33. “Tense”“Daddy, I thought you went to get Jay back...where is he?” Gavin asked after Shane drove off and left us alone for the afternoon. My house...well, her house was so large and full of echoes, I just wanted to curl up in a dark corner and sleep my life away. But Gavin was tugging on my hand and trying to get me to talk to him.
How could I tell Gavin that when I went backstage Jay was busy doing lines with anyone who would stay long enough to join in? That everyone walked around him like he was about to explode and would take whoever was closest with him? That he passed out in only a few seconds and everyone just walked over him like he wasn’t there? I had just watched from the wings, if I went closer there was no telling what he’d do. I couldn’t take it if I helped him get all cleaned up again and then there was a repeat of last night.
“He didn’t want to come.” I said, then led him back into the house.
Gavin took away most of my thoughts, since he was constantly pestering me to play with him. I didn’t mind at all. Anything that had the possibility of taking Jay off of my mind was welcome. Even if it didn’t work.
Everything spiraled downhill after that. I found myself glued to the TV all day, wondering when someone would interrupt the programming and announce that he’d finally done it, that he’d walked out into traffic, blown his brains out, overdosed on a cocktail of drugs, slit his throat and his wrists, or hung himself. Gavin would try and distract me, and sometimes it worked, but I’d have to have either the TV or the radio on in the background so that I could hear if anything happened. Shane actually showed some concern, she knew that I still cared about Jay even if I denied it every time she asked. She offered to call and see if there was any way that I could see him, but I refused. I had to do this myself, no matter how fucking hard it would be.It seemed like Orgy was more popular than it had ever been before...and it wasn’t because of the music, it was because everyone was waiting for him to collapse onstage and die. The vultures were circling, and it seemed that Jay’s syringe laden corpse was their target. There were brief articles about it in the paper, about how kids were copying him, about how this was just a publicity stunt, that he wasn’t really depressed. That it was only a way to make more people come to see Orgy. It seemed that by leaving I had let Jay take my place as the crazy one. Clips on the evening news showed him ripping more of his flesh asunder, there was a brief story when he passed out in the middle of a concert and everyone rushed the stage to see if he was dead. Of course great pains were taken to make sure that everyone knew that he’d be fine, that the tour would go on, that he hadn’t taken his iron supplements before the concert. His face was increasingly that of a corpse.
And I can’t say that mine wasn’t. I constantly forgot to eat, even when I was making dinner for Gavin. Food just held no appeal. It seemed like I was seeing my cheekbones for the first time. Keeping up standards of personal hygiene just sort of went out the window. I went around with rumpled hair and unbrushed teeth for days until walking by the bathroom sparked a memory of cleanliness and I’d make a quick attempt to make up for days of neglect. Nights dissolved into days, I barely had any concept of what sleep was anymore. Dark circles surrounded hollow eyes. I was turning into the junkie again...and I didn’t even have the true solace of drugs to hide behind.
Finally Shane just got fed up. “You can’t see Gavin until you clean yourself up. I don’t know what you’ve been doing, but you look like a fucking speed freak.” she snapped, slamming the door in my face. I stared at the stained wood with its imitation gold fixtures and then turned and walked away. My hands pulled up the sleeves on my hooded sweatshirt, interesting how I knew that I looked scary when I wore it and still didn’t give a fuck. The scars were still there. The line was still there. The fucking line that had started all of this. My fingernails traced over it, gods, why the fuck was it still bumpy? It had had so long to heal. At least it was finally turning the almost white color that most scars found so beautiful. Sighed. I didn’t want to cut, it seemed counter productive when someone that I cared about was losing blood on almost a daily basis to even think about purposefully taking mine.
Started walking. I don’t think I even noticed where I was going...but I was back at the intersection where Jay had tried to kill himself the first time. I almost felt like I could see it happening, see him being thrown about...almost thrown away by his total contempt for himself. Grabbed my arms and sank to my knees on the sidewalk, trying to maintain a sense of control. I could see him broken and bleeding on the ground, see the car drive off... why did it seem like Paige was driving? The old woman came running over and checked his pulse, called the hospital, the ambulance came and almost scraped him off the ground. I pinched my arms trying to dispel the vision but I hadn’t eaten in so long that that just made it seem all the more vivid.
But it was over.
I found myself walking into the street, stopping at a spot that was dark with spilled oil. My mind pretended that it was blood. I knew it wasn’t. I don’t know how long I stood there, half-hidden in the shadows, but no cars came to make my decision for me. Well, maybe, in a way, they did.
“Bobby, are you sure you want to?” my replacement asked. “I mean, he’s been totally psycho...”I stared at him calmly. He didn’t fit in with Orgy’s “image”, he was a bit too punk for that. But I guess he was better than me in their eyes. And he was nice enough, that’s why I had recommended him. “He’s been psycho because of me.”
“Well, he’s in there...” he pointed to a room off the hallway. “I’m not sure what he’s been taking tonight though, so he might be either really pissed or really clingy.”
“Since he’s going to be talking to me, he’ll probably be really pissed.” I smiled weakly at him. “Thanks.”
The room was dark again, a few knives clotted with blood laid on the floor. I skirted them silently, heading towards the darkest part. I could see his feet, then his legs, he was lying on his side and staring blindly out at the world. I couldn’t tell if his arm had a belt around it or not...maybe I was lucky and he wasn’t on anything tonight. “Jay?”
“Who’s there?” he asked, pulling his legs closer. “Amir...I don’t want to...” he said tiredly. “You guys can go on ahead.” So he was lucid.
“It’s Bobby.” I whispered. Instantly he sat up and glowered at me in the gloom.
“I thought I told you I didn’t want to see you again.”
“You did.” I paused to let that settle in. My throat was filling with bile, I just wanted to get this over with and hug and make it all better again. Everything could go from black and white to technicolor.
“Then why are you here? Do you just want to point at me and laugh like all the others?”
“Did I ever do that?”
“You might as well have. You left me all alone.” He wiped at his eyes ineffectually. “But you were right about the cutting...it helps so much.” He smiled weakly.
“It doesn’t help as much as you’d like to think it does.” I whispered, sitting down a little bit away from him. My shoe sent one of the knives spinning and his eyes instantly went to it. “I’ve stopped.”
His fingers traced a line on his arm, one that looked fresh. “Why are you here anyway? It’s not just to tell me that you’ve moved on.” Brown eyes were black in the gloom, they were painting across my face. I flinched underneath their hollow gaze. “But you haven’t moved on, have you?”
“No, I haven’t.” So hard to keep control, but I had to because...lower lip trembling against my will. Why did I have no control over my own body? “I came back because I don’t want to see you hurting yourself because of me anymore.” Inhaled what felt like burnt air.
He rubbed his hand over some of his scars and lowered his head. “Why did you leave?” he asked in a childish voice.
“I...I thought you loved Paige. I was just...” trailed off and wiped my eyes on my sleeve. Fucking tears. “Just getting out of the way.”
“After all Paige did to me...to us, did you think I’d just leave you for him?”
“I didn’t know! I was an asshole, I thought you really wanted him but were too scared to tell me...so I made that choice for you I guess...” I trailed off as I realized how stupid I sounded even to myself.
He stared at me like he was trying to think of something to say...but there wasn’t anything to say. I started crying, I knew he hated me now and all I had was Gavin and I had ruined my entire life for two fucking moans that didn’t mean anything when compared to what we had done together, to what we had together. I deserved everything that happened to me, because I was just a fucking loser who had ruined his marriage, ruined his kid, ruined his job, ruined his only friend. I deserved everything I fucking got.
“Shhhh...” a low tone, soothing in its banality. Warmth around me, some of it sticky. Hand rubbed at my back gently, I could feel every bone. Buried my head in his chest, his shirt smelling of sweat and blood, sickness and pain. He held me while I tried to cry away all the guilt.