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Garret sighed, lying on his bed and staring at the wall. "Last Hope" by Paramore played through his headphones, the volume almost all of the way up. His room was dark. The curtains were drawn closed, and the lights were off. The only light was of course form his glow in the dark stars on the ceiling and occasionally his phone.
Garret stayed there, unmoving. He knew that he had homework and chores to do, but he couldn't force himself to get up. He didn't understand why he felt this way. He had been having a good day, when bam-a simple random comment sent him spiraling. Jace, Sarah, Griffin, Lucy, and him had been out at the mall on a impromptu shopping spree-meaning Jace and Griffin dragged the other exasperated three along. They had stopped in the food court for some lunch when Griffin made some joke about people committing suicide in order to get away from annoying or frustrating people. They hadn't meant it in any hurtful way, but it was still said.
The comment had led Garret down a twisting hall of guarded memories, and now he couldn't find his way out. His mind was constantly assaulted by memory after memory until he was curled up in a blanket, wishing the music was loud enough to drown out his thoughts.
It was your fault that he died.
It should have been you.
You don't deserve your friends.
You don't deserve your family.
You don't deserve Jace.
A sob finally escaped him. He burrowed his face in a pillow and let it all out. He let out all of his guilt, his frustrations. His phone chimed with a message, but it went by unnoticed. Garret was lost. He felt gone from the world, just a ghost looking in. Memories and thoughts swirled in his mind, driving him deeper and deeper into the pain. Weeks, months even, of built up tears poured out.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Garret choked out, voice shaky and broken. His sobs became uncontrollable, ripping from his throat and chest, leaving him breathless. He couldn’t stop. He couldn’t breathe.
Finally, Garret clenched his teeth together and forced himself to calm down enough to get a shaky breath in. He slowly stopped crying, or, at least, stopped the guttural weeping. All he was left with was a few tears streaking down his reddened face, red, puffy eyes, and forgotten music still playing through his headphones.
He felt empty. Where had all of that sadness gone? It had just been there. Why did it leave?
He deserved the sadness. she deserved the guilt. He deserved the pain. He needed it. Why was it gone?
Garret lay there numbly, mouth hanging slightly open as his eyes stared at nothing. His phone once again chimed with a message, and he once again ignored it.
He didn’t understand why this was all happening again. It hadn’t been this bad in a while. He hadn’t thought of... him in so long. How could one meaningless comment sent him into this?
You know why.
Shut up.
Garret shook his head and burrowed his face in his pillow once again, clenching his eyes shut.
Its always going to catch up to you, no matter how much you think you’re recovering.
You’ll never be truly free.
You shouldn’t be free.
You deserve to hurt.
You deserve to feel like he did.
“Stop,” Garret whispered weakly. “Please, just stop.”
You know how to make it stop.
It’s easy.
You know you’ve missed it.
Dont lie to yourself.
Garret turned his head to look at the small mug on the bookshelf. It was a regular old mug, filled with a few of his markers and pens. It contained something else, too. A certain thing that he had sworn he wouldn’t use again. How wrong he had been.
Pushing himself up gradually, he never took his eyes off of the mug. He stood and made his way across the room. Dumping the markers and pens out of the mug, he carefully retrieved the thing he was after. It was a small blade, most likely taken from a small, old pencil sharpener. Garret took a deep breath as he looked down, fighting with himself on whether or not to go through with it.
Finally, he clenched his hand into a light fist. Making sure he had tissues nearby, he slipped off his jeans and sat on the bed, staring down at his scarred thighs.
Come on, what are you waiting for? Do it.
No, I-I can’t.
Idiot. You know you’re going to do it at some point. You always do.
Maybe this time’s different.
Its not, and you know it.
Garret sighed. The voice in his head, himself, was right. This time’s not different. It never is. Why would it be? He’s not strong enough to stay away for too long. He misses it.
He pressed the blade against his skin, waiting to press down harder and move the blade across his leg. His mind grew louder than ever, half of it yelling at him to stop, and the other half yelling at him to do it. He knew who he’d obey. He knew who he always obeyed. He knew who he would always obey. Nothing will change. He didn’t want it to. He liked it. He liked this. He liked the sudden pain and sting of the cut. He liked the blood collecting at the cut. He liked the blood running down his leg.
I’m sorry, Rio. I’m so sorry.
Garret bowed his head. It wasn’t working. He needed to go deeper.
So he did.
Warning bells went off in his mind. It was too much. Too much pain. Too much blood. Too much. He needed to stop.
Growing panicked, Garret dropped the blade and grabbed tissues, pressing and holding them to the cuts. The tissue was soaked within a minute.
Too much.
TOO MUCH.
His phone chimed again. Too overwhelmed, he yanked the headphones from his ears and threw his phone on the carpeted floor.
Tissue after bloody tissue was thrown in the trash, and finally, the bleeding was staring to cease. Garret nearly cried with relief.
It had never been this bad. He had never gone this far.
It scared him.
What if it was worse next time? What if he went too far next time? What if he can’t stop next time?
STOP.
He clenched his eyes shut for a moment, willing the train of thought away. It wasn’t gone, just tucked away for the next time he allowed himself or was forced to be too vulnerable.
Looking down at his thighs, he winced at the angry red cuts that littered mostly his right leg, although at the end it had migrated to the left leg as well.
Garret carefully removed the tissues that were now only dotted with red and threw them in the trash. Lying back with his legs still dangling off the side of the bed, he tried to focus on the glow-in-the-dark stars on his ceiling. He tried counting them. He tried finding fake constellations in them. He kept losing focus.
With a sigh, he sat back up. The bleeding had pretty much stopped, but he waited to put his jeans back on for fear of opening the wounds back up and staining the material. He leaned down and plucked his phone from the floor. There were four texts from Jace. Of course the one person who could read Garret like an open book was his soulmate.
The messages were all mostly the same: concern and reassurance. He truly didn’t deserve a soulmate like Jace. He supposed he should reply, so as not to alarm his boyfriend any more. He typed that he was fine, and just tired, and to stop worrying.
Garret was, of course, fine. He was his kind of “fine.” He was handling things. He didn’t need anyone’s help. He didn’t want anyone’s help. He’d just drag them down with him.
He couldn’t do that to someone else.
He couldn’t hurt anyone else.
Not again.
Never again.