32. “Weary”His arms were so frail and devoid of muscle, what had he been taking? This was more than speed, could he have been taking heroin, cocaine? I couldn’t very well ask him that the first time I’d seen him since I’d abandoned him to the whims of Paige and the others. My fingers touched his blood...I hated thinking it but I’d have to wash them thoroughly afterwards...gods, why was I even thinking like this? Because it was better than facing all the guilt.
“B..Bobby...it’s you right? Not just h..heroin...” he whispered, rubbing his head against my chest. I sighed and sank into the chair beside him. He clutched on to me for dear life, as if demons were crawling out of the walls and planning to destroy him. The room was scary and I wasn’t on anything, so I could only imagine how awful it was for him. Strange shapes lurked in the shadows and waited to descend on us. I knew that if I turned the light on it wouldn’t change anything. Clothing hung on rag tag hangers, a whole knife set sat in the corner. A pile of bloody clothing lay in a corner, the stains too caked in to be removed.
“Yes Jay, it’s me.” He pulled himself up and looked at me groggily, his eyes tracing my face with laser precision, wanting to make absolutely sure. Finally he just collapsed against my shoulder and grabbed onto my arm. The blood was covering my shirt, the O still hadn’t scabbed over. “Are you okay?” I asked quietly.
“You...you said you didn’t like me.” he whispered, “that...that I should go for Paige...” Sweat beaded on his forehead. I wondered how long it had been since his last hit. “Don’t worry about that right now. Why don’t we go get you cleaned up, okay?” I whispered. He nodded, letting me slowly guide him to his feet and propel him towards the shower.
He leaned against the tiles as I pulled off his shirt gently, trying not to disturb his new wounds. That proved easier said than done as first the one on his arm then a few on his chest caught on the mesh and burst open, letting blood seep out. He closed his eyes and sighed. I was getting worried, what if he lost so much blood he’d need a blood transfusion? Wouldn’t the hospital be able to tell that he was on heroin and whatever else he’d found to shoot up?
I threw the mesh shirt somewhere behind me, he didn’t need to use it again. And now I could see that he had gone somewhat insane while I was gone. Half-healed scars peppered his flesh, huge pink masses of sealed infection. There were a few new injection points. What had I done, what had I done?! I was almost hysterical as I helped him get his pants off. I couldn’t escape it there either, his legs were just as bad if not worse. He noticed my gaze and huddled in the corner, sniffling. “I...I missed you.”
“Jay, I know you did. I’m an asshole for letting you do this to yourself.” I mumbled, trying to swallow my tears. His skin seemed like it was only held there by a few ragged edges. I knew it wasn’t, but oh fuck... I had never been this insane, not even when I thought Gavin was lost.
He reached out for my arm with a blood-slicked hand and I unconsciously pulled away. Watched as he collapsed into himself like an abandoned child. I knew that if he wasn’t on something he’d be much more strong than this...please, just tell me that that was true. I turned on the shower gently, waiting until it was relatively warm before I found a washcloth to wet.
The blood wiped away cleanly, revealing just how deeply he had cut. His skin was ice, and I knew why. When I touched him he’d act like it was all a hallucination, like I’d never come back and this was just Paige or someone else cleaning him up after a concert. While getting rid of the seeping blood from the O I wondered if he had picked up HIV from one of his needles. Gods, if that happened, I’d......Wet on my stomach, he was hugging me again. How I wished that I could push him away and deny all responsibility but the fact remained that this was all my fault, that I had done this to him. And I’d be paying for it for the rest of my life if something awful happened to him, if he died because of me.
“Can you just stay there for a second, I need to find something to cover that stuff up.” I said, gently disentangling his arms and legs from my body. His eyes widened and filled with tears. Whatever he was on I cursed with all my being. But I knew that it was because of me, so I couldn’t blame heroin. I left the room.
There were at least seven different varieties of beer but no first aid kit. I resorted to going and begging one of the security guards outside for one. Unfortunately, the sterile pads were way too small to even begin to cover the smallest of Jay’s wounds. I begged for towels and received them, but the elderly guard shook his head sadly when I told him who they were for.
“You’re helping HIM out?” He accompanied the statement with rolling eyes and a hand on his belt.
“Yeah, is there a problem with that?” I snapped as he handed me a pile of a couple of towels.
“He’s on a one way road to an overdose and early death. If he doesn’t slit his wrists first. For some reason the kids like it when he does that cutting thing. Damned if I know why.” He shook his head again. “Probably just trying to one up those other bands.” He sighed. “In my day, it was all for the music.” Also for the drugs, but what the hell, we could pretend.
“Thanks for the towels.” I said, running away as fast as I could. Inhale, exhale, I could get back before Jay went totally psycho and found out that I wasn’t in the other room.
Or maybe I couldn’t. He was lying on his side by the drain and watching his blood mingle with the water. Fuck. When I stepped into the room he looked up briefly, his eyes dilating wildly. “Amir?” he asked. “B...Bobby was here.” he whimpered, his lower lip trembling.
“Jay, I’m still here.” I said, “I just went to go and get something to patch you up with. Are you still feeling okay?” I knelt down in the crimson tainted water and moved his arms so that I could put the towel over his chest, then over his other arm. “Do you think you can hold that?” I asked. He nodded weakly, still staring at me as if I was an apparition that would disappear and then turn into Amir.
His hand reached up and touched my face, quavering in the light. I let him run it over my skin, leaving wet patches of bloody water behind. Finally his fingers settled on my lips, running over their surface. “It’s you...” he whispered. “I’m so fucking messed up...” His hand fell to the floor and he just stared dully at it, moving his fingers.
I kept a constant pressure on his stomach, hoping that the towel wouldn’t soak through. If we went to a hospital...he’d be locked up forever, I’d be a mental case, oh fuck, why had I left?! I didn’t want to cry in front of him, I didn’t know if that would set some reaction that I couldn’t control into motion, if he would just start freaking out and wanting yet another hit of heroin...
But there wasn’t that much blood and after a few minutes I came to the blissful conclusion that there wouldn’t be anymore unless he picked at them.
“Are you guys staying in the bus or a hotel?” I asked.
“Hotel.” he muttered. I got up to go and try and find somebody, but he grabbed onto my leg. “Please don’t leave me.”
“Jay I have to...” Don’t make me choose again.
“Take me with you.”
Somehow I managed to get him dressed and find the elderly security guard to help me drag Jay outside, get him into a cab and then up the elevator to his room. That’s when I found out that he had three knife sets, one at the stadium, probably one in the bus, and then one here. I sighed and got him in the bed, finally collapsing next to him. I wasn’t supposed to watch Gavin tomorrow, so I could spend the night here with Jay. I doubted that he’d let me leave. But all that kept me from getting closer was wondering what would happen once the heroin haze wore off.“I was really good while you were gone, I didn’t drink anything except water.” he whispered as he curled up next to me, keeping one hand around my arm.
“But you started other stuff.”
“No... I...I only took ecstasy once, then...then LSD, then some of the other stuff... I’m not addicted, really I’m not...” He scratched at his arm absentmindedly. I took his hand and put it back down on the bed. “Don’t get mad at me.”
“Jay, I’m not going to get mad at you. It’s all my fault that you’re like this.” Fuck, shouldn’t have said it. I’m so stupid sometimes.
“Y...you’re not going to leave again, are you?”
“Not unless you want me to.”
He put his head on my shoulder and sighed. “I don’t.”
“Then I won’t.” I closed my eyes and tried to sleep, listening all the while to his slow and patient breaths next to me. How could I have left him because of one moan taken out of context, well, two moans, two moans and a few looks that said sex, and a stolen kiss and... Sleep carried me away.
“What the fuck are you doing here?!” he screamed. “After all you’ve done to me, you come crawling back for some cheap fuck when I’m down.” I couldn’t answer that. He had woken up and screamed at the top of his lungs, a scream that should have awoken everyone else in the building and left him without any vocal chords. But I was not that lucky.“I...I was worried about you.”
He was crying. “You left that letter... I thought Paige wrote it at first because I knew that you would never be that callous, that you would never leave me, but...but you never came back! And the more I read that letter the more I realized that it was you. Fuck, Bobby, that night I was having a nightmare about Paige...he’d made you go away, he’d kicked you out of the band. How do you think it felt to wake up and find out that it was true?!”
I said nothing. The tears on my cheeks should have said enough. But he came over and slapped me. Harder than I thought possible. I took it silently. Me breaking down completely would only compound matters and force him to make a choice.
“You made me realize how hollow love really is.” he snarled. “All that’s left is knives and drugs.”
Again I said nothing. It was all that I knew I should hear. All that I expected.
“Just leave. I’ll kill myself on my own. And I won’t go about it half-assed next time.”
That forced me to speak out. “Jay, please...I do love you. I...I was stupid, I was a total jerk, please...” I wept, falling to my knees. He shook his head.
“I can’t trust anyone anymore, they’ll just leave. The knives don’t leave, the drugs don’t leave. Just...just go...” he whispered, sitting down heavily on the bed.
And I left.
Somehow I found the money to get tickets to their next show, hoping that I could reason with him afterwards, because that seemed to be when he was most vulnerable.“This song is for the fuckers that leave!” he howled, his voice ragged and raw. It seemed this was the verbal cue for everyone to urge him on to cut. And he didn’t disappoint. The knife came out, his shirt went up and I didn’t dare close my eyes as he almost cut open his stomach. “Fuck you Bobby.” he whispered before launching into the next song.