Trigger Warnings: Alcoholism, Violent outbursts leading to self-harm, Unstable mental health
Author's Note: This chapter deals with the dark theme of struggling with severe depression. I ask that you exercise caution if you feel that you cannot read this without being triggered. Your health is more important than your reading this chapter. Thank you for exercising caution on this matter. And remember – you are loved, you have value, and you are important.
Flesh stretches over my clenched fists, and it rips when I smash my fingers into the headboard of my bed. There's no blood left behind on the dust-covered wood, but it is pooling over my knuckles. A droplet gets on my pillowcase. It's not the first time, it won't be the last time, and I'm all too familiar with this self-inflicted ache.
It hurts less than the pain I can't choose.
Every single morning I am trigged by the reflective glass of my water cup on the nightstand, seeing his face instead of mine. I see Fred before I see George. I see my half of our whole – alone – and it absolutely breaks me. I only look for a moment and find myself gasping for breath and choking back tears while I struggle to get on my feet. Grief is process, a series of stages that must be felt in order to heal. That's what everyone has been preaching to me for two years now. Of course, they fail to mention that it's not just a process. This whole blasted mess is a never-ending cycle that is constantly consuming me whole, only to spit me out again.
Repeating this way in no particular order, without warning, I usually find myself flat on my face after having a really good day, reminded of the stinging loss of my twin brother.
Most mornings, I can get out of bed without crying. Every task afterwards is an uphill battle. If I make it to the end of this rat race I now call my life, there's some semblance of stability that I can cling to through the worst of times. Though, that's never really helpful in the long run. I always end up back on my arse, broken and ruined.
"Fuck," I whisper as I quickly close my eyes. I accidentally let my gaze settle Fred's desk and every little detail that defines it. Dust coats the quills and ink wells. A radio is lying flat on the table with the speakers aimed at the ceiling, from when Fred was using it as a paperweight. Underneath it are the codenames and notes he kept for the broadcast we did during the war. Seeing this undisturbed scene rips at the seams vigorously, forcing me to cover my eyes.
Instead of shuffling to the window to open the curtains and risk seeing my reflection in the windowpanes too, I silently magic them open. Sunlight, and its correlating warmth, is supposed to be uplifting but all it does it make the cold, emptiness inside of me more apparent. I am reminded that I am one part of a two-man act, the living half of pair, and the last man standing. I am no longer 'Fred and George.'
I am just George.
Just George bloody Weasley.
Wanting to free of my shackles of loneliness, I shift quickly into the hallway. The weight lifted from my shoulders is small, but I am somewhat at peace as I inch closer to the bathroom. Nobody is supposed to be using this toilet because it is the one I shared with him. Without ever asking, everyone has been respecting our – my - space. They understand the gaping hole left in my heart and my need to keep the world around me as unchanged as possible. Out of habit, though, I still knock on the door.
"One moment, Fred," my mother shouts after cracking the door open to see who needs the loo. It isn't uncommon for her to go into this bathroom to clean it out and replace the towels. I don't mind when she does these things for me because it is less that I must attend to myself. Besides, Ginny moved out only a few weeks ago after getting engaged to Harry. My mother needs to busy herself with something until the wedding date is set.
Hopefully she hasn't tampered with my whisky in the medicine cabinet, though.
"George," I correct her softly as she's stepping into the hallway. "Honestly, woman, you call yourself our mother?"
I used to say this quite often to her, when she was always confusing Fred and I for one another. At the time it felt so silly, the idea that a mother couldn't tell her identical twins a part, and we nagged her in great excess. That's our humor - that was our humor style. In hindsight, maybe we could have bothered her less about it.
Even I am stricken by how interchangeable we are – were.
How interchangeable we were…
"I'm sorry, George," she offers, eyes glazing over with regret and shame. It's not the same look she gave when we harangued her for getting us wrong. A once fiery tempered woman that was always fed up with her wily sons is now reduced to the flimsy retort of a woman who doesn't even realize that she can't let go of the way things used to be between us. Sorrow covers both of our hearts; I squeeze her hand to acknowledge that I understand her mistake. Sometimes I talk to him, too, when I can stand to look at myself long enough or am almost happy enough to forget.
My mother heads downstairs awkwardly, not knowing how to recover but not wanting to make a bigger deal of it than is necessary. Once I am sure she's out of sight, I push myself into the bathroom. I am careful not to look into the mirror after I shut the door and lock it.
Then I take several deep breaths.
In – one, two three – out – one, two, three.
In – one, two three, four – out – one, two, three, four.
I remind myself that I have to do this in repetition of three. The doctors say I should try to do everything in odd numbers so that I start thinking in uneven sets. It's supposed to help me overcome not having Fred with me, making me an odd man out. So I open my mouth to do it again…
…
…
But I decided to kick the waste bin instead.
Trash goes everywhere. Crusty tissues litter the floor, as do broken beer bottles and candy wrappers. Some days will pass and the only things I've had to eat are the chocolates and snacks from the shop's break room – and the only thing I've drank is whisky or scotch. I grab onto the edge of the sink and bury my chin in my chest.
I have to brush my teeth. This is not optional. I have to do it because good dental hygiene is important, no, required for good health. The difficulty of this simple task varies with my mental state, and today it is harder than ever. With great effort and careful skill, I start walking myself through the steps I know I have to take.
First off, I can't keep my chin down. I have to look up. I take a deep breath in – one, two, three. Once my chin is parallel with the floor, I have to open my eyes. Nothing about this process really requires me to look in the mirror. Instead, I'll pick a focal point to avoid looking at my reflection. I prefer to focus on the wire inside of the light bulb. Not only will I be temporarily blinded, but my mind will allot so much energy to keeping my eyes open that I won't even notice that I've grabbed my toothbrush and started to brush my teeth. After that, I'll focus on my teeth.
Next – dragging my right hand up to open the cabinet. I am able to bring my eyes down long enough to identify where my toothbrush is sitting. I see it is on the second shelf from the bottom, where I always put it, but I also see that I have bloodied knuckles. Today is not a good day.
Before I can even stop myself, I make my third step grabbing the whisky bottom from the top shelf, where there's room enough for it to stand upright. Defeat oozes from my sigh, and I know that I should be disappointed in myself, but I let the hurt win. Some days – I can't win the battle.
Some days – I don't want to.
I run my shower water cold. When I lose, I don't see any reason to award myself any comforts. I want to feel as cold as my brother. Cold as the dead, I tell myself. I feel dead, so I should feel cold too. And not just on the inside.
I'm not drinking from the whisky bottle yet. It is in my hands, I'm cradling it right in front of my waist while I decide whether I'll take a drink or not. The doctors are always telling me to do the breathing technique. It is supposed to be good for calming the mind, for centering one's self so that a clearer train of thought can follow. As far as I'm concerned, it doesn't help. It only slows me down from whatever self-destructive act I'm planning for myself.
But I am trying it again anyway. Dad is always asking me, "How many times did you try breathing today?" If I were a better son, I would be honest with him every time. If I don't do it at all, I do try to tell him, but I also make it seem like when I am trying it that I'm trying it more than I have done. Sometimes I add only one more, but if I'm feeling particularly bad I'll say it was two or three more than I tried. The breathing doesn't help. Neither does the lying. I'm losing twice, but what more can I really lose? My sanity is barely mine anymore.
In – one, two three.
Hold – one, two, three.
Out – one, two, three.
In – one, two, three, four.
Hold – one, two, three, four.
Out – one, two, three, four.
In – one, two.
Hold – one, two.
Out – one, two.
And I still feel awful. It takes me less time to unscrew the lid of the bottle and take a swig than it did to breathe through my suffering. I take another swig. And another. And another. And another. It burns but I am laughing it off, choking a bit as I rush to pour more down my throat. Swallowing these mouthfuls isn't doing anything for my sobriety, so I begin chugging it.
My face hurts, my mouth hurts, my throat hurts, and even my teeth hurt. But I want to hurt. Why should I pretend that I'm not in pain? Why should I practice my breathing exercises and redirect my thoughts, and narrow my focus when it's never going to stop being like this? There is no future where I can stand on my own two feet without wanting Fred by my side. He was stolen from me.
They may as well have taken my life too. I fear that I will forever be nothing without him.
The bottle is dry already. I turn around and smash it against the faucet in my rage. Glass shards go everywhere but they are quickly washing away with the flow of water from the showerhead. I keep my eyes downcast, being sure to count every piece and chunk of glass that I can see. If I were redirecting my thoughts, maybe I could turn this mistake into a positive moment. Somehow this can be turned into a reflection point, I'm sure. Maybe I can make myself aware of my downward spiral and write down my triggers.
But what am I supposed to do when everything around me is a trigger? They say I should move into a different room, but I'm in the same house. So then they say I should get my own place. That would be fine, I suppose, if someone came to check on me daily – which would be mandatory, I think, with the current state of my mind. Of course, there'll always be the one thing that is unavoidable…
The joke shop.
I turn the water off and watch it draining slowly since glass is clogging the pipes. I can see a blurry version of my naked body in the ripples off of my legs. My livelihood is a business I built up with Fred. There are people that don't know he's died and they come in, they read the sign in the front window, they see our mission statement etched into the wood at the front counter:
We're Fred and George Weasley, twin tricksters looking to put a little more laugh into the world.
They ask which one I am. I always tell them the truth. If I tell them that I'm Fred, everyone will want me locked up. I can't be him and I can't pretend to be him. Even I know that this would be the final straw between trying to move on and being put into a white padded room. My parents couldn't lose me too – especially not in such a way that they watch me deteriorate. I remind myself regularly that this is worse than being ripped from them unexpectedly.
"Damn it, Fred," I growl at my feet. "I can't keep doing this."
Silent magic has become a specialty of mine; though the intellectual integrity that it takes to master this skill wouldn't fit my state of mind these days. I use it every day just to get through tasks that are too trying for me. I clear the glass from the drain and magic the bottle back together. While I can't magic the whisky from my stomach, and I accept that this was the choice I made, I can do what I can through this distorted clarity. I step out of the shower without ever cleaning and put the bottle in the trash.
Positioning myself at the mirror again, hands wrapped around the edge of the porcelain just as I did a few minutes ago, I go through a different list of things I have to do to get through this task:
I – am George Weasley.
I do not look like my brother. I lost an ear before he died. When I look in the mirror, I am seeing George Weasley.
It is okay to be in pain. It is okay to make mistakes.
And it is okay to talk to him. As long as his memory is alive, he is listening.
If this is this is going to be successful then I need to make these movements quickly. I jerky my head up and lock on my own eyes in the mirror, removing my hands from the sink at the same time. Breathing at a steady pace, I have to push my words over my tongue and out of my mouth before I forget them.
"I love you, Fred," I say flatly, speaking with every ounce of life I have left inside of me. "I love you but I can't let you dictate everything anymore. You're not here." My eyes are watering. I can feel it and I can see it. My throat is tightening, which makes the breathing pattern difficult. I have to get it these last words out. I have to tell him that I can't do this again. Today is the last time. It has to be…
"I love you so bloody much," I declare, though it's not revelatory in any way. Everyone who knows me knows that nobody in this world mattered more to me than he did. The love that twins share is unimaginably strong, unfathomably permanent. I won't be able to finish any of my thoughts if I try to open my mouth again – I'll crumble and continue this fucked up pattern I've fallen into since his death. So I allow my temper to flare one last time. Fingers curl into a fist and rise up so quickly that I'm not sure there's a measure of time appropriate enough to describe it.
My hands thrash and punch at the mirror, sending my final confrontation with Fred into oblivion. All this time, the doctors and my family have been urging me to confront this veil of darkness looming over me. Breathing techniques, awareness, and redirection – none of that was ever going to work. I needed something more tangible. And this is it.
When I see the large triangular shards piling in the sink, blood droplets on them, I see a part of myself that I've come to hate – finally in pieces. This is what rock bottom looks like, this is what it feels like, and this – this is where I belong. This is what I deserve.
And this?
"This is good-bye, Fred," I hum, tears falling over my cheeks but a genuine smile turning my lips upwards. I'd forgotten how good it feels to actually find happiness in something. Sucking in the stagnant air of the bathroom, I twist my body and magic the door open so that I don't have to touch my bloody fists to it. I summon a towel to wrap around my waist, and a smaller rag to cover my fists.
Healing hurts, but for the first time ever – healing feels good too.