Own Me

Chapter Twenty-Five

"I am perpetually lonely."

-Lady Gaga

♔ Chapter Twenty-Five ♔

Breathing, again. Instilled. The sound of my own breath, the heaving of my chest up and down. It was all I could feel, all I could hear. I was playing with my hands as I sat there, staring at the same blank brick wall. My eyes followed every small crack and crevice, every line in it, every tiny little minute detail. I studied it like the most captivating thing in the whole world, wasting my time.

There was a clock nearby, I ignored it. I could hear it's repeated, never-ending ticking, reminding me that time was still passing as I sat there. Life was still moving, as I sat staring. Moving on, farther away from me, as I sat idly by and watch it leave me behind.

I was trapped in the past, in so many pasts. In my memories of Tom, in the times I shared with Fletcher and Sawyer. I was always in the past, I'd realised. It was better than the present, or any idea of a future. It was less vague to me, which was better. I was trapped looking backwards, because it was so much easier, but yet so much more painful, than looking forward.

My nails had been chewed down to the nubs. The same flashes of Fletcher's dead face kept washing over my mind, the memory of his body lying there, so still, so lifeless, so cold. Empty. It was harder to breathe now, every time I thought of him, it only became harder and harder. I tried to remember things about him, but I was already forgetting him. His voice, I tried to remember what it felt like to hear, how it felt when the sound of his voice hit my ears, but it was only a whisper now. It was like trying to remember a dream, or catching sand with the hands of my mind. The more I tried to remember, the further away it went. He was only a memory. That was all he was now. Memories, a thing of the past. Just like me.

The last time I was with him kept replaying in my head. In that fucking club, and the drugs, and those two idiots I was with. Fletcher came over to me, tried to get me to leave with him, to take his hand and go. With every tiny part of my being, I just wished I'd taken his hand. I just wished that I'd reached out, held it in mine, still warm and full with life, and had gone with him, that I didn't let him leave by himself. The worst part was knowing that there was actually something that I could have done to have stopped it, and instead of doing anything, I watched him leave. I turned my back on him. I forgot about him. I let him go alone, and now he was dead.

I'd been called back to the police station a few days later. I hadn't seen Fletcher's ghost again, not since that day in the alleyway with Skins. I hadn't seen anyone, really. Hours ticked on by so slowly. Even Tom had stopped visiting me, after what he'd told me. It wasn't true, I told myself. It was easier to cope, that way.

I'd sit for days on end, in that flat by the seaside, and I'd stare into the empty nothingness. The waves would thunder and crash near the seashore, and I could hear them, but they meant nothing. Just like everything else. I'd stare at it and I couldn't stop myself from thinking, from aching all over, at every thought, with every muscle, every part of me. If nothingness was an emotion, it was filling me up slowly inside, eating away at me. My joints had stiffened from staying in the same place for so long, but I didn't care.

I was asked back to the police station that day for further questioning, but before they could take me aside, I heard a voice that I recognised.

"No, you listen to me, you stupid little shit, my son was murdered! MURDERED! Raped and beaten and murdered! He's been missing for well over a year now, a nineteen year old boy, and you couldn't find him. Now he's dead! My son! Find the bastard that did this, or I swear to God I will hunt him down myself and slit his fucking throat!"