THIS IS THE TRIGGER WARNING. THE BIGGEST TRIGGER WARNING OF TRIGGER WARNINGS. DONT FLAME ME? FUCKIN THANKS
anyways. long time no see. a friend of mine convinced me to keep writing this, and there's one more chapter after it. i'm gonna get it after november, because i'll be participating in NaNoWriMo. see you after then, ok
After that, Matthew tuned out. He didn't really feel the need to mock reactions anymore. He didn't feel the need to go to school anymore. What was the use if the beast would only fail him? What was the use if he was only going to die anyways?
He kept having fantasies about Gilbert, yet he kept silent of them. There were day-dreams where they'd be a normal happy couple in high school; there were night-dreams where he'd be shoved against a wall. In the dreams his legs never hurt, but that changed when he woke up.
Waking in the morning was hard on him, harder than ever. It was so dark in his room—his bed was so comfortable—and his parents never woke him up for school, anyways. So he'd just keep sleeping sometimes. They never thought to check on him, so he just kept sleeping. They found it a little peculiar that he wasn't coming home from Gil's house anymore, but they just assumed Gil had left like all the rest of Mattie's friends. Like everyone else.
Some days he skipped school. Some days he went. Most days were coincidentally on the days he didn't have chemistry. On the days he did go, Gilbert would always drag him to his house. There was no more spark in Matthew's eyes, though. There wasn't any writing. No more paper airplanes. No panic attacks, either, but that's different. No talking. Ludwig would sometimes come upstairs with some snacks simply because he was concerned—it was a little too quiet. He'd be greeted with Gilbert sitting on his bed while Matthew sat on the floor. The expression on his face was entirely blank.
That was around the time Gilbert met the beast.
Here, he found the black bile, and the dripping failures. The draped, half-digested you'll-never-be-enoughs.
He realized, finally, that there was nothing he could do definitely to change Matthew. Here, he was dealing with a damaged and lonely and depressed and anxious mess of a boy who didn't want to be anything else. Blending in was all Matthew knew how to do, and that made him special.
The only thing he could do was stick to him. Keep him treading water.
Gilbert wasn't sure why he'd even talked to Matthew in the first place. He was cute, yeah, but how very superficial of him. He couldn't be that cruel, could he? Haha, yes he could, in reality, but who would own up to it, even if it was true? Perhaps he'd been possessed by that spirit that sometimes visits humans—sympathy. Or maybe it was pity. He couldn't really decide which one was more truthful.
He'd decided that he needed to make Matthew happy. Matthew decided that he wasn't ready to be happy. Someone had to give.
After a long afternoon sitting in silence, Gilbert finally asked a question. It wasn't a curious question like he used to ask. "How many classes are you failing?"
Matthew didn't make eye contact. "Five."
"How badly?"
Matthew shrugged.
He ended up asking Ludwig to drive Matthew home that day. He didn't ride in the car with them. Matthew stared out the window, blankly.
They only took a few minutes to arrive at Matthew's house, the silence in the car stretching for miles between them. Ludwig was uneasy, having not really been in close proximity with Matthew alone before. He'd always had his brother around, and when Gilbert didn't get in the car, he really knew something was wrong. They pulled into the driveway, and Ludwig rolled to a stop. He put the car in park, turning to Matthew slowly.
"Are you okay?" Ludwig sounded hesitant, and vaguely uncomfortable. Matthew understood. Ludwig didn't seem like the type to have an easy time with heart-to-heart bullshit. Matthew didn't say anything. This time he swore he could taste tar, and rotten things, bones and laughter. He tasted the black-bile laughter of that wretched damn thing.
He shrugged very slightly, and let himself out of the car.
He watched Ludwig eye him, then shift into reverse and back out of the driveway. He stood in the cold air and saw the car drive down the street, and out of sight.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck fuck.
No, don't you dare. You've got to stop doing this.
No, you fuck. You've got to stop… Stop…
Fuck, he did it anyways. He always just did it anyways. Cold mornings underground, he'd watched the girl across from him in his study hall stand up, seen her adjust her waistband. He'd seen white lines stacked on her hip. She eyed him, and he looked away. Her long blonde hair shielded her face and he'd come to the conclusion that he wasn't the only kid with problems. These problems. Blood dripped from his blade. What a friendly thing, it wasn't judging him, not mocking. It wasn't the beast, only a mutual friend of theirs.
He sat there for a long time before cleaning himself up. He wrapped his legs again, because too many new wounds and old irritated ones were opened. His bones felt stiff.
Walking into his room, he assessed his options. He could do schoolwork. He could sleep. He could… he could sleep. He couldn't think of anything else to do.
He sat down at his desk, turning the lamp on. He stared at the knots in the wood, picking at his nails. He started to think about Gilbert.
He wanted to fix him. He wanted to heal him, he wanted to heal Matthew. He didn't, he really didn't realize that's impossible. An ingrown life is not something you can cut away with attention or even love. It's a congealed mass of thoughts and gross inaccuracies of anxiety lying to your own mind. Gilbert was only an outsider trying to understand the things he can never understand. Only a king trying to understand a peasant, a child trying to understand a complexity of the adult world.
And suddenly it hit him. Down, over in the medicine cabinet. There were painkillers. There were lots of painkillers.
His father's back problems had proved them necessary for the family, and the alieve and aspirin and Tylenol—they were all there. Acetaminophen, OxyContin, ibuprofen… It's there, and suddenly the beast was hungry.
He couldn't see. His head was light as a feather and he suddenly found himself standing in front of the mirror in the bathroom, opening the medicine cabinet, shaking hands— fuck, he dropped the bottle. Fuck, he dropped it again. His arms wouldn't keep still and his eyes were bloodshot.
The cabinet was left open, forgotten, and Matthew poured a handful of painkillers. Too many painkillers. He had to concentrate his fraying vision to avoid dropping it again, and scattering the blue pills everywhere.
He took one last glance to the mirror, and downed the pills.
It was only a few seconds after he'd swallowed the last one that he'd realized what he'd done. Every action he'd ever taken in his life; waking up in the morning, walking on the beach last summer, taking driver's training, playing with his cousin's dogs on the fourth of July, dressing up as a lumberjack in the first grade for Halloween; every action boiled down to this. An entire person and every action ever taken by them was now dying, very quickly.
He fell to the floor, clutching his throat. A scream was trying to rip its way out, but it was half dying, half weakened by the beast. And he could hear the beast, proud of itself. It had done its job.
He was scared. So, so scared. I'm so scared, Gilbert.
Acetaminophen; Noun. Definition: active ingredient in most painkillers. Recommended dosage: Two capsules per adult. In case of an overdose, liver failure is imminent. Overdose is defined as more than ten pills. Contact a medical professional immediately.
Matthew cried. He sat on the floor of the bathroom, feeling his legs. Clawing his legs, trying to hurt, trying to kill.
He barely felt himself slip out of consciousness.