloud at the sight of it; my hair strewn all over the place I almost looks like the guys I wish I could be but never dreamed would be a possibility – all I need are the tattoos to finish it off. But quickly I curse myself for doing that when I straightened my hair this morning and now all of it's natural kinks have come back, and so I brush my fingers through my hair in an attempt to tidy it up more and remove all of the random kinks and waves, which, may I add, didn't work at all. Then I leave the bathroom; I don't know how long I have spent in there, but I don't particularly have any interest in making my way back to my class as quickly as I can either. So, as I amble aimlessly back to my class I allow myself to become distracted by the windows leading into the other lessons. I snap my head (As subtly as one can snap their head around) to the right to see through the window into a biology class. And right to Kellin's perfect face. He looks bored, in all honesty, but then I don't blame him because the biology teacher might as well have been welcoming people to their death with the amount of lectures he produces. His eyes seem just like I remember them, although the hope and youthfulness that used to flash in his eyes constantly seems to have withered away slightly, as though something has taken his care-free attitude away from him and made him suddenly age. I shiver at the thought of what that could have been. For a moment he looks up, our eyes locked, so I broke it, doing everything I could not to fall back under their spell of longing that he pretty much always holds over me.
Goddamn it, Vic, he doesn't like you anymore, yet that into your stupid, thick head and move on with your life.

When I get back into my class the reality of going to the same school with my ex that I still love but looks like death-warmed-up hits me. My stomach scrunches up into a tight ball of a knot and decides doing front flips would be a perfect way to brighten my day. I bite down on my tongue to stop the sickening groan from tumbling beyond my lips as memories flash through my head. No one in this school (Besides Mike and his mate Tony) know anything about Kellin and I; how could they when they innocently presume that I am straight? It's weird when you think that you (accidentally or intentionally) being as camp as a goddamn beautiful golden unicorn dancing across a rainbow to “Walking On Sunshine” or something from Girls Aloud, no one seems to notice, and if they do they don't really think as though it could truly be you. Which, in all honesty, is a good thing considering my old school, I moved here not long after Kellin and I broke up because along with the kids finding out what happened to us I had to deal with the taunting of being gay. And I know that would have a normal and healthy thing for me to be infuriated with Kellin for what he did – trust me, the couple therapy sessions I had been given by the school therapist told me that fact over and over: I need to get over him and allow my anger wash his presence away. He was wrong for what he did – I still felt as though he never meant for that to happen, so when some of the kids would slag him off, or plan to beat him up for how he treated me I always intervened because it hurt to know he was at risk. It confused me for a while how the people who made me feel as low as they possibly could by taunting and hurting me and telling me that I am worthless for being gay, also wanted to hurt Kellin for hurting me, but over time I guessed that it might just have been another reason to kick his ass and tell him that he deserves to be buried six feet below the stars.

I let out an internal groan when the bell comes about because I have the wonderful joys of double of gym class. Slinging my bag over my shoulder I fight the urge to smack my head into the wall, which only grows stronger when I hear: “Oh, look, it's 52!” Do they really think they are being clever and original? All I need is for all of this to grow into a pattern and if everyone starts that now I am so screwed. My stomach churns at the thought of gym, just like it does every time; I haven't even majorly done anything bad (Nothing bad enough to deserve such a punishment) in just over a month now, yet the marks still litter my skin – and they werent even created by me.

It's amazing how the prospect of kids studying buisness economics can make a school sound so posh and snobby, when in reality it is just as trashy as the one we were in before – Mike and I. My parents wouldnt ever care about me enough to send me to a proper school that would actually care about me and not ruin my life completely. But then again, my parents don't care about me enough for anything. That's where the marks come from, because every time I do something wrong they get mad. They don't always get furious – In fact it doesnt happen that often at all; normally only a couple times a month, maybe more – but when it does... Well I might as well just pray to God that he'll make sure I don't die. That is, though if I believed in God.

I grit my teeth as the anger directed towards my parents comes searing back with a vengence, my face flushing red and my fist curled up into tight balls.
“Err, sir...” I walk upto him trying to make my usual excuse to not partake something that doesn't sound suspicious; if I say it too fast he might think that I have been planning it and thinking about it a lot, and so it would sound false, but then if I say something something else he might think that I am lying. And maybe, just maybe, I might be reading into this way too much. “My-”
“Your leg is still painful, right?” Mr Scott butts in, saving me from having to recite my over-rhehearsed excuse. “That's fine, you can sit out.” See, that's the thing about gym; the teacher is amazing and actually so caring, it's just the students that get offended when you sit out and you can pretty much guarantee a 20-questions quiz about why it is you are not taking part and if you can prove that your excuse in genuine. It's almost as thought they wouldn't even be happy to see someone who was paralysed from the waist down not partaking.

With an inside cheer I sit back down, thankful for the fact that my teacher isn't the typical asshole you normally find that do gym, but is understanding even if he doesn't actually know the real reason as to why I cannot do it. I feel that somehow he knows better than to than to question the continuity of my bad leg although there is no limp or medical reason to say it is real, and surely there could be no way that I wouldn't have consulted a doctor if my leg hadn't “Gotten better” after the last eight months, one of which have been spent in this school. Surely if I hadn't brought myself to a doctor my family would have, so I guess that I have sort of told him that something is wrong with my family, and maybe he knows better than to ask what it is, but that silent smile he flashes me after every time goes unknown by everyon else, yet to me it's a silent “Things will get better for you, son, I swear”.

The fingers of my left hand got to my hair, twisting the strands together, my teeth sink down in a delicate yet stressful kind of pain and self punishment. The more I do it, removing the top layer of the inside of my cheek, the more I hate myself for doing it, and so I need to do it again. Maybe it is just another way of me proving to myself that no one could ever love me, because who would want to kiss someone who bites away at the inside of their mouth? Who am I even kidding? No body would ever want to kiss me anyway, so that will never be an issue for me. I can feel my chest growing tight at the mere thought that I will never have that feeling of someone I love wanting to spend time in my arms. I will never have that again.

Blood flows into my mouth, and I allow it to surround my tongue, feeling it move around in my mouth, coating it with a fine layer, before swallowing it down. I reach into my bag, pick out my phone and quickly send a message to Mike: “Im not doing gym today! :D” Mike is the only person that actually knows why I don't do gym, but then of course he would know, the amount of times I have taken beatings for him and stepped in when they angry at him, giving him an alibi just so they don't punish him. He is far too young, too messed up to ever have to go through that, and I can't even begin to imagine what t must be like for him to see his older brother get hurt in front of him, but maybe it doesn't bother him because it isn't like I am anything important – if my parents can do this and the one thing they are supposed to do is love their child unconditionally, it seems as though I am definitely doing something wrong.

The smell of the changing rooms become too much, and so I walk out to the room we will be using, a few kids following suit with me.
“So, Vic, when was the last time you did gym?” Sarah asks.
“I can't actually remember, it must have been about eight months ago,” I am so fucked.
“So how do you know that you still can't do it?”
“Urm, well, I tried to run the other day and it made my leg really bad and so I guess I still can't.”
“What does it do? Your leg”
“Why do you even care?” I ask, my tone letting her know that I don't want to deal with her shit, and funnily enough she either can't think of a response, or respects my personal space because she lets the conversation die out.

As I sit down, I pull out my phone because Mike has replied, I smile after reading it: You know, I hate the thought that you have to sit out, but then it's okay because it means I can give you updates on how amazing my sex life is!
I shake my head, laughing, and reply: Oi, you're too young to have a sex life, plus you have no partner...

But the smile drops dead when everyone walks in and I see who is sitting beside me, his messy hair still fighting to take my breath away. But my heart beats as though it is going to fall right out of my body when I see him up close. If I thought he looked rough earlier, there is no way of denying it now. His skin is so pale, as though he hardly leaves his house and if I was honest with myself, he looks... sick. Really sick. Memories come flooding back to me, the feeling of his lips against mine and my hands in his hair, and I will never understand why it had to end, because something so perfect should never leave. But that's how the world is. Whatever love it gives to someone, it decides to take back as soon as it finds out that someone is actually happy for once in their fucking life.

The whistle blows, and I allow myself to sink back onto the bench, slightly more relaxed, as my eyes gaze over the court. Basket ball is pretty much the only sport they like to teach us, and so it is easy for me to feign interest because I have seen it so many times that no thought process go into it anymore. From the corner of my eye it looks as though Kellin is glancing towards me, but I do not allow myself to turn to him. He left you, Vic, remember that. Silently I whisper a sarcastic 'thank you' to my brain for reminding me that yet another person thought that they would be better off without me, which, as much as it hurts to admit, is probably true. Like they say, if something is cancerous, remove it. I guess that is what everyone does whenever I step into their lives, just some people allow me to infect them slightly more than others. That's what happened with Kellin, I infected him so much he was dying, and so he flipped it around. I don't blame him in the slightest, I just miss him.

It takes a long of energy to just ignore the person you want to be lost in the eyes of, as you hold them in your arms, so it almost kills me to just carry on and act as though he isn't even there. I say almost, but the fact it, it did kill me.
And so I look at him.

Almost instantly I can see a smile form on his lips that he tries to push away, hiding it from my sight. Part of me wants to yell at him, asking if he is fucking crazy because he refuses to act as though I even exsist, but then on the other hand I am grateful because at least now I know that I don't stand a chance and that he really doesn't care about me, even if that smile did make me doubt that for a second. It is probably him just wanting to see if I am still the same, gullible boy he knew last summer. Sadly, I am. There is cheering from the court, and I realise that I had just zoned out once again due to Kellin, so I turn my attention back to it, trying to put my thoughts of him at the back of my mind, thankful that it isn't actually that long until dismissal. Maybe when I get home I can go to sleep and find out that the whole day is just one weird dream. But that's all, nothing but a dream.

A slamming sound startles me, making me jolt into consciousness. And that is when I realise that I have fallen asleep, I don't know how long for, but the hall has been cleared and there is only me in here, so I softly stretch out my muscles, realising that whatever my next lesson was can't have been that important as no one has come to get me yet. I look at my phone, realising that I've actually been asleep for quite a while, and that it is not long until dismissal – only half an hour. I almost laugh at how stupid that just was, but then I spot a piece of paper beside me, and pick it up. Fear fills me at the thought of opening it, but then I realise that it would be better to just get it over an done with.

You're still not doing gym? That's okay because you're just as I remember you to be.
~ Kels

My head spins as I read it, so I amble for my phone, eager to tell Mike, and leave him a message that he needs to speak to me urgently after dismissal. Why did he even bother writing me that note? It isn't even important so I guess it doesn't really mean anything and, like always, I am reading into the situation much more than I need to. He probably didn't even mean anything by it.

I guess, that sometimes I get caught up in the swing of things, losing myself in my thoughts and allowing my imagination to persuade me that it is reality, which is always a dangerous thing in the end. Of course, at first it can be fun as you get yourself lost, thinking about how the world can be better in so many ways, allowing yourself to forget just how crap the real world is. It is like fiction, in the end of it all, you convince yourself that the fictional world is real, and you get excited whenever a character has something amazing happen to them, or you get sad whenever they have a bad day, but by the end of it, it becomes like an addiction; it always leaves you wanting more, and at the end of a good book, film, dream, or show, your world comes crashing down around you and you sink into an unimaginable low. And the worst thing about it all is that you have inflicted it upon yourself.

As the dismissal bell rings, I propel myself from my seat on the bench, out the hall, and into the street beyond where I meet Mike, ready like always to talk about his favourite topic: My love life, or rather, the lack of it.
“Dude, what the hell? Why were you not in lesson?” Mike's gaze crosses between curiosity, to confusion and back again. I guess he has never seen me skip class; not like I did it on purpose this time.
“Long story short, I fell asleep and no one woke me up. I know, I know, I am such a rebel so you need to bow down to my greatness and worship the almighty God, otherwise known as Vic Fuentes!” My voice low and powerful. Surprisingly Mike complies, bowing down before me, and then dropping to his knees and kissing my shoes,
“Almighty God, please show me your ways,” He says, a chuckle evident at the base of his throat.
“To the car it is then, my young one!” I announce, stepping forward and climbing into the car as gracefully as I can, which is pretty much trying not to fall in face first. The surprising things is that it isn't actually that rare for me to find a way of stepping in and somehow ending up on my face on the floor of the car.

“Okay, so what is the deal? Why the urgency?” Mike's serious now.
“Well,” I'm hesitant, I don't know why because we have had this conversation many a time, but for some reason this seems different, almost as though I shouldn't be saying this. As though it is breaking the small trust that Kellin and I still still hold. “I know I am probably making a massive scene out of nothing but...”
“Kellin's in the school, isn't he? Is that what this is about, because if so I know. Tony told me earlier because Kellin asked him for directions, and when he asked for his name he thought it sounded familiar and then all the pieces clicked together... and I am rambling aren't I?”
I nod. “Yep, but then again so am I. It's just, he left me a note and I just don't know what to think of it.”
“Oh god, not a love note was it?”
“Er, not exactly, but he did say that I am exactly how he remembers me...” I bite my lip as my fingers go up to my hair. “I, just, I know I should be angry at him and all, but I just can't. And I can't get it out of my head how he turned up here, and how he all but grinned when I was looking at him. But then it could just be a control thing again, and that wouldn't surprise me because that is what all the professionals have said; everything he does is about control and therefore I cannot fall for any of his traps because he would want me to do that and fall in love with him again just so that he can hurt me. I don't think I could do that though, because they don't feel like traps – And before you say anything, yes I know that is exactly the issue – but Kellin isn't what they say he is. He didn't mean to hurt me, he was only protecting me. I just wish I could make sense of my life.” Tears brim my eyelids, and I bury my face in my hands, “Why is everything such a mess, Mike?”
“Come on, Vic,” He says, wrapping his arms around me and enveloping me in a hug, “It's going to be okay. I know everything is a mess right now, but you would be surprised by how much I believe you. I think if Kellin was protecting you then he was showing it in a weird way, but I don't think he intentionally set out to hurt you.”
“Really?” I lift my head to meet his eyes,
“Yes, really. Now you listen to me, yeah? I know that this hurts you, and I know you wake up screaming in the middle of the night, reliving what happened, and I know that it haunts you because you have seen him fragile, so to see him flip like that was terrifying, but I also know that you love him. And I believe that he did love you. I would love to tell you that he still does, but I haven't met him yet, but don't just blow everything off like that.”

My tears fall freely now because I know that everything he said was actually true. I do wake up in the middle of the night screaming because of what I saw that night. I probably should have had actually therapy for it, but considering all they spoke about was how he is an evil person and I knew otherwise, I gave up thinking that it would ever help me because if they are critising the one person that I have ever loved, well how am I supposed to trust them with anything I tell them?

It didn't help that with all of this going on my family turned against me. At first they hated me for allowing myself to be friends with Kellin, who in their minds was the root of all evil. They thought I was stupid, and taunted me for days, saying that if I had been more careful none of this would have ever happened, I wouldn't have cost them so much in having to pay my medical bills for both physical and mental health. It isn't like I knew that he was going to do what he did, I presumed it was going to be okay. But then one day they caught on and realised that we weren't just friends. And that was the day when everything got even worse; they haven't forgiven me about that and I kind of think that they never will. Maybe I was born to be hated, seeing as I break every rule they've created.
“I know that you're hurting, Vic. I know they hate you for it, but it was never your fault.” And with that, I smile a bitter smile, and drive home.