Should have.
AU.
One Shot.
Precious metal shipping. (Gold x Silver.)
Headphone does not own.
"Silver, aren't you warm?"
"Why do you ask that?"
"It's like, ninety degrees out, and you have that ridiculously thick jacket on."
"I need it."
"Oh, so you don't get a tan or something? God, what are you, a vampire?"
"Yeah, sure, something like that."
No one knows the horror, the words, the wounds, I hide under my jacket sleeves, and why I spent a month away visiting my 'grandma'.
All my grandparents are either dead or in another country.
But I was sweating too much to think of something to say that wouldn't sound stupid or delirious. After all, whining and bitching would do nothing to hide the scars and blood and gaping holes and clots and letters that adore my arm up to my elbow.
It was never my fault that it was a habit. It was not my fault my mom used to worry so much over my health and well being. And it has most likely never been my fault that my dad left me when I needed him most.
That time being when I went through the last procedure.
I was never this crazy, I promise.
I used to be normal. I used to climb trees with Gold, and talk and laugh and be generally dumb. Back when all things mundane where cool, I used to be captain of the cul-de-sac, the top dog or the neighborhood. Back when I could get away with running around with girls without people thinking I wanted to get in there pants, me and Crystal used to be the best of friends, dragging around her little brother on all of our little adventures.
We used to be in the same grade, Crystal and I, and we used to be in every class.
But then I feel behind in seventh grade, and then I got to have another year with my teachers. Gold then became my new best friend, I was suddenly developing acute anxiety problems, and my father started to get more and more enthralled with his work. My mother became 43 that year, and I feel like I crushed her small beating heart into splinters the day, that one fateful day in my repeated seventh grade, when the teacher asked me for a pencil and received a glance of my bloody wrists.
I had torn them up again that day in the bathroom, not even ten minutes prior. I added another stroke to the word I was completing on my arm, a single word that would say everything loudly and proudly for the unknowing world to see.
Though I never thought I would show it to my teacher first.
There was a patch of silence as the instructor tore down the sleeve of my thick black jacket, and took one long bony hand to hold my wrist in place and take a hard look at it, examining it like it was some foreign disease. They let go of it as soon as she had seen enough of it, and practically tore through her forms looking for a pass to the counselor's office.
They called my mother not five minutes later, and I could hear her low sobbing on the other line, and I could hear my heart sinking lower into my chest, into my gut. Thankfully, the retarded looking guinea pigs known as students took no heed to the quiet sobs, and murmurs and whispers.
"Your son…"
"Wrists were…"
"Were blood clots…"
"Razor was not…"
My mother was so entirely terrified as to how I could do this to myself, and I still have no answer. My lips were peeled to nothing with my anxious habit of biting them, and my throat was drier then a hot day in the middle of a desert. It felt as though everyone was staring at me, and all I could see was people whispering and smirking and I could hear bits of conversations.
"Silver cut…"
"Why would…?"
"Never told his…"
"It's terrible that…"
"Know right…?"
I shot them all blank stares, heavy glares, and something in-between, and then everything went away and I was in an office that I hoped to avoid at all costs. The teacher whispered things to the secretary, and told them a vague over cast of the situation at bay, and I felt like some sort of freak show. I was quickly escorted into my counselor's office, and all she had to ask was why I would do such a thing.
"I-I'm not exactly sure anymore. It's just- It's just a nasty habit that I can't seem to kick."
The counselor took one look at me and filled out a form, telling me where to sign, where to put down my name and sign away to devils known as shrinks.
I went into rehab three days later, and I found that Gold had missed me the month that I was gone, but Crystal missed me more. She only heard from my mother that I was missing, and when she tried to get more information out of her, she simply stated that it was all okay, and I'll be back in a little bit. I knew she was a tough girl, and I knew that the rumors would easily become postponed, considering my lack of popularity within the rules of social standards,
The month I spent in rehab, in the white rooms, was completely mind-blowing. I still have no idea why I did it in the first place. I still have no answer for question 17 that asks "What was your motive?"
I never thought about it before. I never questioned it. After hearing about it from an eighth grader, I tried it out for the first time, and after that one little taste, I started keeping a thin, stainless steel razor in the back of my phone, where the thick battery goes, and wearing, hot, black jackets with long thick sleeves during the merciless summer.
No one even noticed when I never took off my hoodie during the blazing heat, the laughing and taunting, ever-so-pleasant sun.
And while that hurts me so deeply and cold-heartedly, I'm glad that at least Gold noticed slightly, even if it was just barely enough to ask if I was warm or anything. He cared, just slightly, about my health, my well being. And I knew at that moment; I love him.
I loved love. The feeling was so melodramatic and imploring that it was welcomed so easily into my brain without a single thought of 'Hey! No! This is Gold, out of all people! Why couldn't you have at least fallen into love with a girl, or someone who you haven't known for most of your childhood?!' I ignored my gut, my brain, my instinct, and just went with the flow of the butterflies in my stomach.
People don't fall 'in' love with other people, other creatures or animals; they fall 'into' love with one another, since the roll of a 'lover' is so commonplace that everyone has one, subconsciously and without any thought to it at all.
And even though I somehow knew this was so entirely self-destructive, I knew that the brain cells in my skull were turning to spaghetti, and said pasta was frying over an open stove. I was frying the spaghetti to a golden brown, and even though the world was telling me 'This is not right', I kept it up; I held the frying pan –the murder weapon- tightly and firmly and waited for myself to come across the path unsuspectingly.
This was barely before the incident, yet I could still hear my brain ringing.
"What would you do if I kissed you?"
"What the hell?"
"I'm asking everyone I know. It's just a survey"
"Oh okay. I would probably… Just stand there like an idiot and maybe hit you after it."
He has no idea how much that hurt me. No idea at all and for all he knew, I was simply just faking, and for all I know, I was believing my own façade.
There was another star on my wrist, another slice, another bead of red rolling down my wrists, falling to my hand and onto the bathroom tile. I knew you would never see the red letters I etched into my skin, the single word I would only show to one person after the incident and the rehabilitation center I never wanted to go to. The thought of the whole scene shatters my heart in every direction, and I can't help but feel as though one day the secret I hide under my coat sleeve will lift from my chest.
Because I knew that lovely little Gold would eventually come across the scars and letters after I came out of the nasty rehabilitation center.
And when I came back, Gold was the same. A little bit shaken up by my sudden disappearance, but still the same person I fell in love with. Crystal just huffed and puffed and cried about how I should have called her, that she knew that I memorized her phone number three years ago, and that It wasn't fair that I didn't get her a postcard.
I told them all lies.
"It's a shame you couldn't have come with, after all, she's such a nice lady that I'm sure you would love her."
Gold slightly suspected, but I assured him with lies.
"No, I promise you, she's such a wonderful old lady. She's turning 85 next year but she's still got some bite left in her still. And she can make the best pies in the country."
They could tell I was on something.
They could tell this wasn't my usual high.
But I knew I could live with myself and my lies, the trip I took to my 'grandma's house', and the only name I will ever keep under my musty old black jacket sleeve.
"Gold."
