The Sharpest Lives

Chapter Twelve: This Is How I Disappear

[Gerard]

I just stood there on the balcony, arms empty and cold by my sides and listened to his feet pad towards the door. After a minute or two, I heard the door shut behind him. Even though the sound was small, it resounded in my ears, like an echo. Or maybe it didn't sound like an echo until I remembered it later. I couldn't tell anymore.

It was pretty dark before I came to my senses and finally headed back inside. I abandoned my coffee, my thoughts clunking around in my head too noisily for me to sift through them and force together coherent sentences. The rest of my body felt oddly light, like I was being held up by puppet strings, while my head felt illogically heavy, like it was made of lead. This regret, this guilt was crushing me, distorting my body.

Why the fuck couldn't I get over it? Why was it so hard now?

I let my body float to the couch and rest itself there. I stared up at the ceiling, too out of it to reach over and at least turn on the TV to cut off the deafening silence. I hadn't noticed how quiet it got when no one was here with me. But then again, the reason I never noticed was because I was too drunk to actually care.

So much of my life wasted, thinking I could find myself gazing cross-eyes into the translucent depths of an empty bottle of death and destruction.

I thought for a long time- which is usually pretty dangerous for me, when I'm in this, 'I could always just solve it with booze or suicide' state. I thought about everything I'd built up in the beginning, drawing- quitting- acting – quitting again – trying to draw again and getting messed up over it- quitting yet again- and then finally the band…but was I going to quit that too? I'd found something that I believed in, that I remembered every morning when I woke up -without a hangover, which was rare now- and realized I had something to live for. Something that I loved. Something that others loved and wanted to create with me. This was life.

So many hangovers ago. It was all hazy now.

I thought about Frank. I always did, I just tried to avoid it so I wouldn't have to face the fact that I'd fallen for someone I couldn't have. But I loved him. So obviously I worried about him a lot, thought about him, cared when he got hurt, was always there when…

But I wasn't there anymore was I?

So many fucking goddamn 'why's and 'but's and 'I'm so terribly useless's. 'I'm so terribly sorry's.

FUCK THAT. FUCK IT ALL.

I just wanted to tear off all my skin and fucking die. Right here, in this stinking apartment, surrounded by the walls that had seen my countless failures. I wanted to scream at somebody to kill me, grab a knife from the kitchen and slit my wrists, watch myself slowly bleed to death, throw myself off the balcony, rip the sheets off my bed and hang myself from the lights, throw myself into the path of an on-coming train or…

My pathetic sobs muffled by the carpet I'd collapsed on, nearly drowned out my cell which was screaming back at me. The screen flashed, playing some song that I'd obviously liked in a previous life, that I couldn't hear over my agony. The name on the screen paused my sobs.

Mikey

The phone had slipped out of my pocket when I fell, sliding right next to my face. Now it called me impatiently, the ringing becoming louder and louder, more like white noise in my clouded ears. I reached out numbly, pressed the answer button with sensation-less fingers that felt like clubs and pressed the phone against the ear that wasn't  desperately trying to become part of the floor.

" He…llo?" I answered, my 'he' getting lost somewhere in my throat. My voice

was embarrassingly husky…desperate.