Where You've Been
Alex wasn't entirely sure what he'd been thinking asking for the pictures. Maybe it was about trying to fill in the gaps, to see matter within the spaces of blurring and blankness. There was something about knowing his body had been put through so much shit, tests and operations and stitches and more than he could even begin to keep in his head, and totally without him, that left horror like a rock growing into his stomach and ribs. So, he wanted to know. Alex kept thinking if he learned enough, maybe he could recover the map to how his pieces were meant to fit. Maybe he could feel like he belonged here, in this body and mind and life.
He hadn't quite been glad Tyler took the pictures, really he didn't care one way or the other, but- maybe he was kind of grateful?
At least the other boy didn't try to argue with Alex about seeing them, about what he was and wasn't ready for. He didn't even question or dispute when Alex asked if he could get them printed, taking Alex's fumbled preface about screen-time and migraines at face value. Alex really fucking liked that about Tyler.
Still. It probably wasn't the healthiest choice?
The pictures were in a little book now, one of those old-school photo albums with fake leather and vinyl, unlabeled and with a dozen empty pages. Alex could fill the latter of his own accord if he wanted to see his progress like Tyler had suggested, to watch the ghastly scars fade and disappear under his hair. Like a baby book, he could note the stupid little milestones he'd had to reach all over- waking up like being reborn; his first word post-coma; lifting his fucking head; taking a goddamn step. There were probably pictures of it all, but Alex would sooner burn or bury them than arrange them in some pseudo triumphant order.
The graphic journey back to his body imbued Alex with more heartbreak and revulsion than the pictures of him in the coma ever did. Memories he had but didn't necessarily want, all an ode to his greatest failing.
Most of the time he could try not to think about it. The moments of quiet devastation didn't need talked about and there were even days he could appreciate things like second chances. If nothing else, he could distract himself with ways to be useful or at least become it. He gave himself wholly to that cause. If he was going to be here than he would damn well find a way to make the burden of his existence worth its while to all the people around him. Maybe eventually he could even believe himself that he was worth it.
So, sure, ignorance was the opposite of bliss; but maybe there was a difference between abstract knowing and staring his own near-death in its face.
All Alex knew was that the pictures drew him in, and in and in until he was locked inside a silence he couldn't really breathe through, with all his senses disappearing.
How could he do this to himself? Why couldn't he have done it right?
Hate surged like it always did, for this stupid fucking world with its stupid fucking people and its stupid fucking injustice and fucking him, Alex Standall, fuckup extraudinaire, at the boiling center. There were angry tears on his face and his bad hand curled around the photo album and his good hand in his hair, nails in his scalp just above the scar.
He heard the creak of the door too late.
"Hey- woah. Alex, what's going on? What's-" and Zach had cut himself off with a noise like nothing Alex had ever heard from him before as Alex's stupid, broken grip tried to move to close the book and instead only managed to knock it from his lap so it landed, still open, inches from Zach's feet.
Frustration and humiliation reared, and Alex didn't mean to yell; but he did anyway, curses exploding from that ugly place inside his chest.
Zach didn't respond, and the vitriol died about as quickly as it had come, even if the tears did not, still randomly tracking down his cheeks while he fought to focus on his friend. There would be time to dwell on all the ways he had ruined all the best things in his life later. For now, there was Zach.
How one guy could look both so steady and so shaken, Alex would never know.
"Alex, where the hell did you get this?" Zach asked finally.
The quiet anger in his voice promptly put Alex right back on the defensive.
"That's not any any of your fucking business," he heard himself snarl, the high pitch of a whine right beneath the words. Pathetic.
Alex thought, barely there, that lately he made Hannah sound downright chill and self assured, and the inherent snipe at his once best friend brought him right back to earth, his stomach cramping and churning.
How was it that someone like him had beaten the odds to live so many times in the last five months while someone like Hannah-
No. He couldn't keep going there.
"Where the hell did you get these?" Zach asked roughly.
Alex sighed and adjusted himself to sit back against his pillows, looking at his friend directly.
"Can we not do this right now dude?"
"Uh, no. We can't… not do this right now. Dude."
Alex stared at him for a beat before succumbing to a tired snort of laughter. Zach huffed a little, the hint of a smile at the corner of one lip, but then it all faded away again. He bent to pick up the book with Alex watching carefully, his heart in his throat.
Zach leafed through a few pages, then closed it with a sharp exhale. Alex thought he saw a shiver go through his friend and dropped his eyes to his sweatpants, guilt ebbing back to him, the rush of cold into his veins like saline through an IV.
Zach paced for a minute then dropped restlessly onto the edge of Alex's bed.
"Who the fuck-," he paused, took a breath, started again. "How did you get these?"
"...I can't tell you."
Zach turned to face him and Alex met his eyes. He could feel his hand tremor on his leg, all his muscles reacting to the continued distress. His body was always betraying him.
"You really fucking can. Is this related to that target bullshit?"
"No," Alex reassured him, calming a little more with the opportunity to tell a helpful truth. "I swear."
"Yeah? How can you do that if you can't tell me?"
Alex groaned and sagged back against his bed but kept his eyes sideways on Zach.
"If I do, you've got to be chill about it."
"Nah. Can't promise that," Zach retorted.
Alex glared and Zach looked right back, determined, unaffected.
"Okay, well, you have to promise you won't go after the person."
Zach opened his mouth, very clearly to object, so Alex continued right along.
"Seriously. I'm a big boy, Dempsey. I asked for the pictures. It's my own fault."
Zach's face twisted and smoothed back.
"It was fucking Tyler, right?"
Alex knew Zach well enough by now, if only just, to recognize the curl of his lip and tightening of his jaw. The darkness of his eyes. There was disgust, anger, frustration- and fear.
The last softened Alex's resolve.
"He didn't mean anything by it. I asked to see after he told me about taking them, man. I asked to see them, and I asked him to print them."
Zach nodded, but he was clearly unmoved.
"I knew that creep was coming to the hospital so often for a reason. He's not even your friend, Alex."
"He kind of is."
Zach snorted derisively and stood again, this time just standing over Alex in a way that made Alex want to roll his eyes, and also just stare up at him for awhile because holy shit, who gave him the right to look that much like a fucking tree?
"Alex, that creep is not your friend. A friend doesn't take pictures of you when you're inches from death. Especially without permission. And then, he just shows you? Gives you an album of prints?"
"I asked to see them," Alex protested again, his voice starting to crack. "I asked for the prints."
"And he gave them to you, man," Zach said loudly. "The fact that he fucking took them in the first place…"
"Photography is just what Tyler does," Alex rationalized back to him, but it sounded dumb and half-hearted now.
Zach stared at him, like he could hear in the words how Alex's energy had fallen away, like he could see the whole heap of self-flagellation and emptiness Alex kept shoving back and throwing a blanket over as if to hide and disguise its shape. Alex wondered dimly how he could in turn almost see these things register with Zach, cut into him, and then disappear behind the wall he kept in his own mind.
"Man, screw that. It's fucked up. These first ones, Alex? They're from just a few days after. You were still bleeding. We still had no idea if you were going to die. You had machines helping you breathe. Even if you didn't fucking die, the doctors kept saying that you might never wake up."
"I know," Alex told him lowly, eyes burning.
Zach shot him a wounded look then shook his head and turned away.
"And you're still doing this to yourself? Alex, who does this help?"
"I don't know, me?" tossed out. Nothing words. Empty sarcasm.
Zach's scoff was like a weight on his chest. Alex wanted to scream, but he was so fucking drained already.
"Nobody wants to talk really. And nobody wants to tell me things. It's like I'm still barely a person to everyone."
Zach looked back at him, long and hard, and Alex's good shoulder pulled up automatically, as though the defensive half-shrug could temper his words.
"Alex…" Zach blew out a hard breath. "You're a person, okay?"
"I know."
"Did looking at the pictures help?"
"I don't know," Alex muttered. "Maybe."
"It didn't look like it," Zach countered, his voice more gentle now.
"Yeah, well. That's my own shit."
"Right," Zach said, "Sure." But when Alex looked at him, his jaw was tight and working. "Maybe you want to keep your distance from him, though?"
Alex sighed.
"I'm not ditching Tyler, Zach. He was there for me a lot, too. Anyways, it's not like we see each other that much. He's busy a lot with that guy, Cyrus or whatever. And between school and PT and Jess and you and my five thousand other appointments…"
Zach smiled.
"We do keep you pretty busy. Speaking of which, I'm totally in for your birthday party."
"Oh yeah? Those fuckheads you hang around are cool with that?"
Zach ignored the jibe and laid down flat on his back across Alex's bed, the weight of his head on Alex's fucked up knee heavy and warm and welcome.
"Don't keep looking for things that will hurt you, okay?"
"I'm not," Alex tried to say, but he wasn't sure either of them could believe it.
"I mean it. You're doing really great. You don't want to screw over your progress for this shit that's happening. Even if you think you do, the rest of us don't, man. Just… take care of yourself."
"I would if I could. Broken dick, remember?"
Zach laughed loudly.
"Fuck you, Standall. You know what I meant."
"You know, that's a good point," Alex told him. "If I'm the one getting fucked, that's actually still pretty doable."
Zach shook his head, but he was grinning.
"You know, they said personality changes were to be expected after, but listen to you now. Same old Alex. Almost, anyway."
"I guess," Alex agreed, the cold in his chest again. "Almost."