From Him, With Love

"Thanks for the ride," Ella said when Jack dropped us off at my house.

"No problem. I guess I'll see you again tomorrow, yeah?"

"Yeah," I answered. "Bye."

Jack drove off. It was dark, and the sky was too cloudy to see the stars. I hugged Ella and she kissed my cheek.

"I hope you feel better," she empathized. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Yeah, I already feel a lot better. Thanks, El. Text me when you get home safe."

"I will, bye, Lex."

We hugged again, and she headed toward her house. I watched her walk away for a minute, then I turned around and walked up the steps. I wasn't going to do it. Not that night, not the night after. I wasn't going to until Jack left.

Only Tom was home, and he was waiting when I walked through the door. He pinned me against the door, much stronger than I was.

"Alex, I want you to tell me right now what this is all about. I couldn't talk about it last night, but I want to know," he said angrily.

"Well what if I don't want to tell you? You can't intentionally ignore me for four years then expect me to tell you all of my dirty secrets."

I hadn't meant to lash out at him. We both stood in utter shock for a few moments before he made a fist and punched me square in the nose.

"I'm your brother, and I have every right to know!"

He twisted my arm ruthlessly and lifted the long sleeve of my rash guard. His face was covered in shock to see that both of my wrists were blank slates. He fixed me with a stare that was miles deep. I wiggled out of his grasp.

Tom didn’t follow me upstairs. He didn’t make any attempt to call after me. I was relieved, but mad at myself at the same time. I wasn’t actually sure if it was normal for a person to screw up as much as I had in the past few years. I was pretty sure that it was not.

I was emotionally drained. Upstairs, I didn’t even walk to the bathroom out of habit; I just walked straight to my bedroom. It kind of felt normal to be this frustrated with myself, and that scared me. I didn’t feel like the constant self hatred would ever end. I flopped myself face-first onto my bed. When my face was sufficiently buried in my pillow, I screamed.

And I screamed.

And I screamed.

It felt like the right thing to do at the time. It distracted me from how angry and upset I was more than cutting myself ever had. I didn’t stop screaming when my throat felt raw and red. I didn’t stop when it felt like it was on fire. I didn’t stop long enough to hear the door downstairs open, and I didn’t stop long enough to hear my bedroom door open. I only stopped long enough to hear Tom telling our parents that I was in one of my moods. I was quiet long enough to hear the door close, and quiet long enough to hear their footsteps going back downstairs.

They weren't worried about me. To them, I was just the lonely little kid who couldn't control his emotions. They just thought I was acting like an immature three-year-old, which is a pretty good analogy for a twenty-year-old who still lives with his fucking parents. I tried to sleep, but I couldn’t, so I pulled my phone off of my night-stand and turned it on. My lock screen lit up with notifications from Facebook. Mostly, it was friend requests from my mentally stable high school friends who were probably off at college being happy. I was surprised that they’d even remembered me.

I put it back on sleep and the lock screen darkened again. I put it back on the nightstand and rolled onto my side. I was going to try to go back to sleep. I decided to use the trick that my mom taught me when I was twelve. It was definitely too early for a normal person to go to sleep, only eight PM, but I didn’t care, I wasn’t a normal person.

One-hundred…

Ninety-nine…

Ninety-eight…

I wonder what would happen if I went downstairs…

Ninety-seven…

Ninety-six…

Ninety-five…

What if I went and actually involved myself with my family…

Ninety-four…

Ninety-three…

Ninety-two…

I don’t remember what it feels like to not be depressed…

Ninety-one…

Ninety…

Eighty-nine…

Finally, I fell asleep. Well…sort of. I fell into the type of sleep where you’re hyper-aware of yourself and everything around you. I tossed and turned, and I didn’t dream. At what must have been around two AM, I finally fell completely asleep, and I had a terrifyingly vivid nightmare of everyone I loved disappearing.

I woke up at seven AM in a cold sweat. I quickly got dressed, grabbed my phone, and hurried downstairs. I was relieved to find that Tom was there and getting ready for school.

“Where are Mom and Dad?” I asked, and he looked at me with a glare.

“Mom went for a run and Dad’s at work, why?” Tom said.

“Thanks,” I said.

I walked into the living room and sat on the couch.

Hey, May wants to explore the great Australian outback today, so we’re leaving in fifteen minutes to go drive…somewhere. If it’s not too last minute, are you interested?

I’d love to.

I went back upstairs to change, then downstairs to fill up a water bottle.

“Where are you going?” Tom asked.

“I’m going to hang out with one of my friends and his sister.”

He smiled a little bit.

“What?”

"I’m just trying not to laugh at the fact that you won’t admit that Jack’s your boyfriend.”

“First of all, he’s not. Second of all, this is the longest friendly interaction I've had with you in four years, so who says that I have to tell you anything?”

I found myself smiling too, amazed that we were even able to interact so easily after ignoring each other for four years.

“I guess that’s fair enough.”

The doorbell rang, and I don’t think I've ever run that fast in my entire life.

“But not the part about him not being your boyfriend,” he muttered.

“I swear, Tom, he’s not my boyfriend.”

I opened the door, and Jack gave me a small wink.

“I could be. May’s in the car, and I’m pretty sure that leaving her there is child abuse. Are you ready for an adventure?”

I blushed.

“I am, are you?”

“Yes!”

In the car, I was surprised to realize that just as quickly as my mood had gone up from talking to Tom, it had gone down. I felt like I was going to cry. I just wanted to finally be completely happy again, but I didn’t even know what was bringing me down at that point.

“Are you okay?” Jack asked as we drove out of Perth.

“Oh, yeah, I’m fine,” I lied.

“Okay. Do you want to listen to the radio?”

“If you want.”

May’s short body was stretched out across the back seat, and we could hear the music blasting from the miniature speakers in her earphones, so we knew that she would have no input. Jack bent his arm to open the console between us and pulled out a CD.

“What album is this?” I asked.

“Take Off Your Pants and Jacket by Blink."

“I love them!”

A few moments later, the speakers started blasting Roller Coaster

“Oh my god!” I shouted, jumping a bit out of my seat while Jack turned it down.

“Sorry!” he said. “I had absolutely no idea that it was going to be that loud.”

“It’s fine," I laughed.

We drove for ten hours. Sometimes, we would take back roads just to see where they would take us.

“Jack, I’m pretty sure it’s safe to say that we’re lost,” I finally said, shouting over the Issues song that was blasting through the auxiliary attachment on May’s phone. “I probably should have told you that there’s really nothing to explore of the ‘Great Australian Outback’.”

“Okay, at this point I guess that you’re right. May, can you hand me the atlas in the pocket on the back of Alex’s seat?”

Jack pulled over to the side of the road and May handed him the road map. It took him about ten minutes, but he found where we needed to go.

“It’s about damn time,” May said when he finally handed her the map. “Jack, I’m hungry.”

“Okay, I’ll be right back.”

He got out of the car and returned a few minutes later with three sandwiches and three cans of soda. He passed them out, and I stared at mine loathingly for a few seconds before realizing that there was probably no way out of it, and I was really hungry anyway. I really couldn't do much.

“Do you have water? I can’t drink soda,” I hadn't thought it out before, and I thought fast to come up with a reason. “I’m diabetic.”

That couldn't have been farther from the truth. I honestly didn’t even know if diabetics couldn't drink soda, I just hoped he would take the bait.

“Yeah, I have water.”

He took my soda, and returned with a bottle of water.

“Sorry it’s so warm,” he apologized.

“It’s fine. Thank you.”

I took slow bites of the chicken salad sandwich, trying not to let on just how hungry I was. Jack was the last person that I’d want to tell about my eating disorder.

“Thanks for putting up with us for the day,” Jack said, leaning out the passenger window. “I think we should try again tomorrow, but do something different.”

He laughed, dropping me off at my house. It was two AM, and I could only hope that my parents hadn’t noticed that I was gone. If they knew I was off hanging out with the boy, I worried they might find out that I was gay. They would probably be livid. They might make me leave. I tried to be quiet on my way inside, making barely any sound when I closed the door, but to no avail.

“Hello, sweetie,” Mom said from the couch.

She didn’t sound angry, so I guess she didn’t realize where I’d been.

“Hi, Mom,” I answered.

I walked to sit down next to her. Dad must have gone to sleep.

“Honey, you’re tapping your fingers again, are you nervous about something? Where have you been?”

“Mom, if I told you something, would you promise not to get mad?” I asked.

I looked away anxiously, fixing my eyes on my light blue running shoes. I made a mental note to go on a run the next day. I hadn't done much exercise in the past few days, and I felt like I was gaining weight again.

“Alex, of course I won’t get mad. You know you can tell me anything.”

I nervously picked at my nails, not quite believing I was going to tell her, but justifying it with the fact that she’d never said that she didn’t support gay people. Finally, I realized that if I didn’t just say it, I probably never would.

“Mom…I…” I paused for a few moments, terrified of what her reaction would be, and finally, I blurted it out. “Mom, I’m gay.”

She smiled and pulled me into a hug.

“Honey, I know that. It’s okay.”

It took me a moment to realize what she’d said, and even longer to register that she was hugging me. I started crying and hugged her back. I knew I should have felt like some huge weight was lifted, but I didn’t feel any better.

“How did you know?”

“You’re my son, I could just tell.”

“Oh.”

“I think you need to get some sleep. Why don’t you go to bed? We can talk about it with your dad in the morning.”

“Okay, goodnight, Mom.”

“Goodnight. I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

I started walking again, taking slow and heavy steps up the hardwood stairs. I wondered how much my mom really knew about me. I wondered if she knew that, occasionally, if I felt especially bad about myself and no one was home, I fell deep into a bottle of the cheapest whiskey I could find and had to claw my way out. I wondered if she knew that I was on my way to the bathroom right that moment to have a little meeting with my sharp metal friend. I wondered if she knew that those times were the only times when I felt anything at all. I wondered if she knew that I didn’t go to the temple with them on Fridays because every word the rabbi said went in one ear and out the other. I wondered if she knew that it was because I let them. I wondered if she knew just how upset I was.

The familiar scent of peachy air freshener fogged my thoughts when I walked into the bathroom. I stripped down slowly, one article of clothing at a time, until I was completely naked. I turned the knob on the shower, and adjusted the temperature so that it was practically scalding. I hopped in and let the water run angrily down my back. I barely even noticed how hot it was, and I opened my hand to expose the object that I’d grabbed from my first-aid kit on my way in. I wasn’t planning to use it to heal anything.

It was actually a very comforting sight when you got used to it. I was all too familiar with the sight of blood being carried from my hips by shower-water and swirling down the drain in small, intricate patterns that formed the moment the thick red liquid met the floor of the shower. When I was done, I washed the blood off repeatedly until the cuts stopped bleeding. I washed my hair, washing off the good memories of the day with strawberry scented shampoo that clashed horribly with the air freshener to give me a headache. Finally, I turned off the steady shower stream and became very aware of how much my cuts stung.

However, they weren't bleeding anymore, so I left them unwrapped. The silence left me with my own thoughts while I dried off and put my clothes back on. Jack probably didn’t actually like me. I bet he just felt bad for me because nobody would ever really like me. I looked in the mirror and saw someone that was too fat, even though I knew that I was actually too skinny. I was pale, and honestly, I looked completely lifeless. The amount that the color of my eyes had dulled over the past few years amazed me. They were still brown, obviously, but they looked devoid of any life.

I sighed, wishing that I could fix those things. On the way to my room, I could hear that my mom was still watching TV. She was probably waiting for me to go to sleep. I probably wasn’t going to sleep. My room was dusty. I became aware of just how dusty it was when I laid in bed and opened my laptop. I almost logged on, but I didn’t have anyone to talk to there so I closed it and rolled onto my side instead. Falling asleep was something that took a large amount of effort for me usually, and it wasn’t the kind of day where I had enough energy to fall asleep.

I got out of bed and went to sit on the ledge outside. Once again, I tried to figure out why I never just jumped. I wanted to jump. I wanted to die, but I wasn’t ready to die. I didn’t know if I would ever be truly ready to die.