Nope. Three months and no excuse. Just read.

Disclaimer: I don't own "Your Love Is a Lie" by Simple Plan.

Chapter 31 – Comatose Memories

The Bolton house was quiet and empty when Gabriella opened the door and stepped inside, looking around. Straight ahead of her was the narrow hallway leading to the large kitchen, Troy's school photos from grades 6-12 organized on the white walls. She grinned as she was reminded of his lanky, awkward phase whilst entering junior high, his too-long hair always being shoved out of his eyes. His dull bangs were almost long enough to reach his thin lips and the wide gap that he tried to hide behind a nearly closed mouthed grin. The braces finally came in seventh grade, along with blonder hair, less freckles, and sharper shoulders.

Freshmen year was when the obvious improvements began showing themselves. Coach Wolf's threats came later in their eighth grade year, after his picture was taken (barely any changes then, other than the removed braces to show his new straight smile). The most noticeable was the haircut, which went from being shoulder length and lackluster to abruptly short with a bed-headed twist everyday. His thick bangs were a thing of the past compared with the short upward tilt that started their three year reign. Gabriella guessed they were to make sure he didn't go blind while beating the life out of Brandon all those years. His chest and shoulders, while still thin, were starting to beef up a little more thanks to all of his warrior training. He wasn't smiling, hardly even grinning, but he was tired.

Very tired and worn.

Purple bags sagged under his eyes and his face was paler than normal. He didn't have any wounds yet, on account that Brandon had done his best to ignore him for as long as he possibly could, like any smart victim would do if they were denied answers. Troy was the one who had started the physical battles at Wolf's demand, who claimed that Brandon wasn't suffering enough. So not only was the mental stress of missing his best friend weighing him down, but now he had to find out that he wasn't the only one preparing for a long, bloody war the hard way. If he would've worked out outside of the school gym, Troy would've seen Brandon trading his boney, fragile physique for a much thicker, rock-solid exterior that always made him look three years older and could've made grown men weep at his feet. Gina always blamed his nearly quadrupled meat consumption to his new teenage hormones. It was the perfect excuse that he never had to verbally lie about.

Still, Gabriella thought to herself as she walked over to the wall and ran her fingers over the frames with all of the adjustments that Troy's seen over the years, there was always one trait that remained constantly familiar. If ever he were to lose himself in his angry tirades to the point that he was almost beyond recognition, all she had to do was firmly grasp his shoulders and gaze up into his cerulean heartbreakers. Troy's eyes, much like Brandon's dancing, was what most people knew him for before the fighting started. No matter how untamed his hair, how clumsy his feet, or how incomplete his smile, no one ever had the heart to insult his eyes. The shine they possessed couldn't be denied or ignored, no matter the emotion that made them so passionate in the first place. They were like putty: he could form them to come off to witnesses however he wanted and they could quickly get the point without many questions. But at the end of the day, when the kids were done playing with it, it was just putty, nothing more, nothing else.

In all the silence of the house, it was difficult to ignore the heavy creak from the room above her. Gabriella looked up and giggled when she thought of the many times that noise had to have annoyed the victims in her current spot. When she snuck over here to have a special night with Troy, they weren't always careful to make sure they were completely alone in the house. She remembered Brandon knocking a broom handle on the ceiling followed by a quick, but loud "Shut the fuck up!", Jack sighing every time Gabriella moaned his son's name loud enough for him to hear over the blare of the TV in the next room, and even Izzy writing short notes, folding them into envelopes, and sliding them under the door. Troy chased her around the neighborhood for an hour after she pulled that, hiding in neighbors' bushes, climbing up the trees in the park, and even having Brandon distract Troy for a few seconds so she could tiptoe from yard to yard right behind him. In the end, it was Troy who tackled the blonde in the Montez's backyard, yelling sarcastic insults over the sound of her and Chase's painful-sounding laughter. Brandon and Gabriella ran up just a short while later and shaking their heads when he viewed them collapsed into each other with red faces and tear-soaked eyes, amused grins on their faces the whole time.

Gabriella winced when the happy images left her head, knowing that no matter what happened to the damaged couple from here on out, things would never be the same. She forced away the tears and looked to the ceiling again, where another creak sounded off through the walls. You could mistake him for a corpse when he slept sometimes, but he could scare little kids at Halloween with how he moved in his coffin.

When Gabriella reached the top of the stairs, she automatically looked to her left—as she always did—and grinned when she saw the cracked door. Taking the signal, she pushed it open and allowed a full-blown smile to stretch across her face.

Say what you will about the deep sleeper that is Troy Bolton, the look on his face will fill you with guilt about any insult or snicker that you throw his unconscious way. The violet bruises underneath his eyes all but vanished, a bed head excuse wasn't needed, and the gentle sighs escaping his slightly parted lips filled Gabriella with warmth and admiration, not worry and anxiety that he might not be sleeping enough.

She made her way across the room and gently placed herself beside him, feeling the semi-permanent indent of her body next to his. Gabriella smiled again when she noticed that Troy was neatly fit in his normal spot on his bed, giving her enough room and probably knowing that she'd be here right now. She began stroking his wild hair and placed a soft kiss on his temple. He barely moved, just giving a little heavier snore before returning to his normal breathing.

Gabriella didn't want to do it now, but she knew if she got off task now it would never get done. And who was she to make the situation worse than it could nearly impossibly get? She pulled her phone out of her pocket and, scrolling through her phonebook, located the most recently added name under 'B'.

"Hello?"

"Hey," she whispered, eyeing the lazy load beside her and skillfully pulling a corner of his comforter over his ear for further noise prevention. "It's Gabriella, Brandon's sister."

There was a stony pause on the other line and even though this was strongly expected, Gabriella instantly wondered how else she could've gone about reintroducing herself. Maybe not mentioning the center of the other line's agitation would've sufficed better, but there was no going back now. She would easily redeem herself in the end, regardless of the next angry words to cross into the phone in her hands. "What do you want?"

She bit her lip and drew a breath of the natural perfume of Troy's room that she loved so much. Her confidence was still quite intact, but she knew she would need it incase the defensive girl on the other line shook her foundation again. "Listen, I know you're pissed at him, like the rest of us are, so don't think that I'm on his side. What he did to Isabelle was wrong and I'm just trying to get some answers to help you guys out."

"And if we don't need your help? How is this any of your business and how do I know you're not lying?"

She was mad, and the accent made her enunciation even less prominent, but Gabriella got the gist of it. She took a deep breath again and closed her eyes, remembering the conversation that she had with herself while she walked from school to Troy's place: Brandon might have been acting like a heartless ass, but they were blood. When he hurt, her heart broke open to reveal the radar that told her as much. He might've had everyone else fooled, but not her. Never her.

"Look," she boldly started again, "I know you're not really mad at me. Yes, my last name is Montez, but all that means is that I'm a hell of a lot closer than you at getting answers from the actual problem. Remember that someone we both love is in trouble and you starting another fight isn't going to do anything but make everything worse. So drop the attitude and tell me if you're in or out."

It was never easy to crack someone as tough as the now silent guard on the other line. But love was a powerful thing, and if Gabriella could get that across to someone that loved Izzy just as much, it might just be strong enough to break her into saying something.

"Her chest pain is getting worse," came the slow reply. "I'm worried something might be medically wrong with her."

Gabriella sighed and sat back against Troy's wall, taking his hand and squeezing it in hers as she closed her eyes. Mission accomplished.

"Thank you, Brooke."

The metal made a small clinking sound as it came in contact with Brandon's wooden bedside table. He might have heard it if he was paying attention to his empty surroundings and not to the blood rushing through his ears. But did he really have a choice? It was either the blood or the memories, the warm, blonde ones. Hot and cold clashed, her warm words with his now frozen heart didn't mix well. But they were already lodged into his brain and making their way down to his chest, directly into his heart. But he still had a chance to get rid of them while they were still in his bloodstream.

He hated her. He hated everything about her. The softness of her skin, the sparkling gleam of her eyes, the tempting aroma of her hair, the kind and loving words that always flowed from her perfect lips.

He hated her.

Brandon,

Get out.

I love you, too.

Liar. You dirty, fucking liar.

You're stuck with me for the rest of your life, Montez.

Not if I can help it.

I trust you.

That was your plan this whole time, wasn't it? To take everything I am and turn it against me, make me look like the criminal. You're evil, Johnson, I hate you. I hope whatever web of lies you built around yourself chokes you so hard your head snaps off.

He couldn't take this. How he was able to sit down for three consecutive minutes and open iTunes was beyond him and he didn't make the effort to try and figure it out. All he remembered was tearing through the front door into a house filled with a thick chocolate aroma accompanied with Ke$ha blasting from the TV. Everything was bright and sunny, like nothing was wrong. They were happy, laughing.

His pulsing heartbeat and hyperactive legs were the only things present to keep him from vomiting.

Brandon had ignored Gabriella and Sharpay as he tore up the stairs , discarding his book bag somewhere on the dining room floor behind him. He could've heard it skid continuously behind him in his haste, but he couldn't focus on that. Not with his new lifeline, his master, calling his name and promising a way out. If only for one torn, bloody moment.

The necklace was off and in his hand before he even opened his bedroom door. His eyes were wide, seeing nothing but the sharp objects in a rush of blurring colors as he passed them. Brandon clawed at his hoodie while trying to control what could easily be described as a major asthma attack. Sweat dripping from what felt like every pore in his body, he finally remembered how to properly remove the garment. The thump of it landing on the ground was too loud in his ears.

Brandon took one look into the mirror, relief bordering the horizon, when he stopped breathing altogether. The necklace was set up perfectly between his fingers and his left forearm was already flexed, but the unharmed skin wasn't his main focus. As hard as he tried, he couldn't tear his eyes away from the biggest, most obvious and natural distraction.

"Hey, can you do me a favor tomorrow?"

"Sure, anything." Brandon replied.

He was certain that he could hear her smiling through the phone. "Can you wear that black muscle shirt with those grey dance sweats? I'm just curious to see how amazing you'd look in that combo. Plus, I'm wondering how long it'll take me to get turned on enough to throw myself at you with adults in the room."

Brandon chuckled, already turning his eyes to his closet where his dancing attire for the next day was already folded neatly on the floor, the sweats sitting proudly atop his t-shirt. Their bagginess made them appear double their actual size.

"Put me in for $20 and a real throat-clearing from my dad. You know he couldn't care less if the clothes start flying right there in the kitchen."

"I'm holding you to that, Superman."

The shirt hugged his perfectly carved torso like cling wrap, emphasizing his shoulders and the thick biceps that hung beneath them. His chest and abs didn't even need the right lighting to stand out to anyone and everyone gazing upon his godly figure. To any ignorant bystander, it was one of the dumbest mistakes in the world for Troy to attack Brandon like he had the day everything went from bad to worse. Troy was strong, but not strong enough to win anymore without psychological assistance and definitely not as thick. He was more skinny-muscular, an automatic target for anyone with Brandon's terrifying exterior.

Isab—she had been right. Who knew that such a simple, dress-down combination could attract so much attention and praise? Before homeroom even started, Brandon had already received at least seventy hungry female stares, a hundred envious male scowls, and five feel-ups from the girls who knew him well enough. Sharpay's eyes lingered even when Zeke's arms enveloped her, Troy's eyebrow lifted in impressed compliment, and Amy's eyes grew about three sizes in two seconds while she traced her finger over each rock-solid muscle underneath the shirt. Brandon could've sworn that at that moment, he caught a hint of regret and desire within her features. How many times had she turned him down sexually before he gave up, even after the war with Troy started and his muscles inflated practically overnight? Maybe that's why he still found it rather ironic that at the time, he was still the squeaky-clean virgin while she gave herself away to Mike a few months ago. He just smiled and sarcastically congratulated her when he caught sight of the hickies. She laughed at Spring Fling when she figured out that Brandon had finally lost his virginity, having slept with her the night before.

The shirt began burning its way through his skin, becoming even tighter and tighter with each memory of the bitch that had betrayed him.

He couldn't have hated himself more than he did at that moment. How could he have been so stupid? Why didn't he wait until he was married, like his father? Why didn't Gabriella wait instead of slutting off with that prick next door? Why did it have to be him that she chose to destroy over time? It started out as something out of the goodness of his heart, so unless she was some kind of sick freak who loved being punched and spat at in a closet at a dance, he really didn't have any reason to be treated so horribly. That was real rape, he wanted to scream at her, and I had real love for you! How can you be so twisted to want to see me like this?

"Because you're the one I want to spend the rest of my life with, Brandon. I'll never let you go."

Liar.

So with that, the shirt was off and on the ground in the same fashion that he wanted the hoodie removed: violently ripped from his body, now just a large piece of cloth on the floor.

Brandon turned his face back to the mirror and just stared at himself. His skin was still tan, his cheeks flushed and spreading to the rest of his complexion. But still, with all that red on his person, the unhealed marks on his wrists were as stark and palpable as they had ever been. There were only six, and they were still screaming. He remembered the relief, the bliss that came with the pain of fending for yourself when everyone else you ever cared about finished digging your long-awaited grave. They all thought they could convince him that they still loved him. Oh, of course we still give a fuck, Brandon. Do we look like the kind of people who will tear you down without giving you warning or reason first?

You really want an answer? Here you fucking go.

He kept his stone eyes frozen on his mirror while his arms robotically arose in front of him. His right hand came down closer and closer to his left arm until the necklace pressed against the skin. His jaw locked as its sharpness introduced itself to his flesh once again. Get acquainted, gentlemen, you'll be seeing much of each other from here on out.

One deep inhale and the diamond charm was splitting his skin.

Brandon's jaw quivered as he pulled it further down, the effort bringing tears to his eyes. He refused to believe that it was the pain making him show weakness, physical nor emotional. His ex-friends' menacing laughter finally began fading from his head as the diamond plugged deeper. He never looked at it, although he could feel the slippery blood between his fingers and dripping onto his bare feet. He couldn't remember ever taking his shoes off.

After ten elongated seconds, Brandon pulled the diamond out of his arm. His right hand was in spasms, as were his lungs and heart. Swallowing back the lump in his throat took most of his concentration; he had none left to keep the necklace in his hand as it fell to the carpet.

Someone beeped their horn outside. Brandon didn't know how he knew that, since all he could focus on was the blood flowing out of the cut and dripping onto his jeans, his feet, and staining the carpet. Cold water and endless scrubbing would most likely take it out, but oh well, the carpet would survive. How many times has he come into this room from another bloody fight with him? It wasn't like he didn't have any excuse for it not to be there.

He could feel the blood pooling through his jeans and trickling down his leg. Automatically, he reached over and grabbed a t-shirt from his open gym bag. Brandon didn't have to watch himself form the tourniquet and secure it tightly, or get another shirt to make up for the soaked one.

No!

Why was he muffling the new screams coming from his skin? Why was he punishing the one thing that could give him this kind of release from anger? What was wrong with him?

As deep as the cut was, the anger came rushing back in a flashing wave. It created a heavy pressure on his brain, even shoving his stomach all the way down to his feet. Brandon glowered at his reflection, at the hypocritical bastard glaring right back. How dare he stand there half-naked, his arm probably as stained as the carpet, with his veins angrily popping out of his skin everywhere. Was this really who he was now? A beautiful prick who got off on his own blood and guts seeping out of his arm? Was this who he was meant to be this entire time?

Well then, fuck you, too.

As he locked his jaw shut as well as his eyes, he tried to ignore the voice in his head telling him that this wasn't a good idea when he lashed out and smashed the full-length mirror to pieces. Brandon opened his eyes just in time to see himself crack and shatter to the floor. It was only the crimson distress flowing down his arm that lingered, the last thing he saw before all that could be seen was his green wall in the mirror frame.

He didn't know how or when it happened, but the next thing he knew was he was flailing towards his pillow, reaching in the case, and pulling out the only object he trusted with a job like this. Never again would he use the diamond to release a pressure that heavy, not if he was just going to shut away the cut like it meant nothing to him. It was the only thing that he could trust now. The only thing that could keep him from killing himself completely.

Brandon took quick, sharp breaths through his teeth while holding up his arm again. The razor was cutting into his arm before his lungs could even register that there was a profound delivery. He repeated this, this time not in the orderly fashion that he did the first time. In a blur of merciless punishment and self-hatred, Brandon slashed a vast series of various cuts all over his forearm: deep, shallow, straight, jagged, parallel, crisscrossed, spontaneous, personal.

But these didn't help as much as they should have. He was a beast, a demon standing in the middle of a teenage boy's bedroom. Any normal person wouldn't be in such an angry riot that he ignored the layers and layers of blood falling from his arm and creating an even bigger pool by his feet. He reached up and grabbed his black roots again, pressing his discolored arm to his left, his chest, his face. Pulling away and looking at himself again would most definitely worry him, looking like a male Carrie with eyes just as wide and just as much thirst for revenge blazing in his heart. He wanted to set everyone and everything on fire, watch everyone he's ever known die, and flip her and that prick that she was fucking over in their car.

Who's laughing now, bitches?

When Brandon finally dropped the blade at his drenched feet, relief was hardly what he would call feeling at that moment—or not feeling at all. If he put in the work to try and figure out this, this…hollowness that had saturated his mind, he would've come up with the semi-simple answer that was just that: he was feeling nothing at all. He was finally numb again. He didn't dare try to reason for how long this time, or crawl out of his shell to realize that the music playing in the background didn't match this scary serenity.

"You can tell me that there's nobody else, but I feel it…"

Oh, please, no.

"You can tell me that you're home by yourself, but I see it…"

He was finally in a place where he wasn't begging to be split open and this was how he was rewarded? What kind of sick plot twist was this?

"You can look me in the eyes and pretend all you want, but I know…"

Carrie would kill you, too…

It would never end, would it? No matter which way seemed right to him, whichever path seemed to have the least amount of heartbreak, the cursed image of his angel writhing, squirming underneath that thief's body would never leave him. His name coming out of her mouth in a scream over the phone would always refuse to deafen him, only becoming clearer and clearer each time. And as long as his sister was seeing the man with her blood flowing in his, he could only come up with one answer.

No, it would never end. Why even try anymore?

And with that, Brandon felt himself implode again. All the anger and agony that had consumed him seemed to evaporate into his brain and build until it was forced to transform into something much worse. Who cares? Everyone hated him anyway.

Liar.

That was only true for everyone except the only thing that would sing him to sleep tonight from the convenient spot in between his feet, dripping his soul from it's sharp, perfect edge and taking control of everything from one simple stain on the carpet.

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~Rachel :]