The screams continued - terrifying Elio - banging on the bathroom door so hard he almost missed the knock on the dorm room entrance.
He ran over, opening it as quick as he could. 'He's locked himself in the bathroom. Please, you have to get him out!' Elio said desperately.
The two counsellors looked from one to the other, weighing up the situation when they heard the wailing from inside the bathroom. They both came inside.
'Is that Peter? My name is Julie, I'm here to talk to you, can you come out of the bathroom?' one of them asked while the other approached the door, taking a bank card from his wallet, slotting it in the small gap in the door.
The screaming had tapered off to a low sobbing. What had he done? Elio wondered, horrified by the possible answers. He didn't respond to Julie either.
The man swung open door and Elio rushed in before they could hold him back, first he saw the dark red spatters everywhere, on the mirror, all over the sink a something white and jelly-like amongst the puddle, and there was Peter, his hands shaking, a newly recorated pen knife in his hands that had once been green, now blending with what soaked into his sleeves. Elio clapped both hands to his mouth when he saw the source of all this blood; the hole in the left side of Peter's face where his eye had been. He retched when he realised what the jelly ball in the sink was.
The male counsellor gently put firmly pulled him out of the room while the female counsellor rushed in, asking calmly for Peter to give her the pen knife. Elio collapsed onto his bed, struggling to keep from vomiting. The counsellor stood before him.
'You did the right thing calling us when you did.'
'Why didn't you get here sooner? He's fucking blinded himself!'
The counsellor only looked at him, apparently feeling this outburst was more than appropriate.
Elio watched him leave for the bathroom without seeing him, his vision was entirely clouded, instead he saw Peter's eye in the sink, the bloody hole in his face; feeling responsible. There was a commotion in the bathroom, one Elio couldn't bring himself to disrupt. The next thing he saw was his friend and sometimes lover; always roommate - being dragged out by the two counsellors who'd already sedated him. They lay him gently down on his bed, then placed a tissue over the hole of the eye he'd gouged out; as if that made it any less disturbing. Julie sat next to him, sincerely apologised for their lateness, told him he may have just saved his friend's life. To Elio this was hollow, especially considering that if he'd just stayed in the room with Peter he'd never have been able to do it in the first place. Elio called his parents after the incident, booked a flight home that weekend, decided he'd finish the rest of the term in the summer.
He visited Peter on his last day in hospital. He sat up in his bed, phone in hand, staring into it with his remaining eye, the other side of his face a mess of sanitised bandages.
'I'm going home tomorrow,' he said. 'Just in time for my Dad's funeral.'
It was a long time before Elio found himself able to reply to this. 'Are you coming back?'
Peter shook his head.
'You're dropping out?'
Peter turned to him. 'It won't be up to me,' he said.
Elio frowned.
'Why didn't you let me finish?' he asked, putting the phone down.
Elio said nothing, a sinisiter chill passing through him.
'I thought that'd I'd have to kill myself to stop it; but then I figured it probably needs to be able to see right? Why take me if there's a better host out there?'
He felt his eyes moisten, he blinked the unshed tears away.
'That's why you did it?'
'I'd rather be blind than host to some fucking demon.'
Elio felt his throat constrict. He swallowed, trying to think of a new subject, he didn't want their last conversation to end like this.
'Is your mom going to the funeral?'
He shrugged. 'It's a whole shitshow. She wants to obviously, but Dad's family don't because of well, y'know.'
Elio took out a tissue, blew his nose.
'Why are you crying?' Peter asked him. 'You've got your Italian villa and your perfect parents to go back to.'
'I'm so sorry Peter.'
Peter looked at him for a long time before speaking again. 'Well you should be,' he said.
'You ruined my one chance to stop it. And now I'll be at the funeral, where I bet it's going to happen 'cause where else? They'll probably kill my Mom too for good measure for holding everything up for so long.'
Elio tried his best to hold back the tears; Peter's commitment to his delusion destroying him.
'I hate seeing you like this.'
'And I hate seeing,' he replied, punctuated by a single bitter laugh, then picked up his phone once more.
'I hope you get better,' Elio said, placing his hand tenderly on Peter's.
The other boy looked down at it disdainfully, but didn't move it.
'And I hope I see you again some time.'
'You won't,' he replied. 'And if you do it won't be me.'
Peter surprised Elio then by turning his hand over, and giving it a small, affectionate squeeze.
'I should go,' Elio said, Peter responded to this with a nod, let go of his hand and returned to his phone. Elio gave a tight smile, then walked away; feeling a new kind of heartbreak.
