I woke up a few times that morning. Once at 9:30, then at 11:00, and finally at 2:00, when I decided to finally get up. That's how it goes whenever I don't have school. I go to bed early in the morning and wake up in the afternoon. The latest I ever got up was at 6:00PM. My mum was so scared that I was ill, she wanted to take me to the hospital. Whenever I wake up late, I feel pathetic because I wasted precious hours of life. This particular day, though, I felt numb.
I got up and the cuts on my thighs burned. I felt the skin of my right thigh under my boxers. It was warm and raw. I didn't properly bandage up like Patty told me to. I was too tired, and I didn't care about myself enough for sterilisation. I always promised Patty I'd clean up after cutting, and I never did. All I did this time was scrape the crusted blood off my leg with a razor and go to sleep. Now I felt the burn. I took a cold shower, being careful of touching that part too hard, and that helped a bit. I slipped on tan shorts that covered half of my thigh—just perfect for where I had cut. I settled on a tie-dyed shirt as a top. I slipped on black vans and went downstairs to eat.
"Good afternoon, Jason." My mum greeted me. "Afternoon." I replied, and began making myself a sandwich. "You feeing alright, hun? You slept a lot." Mum asked. She was oblivious to the fact that I went to sleep at around 5:30AM. She thought I fell asleep around 9:30PM. "Yeah, I'm alright. I was thinking about going over to Patty's today." I spread mayonnaise on a slice of white bread and got ham out of the fridge as mum read from her gardening magazine. "Sounds fun. When will you be coming home?" She asked. I shrugged as I put ham on the bread. "Dunno. We'll be working on a Chemistry project for our final, so I might need to spend the night." I lied. The last day of school was on Thursday the following week. I took all but one final already. Mum didn't know that, though. I was a good liar. "Alright. Call me from Patty's phone if you'll be staying." She said, and went to join my dad in the living room. I ate my sandwich quick and went back up to my room to put some clothes in my backpack.
Ever since I told Patty I cut myself in the eighth grade, this has been our routine. The day after I relapsed, we would spend time together and if I could, I would spend the night at his house. We'd watch movies and talk all night. That's what was so great about Patty. He was such a great person and an even better friend. He genuinely cared about his friends and would drop everything to comfort one when needed. When Luke's dad got real ill, Patty would always check in on Luke and give him rides to the hospital because his mum didn't drive. When Damon broke up with his girlfriend and got depressed, Patty would always be by his side. When I relapse, he's always patient as I try to explain my thoughts and he always checks up on me. I think every person in the world deserves a friend like Patty Walters. I'm so lucky to have found him. He was the first friend I met when I moved to America when I was nine.
As I got to Patty's house, his mum was just leaving. She was in a rush and gave me a quick smile on her way to her car. Patty's mum was an obstetrician, and she probably had a patient that needed her immediate attention because a baby was coming. Patty's dad, on the other hand, was a social worker. They both worked a lot, so we usually had a lot of privacy. I walked in and saw that Patty was sitting on the living room couch, looking bothered by something. When he saw me, his facial expression changed. "Jason! How are you?" He asked, getting up and giving me a hug. I shrugged.
"I'm okay. I didn't do a good job cleaning up last nights mess. It burns a bit." I said. Patty's eyes trailed down to my shorts. "Can I see?" He asked. I slightly pursed my lips as I lifted up a bit of the right side, revealing a path of pink and bumpy sliced skin. "Fuck." Patty said. "Hold on. Sit down." He told me, as he left the room. I sat on the couch and turned my eyes to the TV. Patty was watching The Breakfast Club. It was on the part where Judd Nelson is leading everyone down the school halls and they're about to get caught by the principal. They hit a dead end and Emilio Estevez is arguing with Judd, and Molly Ringwald is arguing too, saying that they'll all get caught because they listened to Judd. Bender, Judd Nelson's character, says that only he will get caught. He tells them to run and then creates a ruckus as the rest of the group runs away so that the principal would find him. He sacrificed himself in order to save his peers.
Patty came back with a first aid kit and an ice pack. He sat next to me and started to take out supplies. He stopped and looked back at me. "Do you want me to do it?" He asked. I nodded because I had no idea what the hell I would do with the supplies. I took off my shorts and rolled up my boxers and he looked at my bare thighs for a slight moment. He wasn't looking at my thighs though, he was looking at the cuts. He then began to dab on disinfectant that burned. "Fuck!" I gasped and Patty quickly jerked the cotton ball off my leg in shock. "Sorry, sorry! I have to." I bit my lip as he continued to clean my cuts. After that, he looked at them closely to determine which ones were deep and which ones were shallow. He put disinfecting cream on the deeper ones and put gauze squares over them. He then secured the gauze with medical tape.
After he finished, I put my shorts back on and put the ice pack over my right side. "I'm glad you told me you relapsed. Your cuts aren't very deep, so they'll heal normally. Do you want to talk about it?" Patty asked. I gave him a slight smirk. "Not right now." Patty told me it was okay, and we watched the rest of The Breakfast Club. We ate terrible food and watched a few more movies. At the end of She's All That when Rachel Leigh Cook and Freddie Prinze Jr kiss, I nudged Patty playfully and said "It's like you and Dottie." To which Patty scoffed "As if. We broke up."
"Are you serious? Why?" I asked, looking at him. Patty shrugged, trying to play it off like he didn't care. Then his bottom lip crinkled up and he dropped his head down toward his lap to hide his face. "I don't know. She just..." He said, his voice cracking. I scooted closer to him and wrapped my arm around his shoulders, not saying anything. "I blew her off too many times for everyone... To give Luke and Damon rides, to spend time with you. It wasn't fair to her. She's kinda had it, you know?" Patty explained after a while. With his breathing rugged due to the crying and my arm still around him, I felt stuck. I didn't know what to say, and I felt like shit.
"I'm sorry, Patty." I said, because what else was there to say? I am and have always been the worst at comforting people, and in this case I was essentially the fuel to the flame. I was like an earthquake that made rocks come tumbling down and crush anything below them. In that moment, I realised that Patty was our Bender. He sacrificed so much to the point where it left him in ruins, and here I was, picking up the pieces.