I Believe You

Chapter Seven

Sanity Falls blasts in the ears of the 20-year-old. He makes his way back home to the small apartment his mother and himself lived in. It was the only thing they could afford at the moment. “Larry, you’re finally home! How was work?” Larry shrugs, “The typical. Assholes wanting food a specific way.” Lisa frowns, “It’s alright. I got you new paint stuff! In celebration of your promotion!” Larry sighs, “Mom, can we even afford this?”

“It’s paint darling. You love painting and anything art related,” Lisa reasons with her son. “Larry, please-“ Larry holds up a hand, “Mom, we should probably sell it-“

“No! You go to your room and paint! I don’t care if you’re an adult! Go! Go be happy for once!” Lisa snaps and throws the paint pack at her son. She turns around and continues working on dinner. Larry takes the paint back and throws it on his desk. He throws his MP3 player on his desk with the paint. He falls onto his bed and stares at the ceiling. He’s so ungrateful to his mother, but he wants to save money. He doesn’t want his mother buying useless things for him. His mother was already hurting for money, what if she figured out about Larry’s problem. He sits up on his bed and runs his fingers through his long hair. He rolls up the sleeves of his red hoodie and sits up from his bed. 

He tries not to look at his wrists as he opens up the new paint. He pops in a new REO Speedwagon CD and gets his paint ready to be put to work. As he makes a few strokes with the dark blue, he notices the faded scars. He frowns, the darkness is starting to consume him again. Larry tries thinking out of the dark; I’m not worthless. I love painting. He sighs heavily when he suddenly loses the mood to paint anymore. He groans and pops out the current disc and looks for a different band. Something that might lift his mood, or just make it worse. He kinds a Queen disc. He smiles and pops that one in. Bohemian Rhapsody starts and he falls onto his bed. When he falls, the bed kinda shakes and knocks something off of his nightstand. His alarm clock lays on the ground. His hand searches on the ground for it. A pale finger feels under the nightstand. Something cold touches it. “No,” he winces as his hand disobeys. He grabs the smashed up soda can and takes the sharp middle close to his faded scars. “Larry…” he groans and fights. Tears form in the corner of his eyes.

He started feeling this darkness in his junior year of high school. Kids would call him terrible names; faggot, idiot, ugly. Larry ignored them at first, but this sudden darkness showed up out of nowhere. His life was fine and for some reason… it just wasn’t at times.

Larry pushes the aluminum of the soda can harder against his skin. The pain seems to black out the darkness for a bit, before he makes another cut. This one is deeper, for the fact he couldn’t appreciate the gift his mother gave him. The last cut… went a different direction. The can is slid down against his skin, the unhealthy flakes of aluminum leave uneven streaks of blood on his lower forearm.  The blood streams out as he thinks about how he could possibly tell his mother that he was fired. Exhaustion sweeps over him and he plops backwards onto his bed. The soda can falls and the blood runs down his arms and makes patterns down to his fingertips.

“Dinner’s done!” Lisa shouts as she sets the taco meat onto the table. After a few minutes pass, she worries. Tacos are Larry’s favorite. She stands from the table and walks to his room. The door is shut, but the music is quiet, which is nothing like her son. Under Pressure plays quietly as Lisa pushes the door open. David Bowie’s vocal part is muffled by Lisa’s screams. She runs over and falls to her son, “What’d you do!?” She screams at him. She gets up and sprints to the kitchen and picks up the phone and calls 911 and cries.

His eyelids are heavy, it’s almost like someone is pushing them down against him. Larry fights to open his eyes and look around the room. The very gloomy room with scary tools, and a dripping faucet. The brown eyes adjust the white room. He observes things throughout the room, one thing catches his eye. His mother sits on a chair near him. Her brown hair hangs over her head as she slowly rises with each sleepy breath. Her hair is out of the way, just enough for Larry to see her tear stained cheeks. He wants to wake her up, but he’s already put her through so much. What the fuck is my problem? He thinks and rests his head back onto the pillow. He stares up at the flickering hospital light. “Mom?” He finally talks. His voice doesn’t sound the same. This isn’t Larry. This is not me.