Headfirst for Halos

I peel myself off the cold, hard floor. My head pounds, my heart beats in fresh bruises.

I stagger towards the boy's toilets. I need to get myself cleaned up, wipe the blood away.

It's beginning to scare me how okay I am with this.

I deserve it. I know I do. I deserve every harsh word, every harsh blow. I am all wrong. I am so horrifically broken. I should never have been born. He has told me all of this. He told me so I know it's true.

The pills pulled me out of that dark cloud that consumed me for a while. But after a while they stopped working. They make it worse. They never work. THE DRUGS NEVER FUCKING WORK. My brother, Gerard, still makes me take them every day. He makes me take them along with other meds that turn me into a walking corpse. I've tried everything. Begging, blackmailing, threatening. Every single fucking morning and every fucking night Gerard makes me take the pills. The Prozac hasn't worked today. It never does anymore. Stupid doctors and their stupid faulty meds. They never work, so I took matters into my own hands. Little bags of brightly coloured pills, nothing mind-blowing. They make the world a little more bearable. And I need them.

I stare at myself in the toilet mirror. A boy with dried blood laced across his face and dead eyes stares straight back at me. The kid in the mirror lifts up his shirt to reveal nebulas of black-and-purple bruises burnt onto his skin. You can see most of his ribs stabbing through his skin, jostling to be the first to pierce his flesh. He isn't thin enough. He isn't pretty enough. He isn't controlling himself enough. He isn't enough. He will never be enough.

In the mirror, the boy's flesh seems to expand, swallowing his bones, taking away his one redeeming feature.

I realise that this alien child in the mirror is me. He's me and I am him and the realisation rips the very breath from my lungs.

I hate the thing that I see in the mirror. I hate the thing that I have become. I hate myself.

Hatred boils up in my veins, my vision blurs and then I hear I loud shattering noise and feel a sharp, defined pain in my hand.

I punched the mirror. I punched the fucking mirror.

Sadness. Guilt. A strange sense of power.

My counsellor told me to name my emotions as they come to me.

Anger. Hatred. Pity.

He stares at me for the longest time through the cracked glass. He glares from behind complex spider webs of anger, reminding me that I have no self-control. That I'm not good enough. For anyone.

I can't understand why Pete chose me. Maybe because he might genuinely like me?

Who am I kidding?

Pete's far too good for me. He deserves to be happy and all I do is drag him down. I drag everyone down. I'm not just drowning myself, I am drowning all those who think they like me.

Maybe Pete sees me as a charity case, a broken toy, something that needs fixing.

I can't be fixed.

I should die because I am so fucking worthless. I should die because I am broken beyond repair. I should die because I don't deserve to live. I never did.

What am I?

I am an addict to pretty pills that look like they couldn't hurt anything. I am addicted to seeing my arms weep from the razor. I am addicted to purging my body of the food I am forced to eat.

Oh god.

I can't fucking look at him anymore. The very sight of him makes me sick. I can't look at him with his own lifeblood latticed across his face. I can't look at his pale, bony hands shake as they crave the comfort of the bright pink tablets in perfect little circles. I can't look him in the eye. His chocolate-brown eyes are torrents of loathing, insecurity and burning shame.

I need to get out of here. I need to leave. I need to die. Die if I stay. Die if I go.

I want to go home. I want someone to hold me, say it's all gonna be okay. I want to sleep, sleep forever.

What do I want? I don't know.

I want to see the sunset colours of my blood. I want to see crimson pouring from my wrists. Cutting upwards. They can't save you then. I don't want to be saved.

I need help.

I need blades. I need guns. I need weapons.

A hunger for those perfect little pink pills invades every last cell in my body.

My thoughts crash into one another. My mind blurs. My body responds to the mass panic by breaking into a sweat.

I crash to the bathroom floor. Leftover chemicals fire up and down my body, tearing spasms along my muscles.

How did it get like this?

How did I end up shaking, sweating on the floor, craving bright pills with my own blood plastered across my face.

Oh god help me.

PeteGerardGeePeteGerardGodAnyonejusthelpmepleasepleasedontleavemebehind

"You can't leave me like this Gee come back!" I beg my brother out loud. Where is he? I said I'd be there for him where is he? "Gerard where are you? Why have you left me Gee why did you leave?"

There's still a part of me that's rational. Gee is still here, here in this school. This is so disgustingly pathetic.

I grab at the air. I could've sworn Pete was there a second ago. "Pete! Pete come back please I need you I'm not crazy I promise I need you I love you!"

I can hear someone shouting dimly. They sound like they're underwater. Why are they talking like that?

"SOMEONE HELP! OD! OD! OVERDOSE!" whoever they are, they crouch down next to me, "Okay... I'll... get... help... what... did... you...take?"

They seem to pause for an age between each word. I can barely hear what they're saying.

I grab hold of their tie, pull them closer. "Pete... is that you? I thought you..."

"Why is he slurring his words?" I hear an unpleasant voice honk. "What has he taken?" the voice grates across my ears.

"I don't know." The nice, warm voice says desperately. "He keeps calling me Pete."

Not Pete then. Gerard it has to be Gerard. "Gerard you came where's Pete?"

"My name's Frank, honey. Frank Iero." The voice says. Frank says.

"Ask him questions." The shrill voice squawks. "The hospital says to not let him fall asleep."

"Hos...pit...al?" The word pulls up awful memories "I can't go to hospital Gee."

"Who's Gee?" Frank asks, seemingly frantic.

"Brother... Gerard Way... he's my brother..."

"Oh my god." The voic-, Frank, sounds shocked. "No... So you're Mikey?"

I think I nod.

"Okay, Mikey. What's your full name?"

"Michael... J-James... Way..."

The unpleasant voice yells, "Keep asking, Iero!"

"I'm doing my best!" Frank shouts, irritated. "Who's Pete, Mikey?" His voice is softer now.

The name penetrates the thick fog clouding my mind. Pete. That means something.

"Pete Wentz... Boyf-friend."

"How long have you been dating him?"

Is it a trick question? Does Frank know? Is he trying to catch me out?

I answer the best I can. "One year, three months and four days."

Every day for the past year, three months and four days I have been Pete's. Every day for the past year, three months and four days I have been the luckiest person alive.

"The ambulance is here." The voice takes on an even more unpleasant nasal quality.

Darkness is starting to flicker around the edges of my mind.

A new voice shouts through the fog, "In here, quick!"

My eyes start to flicker. I can't hold off the darkness forever.

"No! No! Don't go to sleep!" The new voice says, low and urgent.

The darkness is the heaviest thing. I can't hold it up. I'm not Atlas for god's sake. I can't do this. I... Can't... Do... This.

My eyes close and the darkness wins.