The Sharpest Lives

Chapter Fourteen: A Kiss and I Will Surrender

[Gerard]

No…I can't…I…

I hold the cloth in my hands, my pale fingers shaking, and creating ripples of anticipation in the fabric.

My homemade noose.

This is my plan B after all. My little escape route, in case something terrible happens. In case Frankie doesn't..

I flinch, shying away from the thought that pushes me ever closer to the edge.

But what if…what if Mikey…?

My heart screams, recoiling from the idea.

I could lose either, or I could lose both. Do I deserve this?

Of course I do.

Do they?

No. Over and over again, in my head, I hear, 'no!' No.

It's like 'I'm sorry' now. 'No' always seemed to powerful. The end. The blind alley. My way or piss off.

Disaster does not like being told to piss off.

I hold the cloth tighter in my hands, ignoring the pain in my knees where I've been kneeling on the cold wood that makes the balcony, and the pain of the cold, biting my skin through my thin t-shirt.

Two choices.

Over the balcony.

Or the noose.

Actually, three choices;

I could hang myself from the balcony rail.

I smile, my eyes full of tears that never reach the edge of my lids, never fall. I feel their absence where they should be on my face.

This is what I wanted. This is the end I missed when I wanted to die before.

It's a twisted, desperate smile, born from the screaming chaos that exists in my head, my heart, shakes my whole body. It's haunted me for years.

This is my end.

I close my eyes, throw my thoughts into the now chill wind and let my head fall forwards in surrender.

I surrender to the pain. I surrender to death. I can't fight it anymore.

"I'm sorry."

I don't know who I'm apologizing to. I don't care. This world doesn't need me. It never did.

I stand, eyes still closed and shuffle forward. I let the bed sheet, my makeshift noose, fall.  I'm slightly unsteady and am swayed by the wind a little, but I eventually make it to the railing, still wet from the previous shower. I've decided on just throwing myself over the balcony.

I imagine the unforgiving blackness of the sky above me, the stars blinded by the many streetlights that dot the city., block out every sound of the outside world and stand in complete, perfect silence. I franticly throw myself into this black nothingness, so different from the pure white before. This nothing is full of the corruption that makes me.

It's perfect for my dying hour.

I lean forwards ever so slightly, readying myself for the fall. The split second of pain. And then-

I realize that there truly is no one to stop me. No one to watch me fall. No one to notice. No one to care. I already died long ago.

I never expected words I'd written years before to fit so well with this moment in the future. But then, they'd fit before. They fit again now.

I let the last breath escape my lips and I loosen my grip on the railing, let my weight fall forward and pull me down-

Gerard

Now-

Confusing blackness, then light that pulls at the edges of this darkness-

Sounds, breathing, my name, the hesitant silence in-between-

The hand on the back of my shirt, pulling, pulling-

GERARD!

The ground below is suddenly clear for one golden second, calling me, I don't understand why I'm not there, dying, already dead, the blood in my veins painting the dull gray of the concrete-

GERARD!

The hand roughly tugs me away from my death and spins me around, and then I'm blinded by the light, familiar colours and sounds are—no, the sounds and colours that should be familiar aren't-

"Gerard, look at me!"

I look, my eyes wide

One slow second

The hand is gone, and I collapse onto my knees, and then my side.

A scream in the distance reaches my ears.

I wonder why…

I remember, before the screaming end s, behind the tears I thought would never fall...

His face.

The one who helped hold me together. The one who witnessed my fall, and this, my worst fall, one of many.

Before I go, I want to say, "I'm sorry" even though it has never fixed anything. I could almost say it's a point of all my troubles.

But I say it anyway.

"I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry, Ray."