"Aiden!"
All I had seen within the split second that my name had been shouted was a dull silver bar of some sort coming down onto my head. As though it had been instinctive, I pushed myself away by using the car in hopes of getting away from what I was about to be hit with. While it had missed my head, it hadn't missed me. What felt to be a baseball bat had viciously, and without prejudice, smashed into my rib cage.
Before I had a chance to move, the bat had once again been lifted and I was left defenseless as it came down somewhere on my spine. For several seconds, all I had seen was a bright white as though my vision had vanished. Whiter than anything I had ever seen before, brighter than anything I had ever witnessed. Had it killed me, or just put my body into some kind of shock? With an abrupt regaining of my vision, I had suddenly felt a small amount of something speed through me like lightning - just like the first time I had snorted some Flake.
Adrenaline suddenly seemed to thunder its way through me, even past the unbearable pain I had been feeling - enough adrenaline to allow me to get away from the man who had just appeared with the bat. Standing up while still curled over, my right hand reached into the back of my jeans and pulled out the gun I had put there earlier. Something I had now been glad I did.
"You with him? Just get out of here, I don't know who you are and where you're from. There's no way Sheriff Dumbshit will be able find someone like you." I coughed up blood. "It's your choice, we can have a little staring contest here or you can leave before the cops come. That's a pretty obvious choice, yeah?"
He looked as the sirens began to make their presence known, dropping the bat. "Fine. Getting a gun pointed at me wasn't part of the payment."
Just as quickly as the man had appeared, he had split with the speed of a superhero. Leaving Mack, and more importantly, Ashlynn unharmed. Sure, I probably had a crushed rib or three and it hurt like hell, but at least it had been for something that mattered. Coughing for a second time had brought up some more blood, and a pain that brought me to my knees - or had that been the adrenaline wearing down?
Heh. Maybe if I was lucky, Death had come to give me a little 'Hello'.
"Aiden. Are you okay?" I heard her voice as I stared at the concrete. "Answer me."
Why had I refused to answer, or even look up for that matter? Had I been angry at her for causing all of this by coming here? If not, had it been subconscious? Rather, had she, herself, even caused all of this? Or had it been some delusional friend hoping for something more by chasing her? It hadn't been either of those, actually. It had been a little more simple than that. Probably.
I had been apprehensive of the expression I was going to get. Rather, I had been scared of it, and the mystery of it. How would she look at me after all of that? Would she judge me for smiling as I inflicted pain on someone else, would she judge me because I wanted to hear someone tell me about the same pain I felt? Would she have looked at me differently because I had inflicted pain on someone so violently, even if it had been something along the lines of revenge?
Did I care how she looked at me?
"I'm sor-"
"Don't apologize..." I laughed in pain, noticing how often we tended to interrupt each other. "You didn't do this, and your delusional friend over there is going to be okay. Everything is fine, right?"
"It's not, you fucking moron." I could hear a slight tremble. "Look at yourself, you had a knife pointed at you and then you were hit with a bat. Now you're coughing up blood. You're fucking...fucking idiotic."
Trying to stand up on my own had resulted in a shocking amount of pain hitting me like an avalanche. I had never felt so much pain that it had spread throughout my body, yet this had and it had made it hard to walk without wanting to curl up into a ball. Ashlynn had stood up at the same pace I did, allowing me to catch her expression out of the corner of my eye. Looking as though she had been on the verge of losing her mind, she looked at me near wondrously. Why had I gotten up to begin with? Was it to see that expression?
I turned to her, resting my hand on her shoulder - or what I had thought was her shoulder - and leaned into her. Grinning, with my mouth still covered in blood, my head moved closer. There had been something I had to pay her back for, as more of a just-in-case type of thing. It was just a simple little thing, and was only going to take a second.
Only problem was, I couldn't see where I was going. Black. Darkness. Why had it felt like I was lying down on something painful, cold, and hard? Had I died, and fallen to hell? Wait...wasn't hell all red and fiery? Then why hadn't I seen anything at all? Maybe It was purgatory? Meh. Both were deserved. Though, I would have preferred some sort of light to see with. Even if there wasn't anything to see.
**
Where am I?
White room, again? Funny. It seemed like more than anything, I had always had a connection to this place. A place that had always been so closely rooted to death, a place where my girlfriend had died. Where would I die? Would that even matter in the gist of things? Would anyone have cared about me, or the way I died? Would anyone have remembered me at all? Yeah, and for what? I had done nothing of note in my life except for working for Crest. That, folks, had been the golden star on my life.
Why had I even been in this room? Didn't it have something to do with a guy and a knife? What happened? Did I get hurt or something? If I did, then where's the pain? Instead, I was feeling something magnificent - numbness. I hadn't felt a thing, and I could barely even move. How glorious it had felt to not feel anything, not even my own heartbeat. Could such euphoria be made permanent, or would that euphoria have meant death?
Kylie had said she cared about me, she died. Ava had said she cared about me, she ended up losing herself somewhere - probably because of me. My father had ran away, my own mother had chosen a pedophilic leech over her own son, and all I had been left with was Mack and a few stacks that I hadn't known what to do with. That hadn't been any disrespect towards Mack, at all. In fact, he had been the only person I had ever trusted more than I myself.
Am I sinking again? It feels good. So dark, so quiet, the numbness just takes everything away. I feel nothing, and I hear nothing - and therefore, I can become nothing. Asinine? Maybe, but maybe not. If could feel nothing, if I could see nothing, and I can hear nothing, then doesn't that make me nothing? I would love to fade away like that, like I was nothing to nobody, that I hadn't ever mattered or existed.
Maybe I don't want to be remembered, or felt for? Feelings are fleeting, and therefore bring pain to both parties. Why do people get so far involved in something that will break eventually, why do they get so far involved into something that may not even be real? People are mysterious - they live for themselves, yet they want other people to notice that fact? People, and I'm no exception, use one another until they are dried up and no longer provide any use. How is that caring? Sure, outliers exist, but it is the same thing. Do people care for each other, even if they are only using each other?
Hadn't that been me with Ava? Hadn't I just used her as a band-aid for all of my own issues? Hadn't I used her to not be alone, to have a reason to live? Had that been caring, or had it been using? Ah, so complicated. I'd just rather sleep. Forever. Maybe I will. Hopefully. Maybe I won't. Probably.
"Sor..."
**
I heard a light snore as I opened my eyes to a mind-bending grogginess that was clearly induced by some kind of medication. Where was I?
The blinding white had clearly been a hospital room - sterile and void of darkness. Carefully, and somewhat dizzily, I pushed myself up only to find Ashlynn resting her head right at the corner of the hospital bed. As the dull pain traveled through my body, I looked at the stand next to the bed and was pleased to find my cigarettes and lighter there. Instead of thinking who about who had brought them, I took one out of the pack and lit it. Entirely uncaring of the other patients. If they cared that much, they wouldn't have allowed them in there.
Taking a drag, I let myself get off the bed. The pain had been dull, had it been pain pills? Had that been why I was so groggy? More importantly, how long had I been here? I looked at Ashlynn, who had still been wearing the same clothes. Overnight, maybe a day, at most? As I ran my fingers through my somewhat tangled hair, I had noticed the bandage wrapped tightly around my abdomen. Had he broken anything, I wonder? What about my back?
As Ashlynn began to stir, I watched as she lifted her head with a small bit of drool attached to her bottom lip. She looked at the bed first, only to realize I clearly hadn't been there. It also hadn't taken her long to turn just enough to see me smoking a cigarette near the window that had already been open. She hadn't said a word to me about what happened, nor the smoking - she had acted as though she had no right to speak - she had acted as though everything had been her fault.
As I inhaled another drag of the cigarette, I could feel her staring at my back. "Say something."
She remained silent for a moment before nearly mumbling again. "Does it hurt?"
"Not really. Might later, but not right now." I turned, offering the cigarette to her only to see a somewhat pained expression. "You think it's your fault?"
Nodding, she took the cigarette from me. Why in the world had she thought that, because she had known the guy? Sure, maybe you knew him, but it hadn't been like she asked him to do that - nor had she asked the other guy to do what he did. All of what had happened was nothing more than me resorting to violence as a solution. It had been me being trigger happy, and wanting to inflict pain on someone else. I had wanted to hurt him, just as bad as I had been hurting myself. That had been all there was to it. Was I going to say that last part out loud? Fuck no.
"It's not your fault. You didn't make them do any of that, and you didn't make me do any of that. Sure, maybe I used you and protecting you as an excuse for a fight, but you still had nothing to do with that."
"Look at you...I was involved with it. I could have went back with him and then came back after or something." she finally spoke a full sentence. "It's not like I matter to anyone here."
"Maybe." I muttered, grabbing the cigarette from her as I approached her. I took a drag, bending over in the least painful way possible. "Or maybe you do."
Finally she had smiled, ever so slightly. Yawning, I turned and flicked the cigarette out and through the window. It had been the exact moment of turning my back to her that I had been caught in something much deeper - reminiscent of quicksand, falling into something - only something much more pleasant. As I had turned, my face was met with Ashlynn's own, her lips connecting to mine for the second time in what had felt like a single day.
Losing her balance, she had knocked the both of us over onto floor, but even through that she hadn't let go. As she rested over me, she had made no attempt to move or stop, she had been lost and stuck in a world of her own - a world I had been being slowly sucked into - forcefully pulled in with what felt like the gravity of Jupiter. Except, it hadn't really been all that forceful.
"Sorry." she lifted her mouth for a moment, her left hand on my chin. "I can't really do this anymore, just being friends or whatever the fuck that was."
"Why?" she pushed herself up some, giving a crooked smile.
"Probably because we're exactly the same in some ways, I don't know. I just kind of feel like I know you." her eyes averted from mine, covering her mouth with the top of her hand. "The only reason I held back at all was because of Ava, but after she just completely fucked you over like that..."
Putting myself at eye level with her by pushing myself up, I could have only wondered what she had meant by exactly the same. What had been the same about us? Were they there and I had just refused to look at them? Had I been afraid that I would see myself in her, like a reflection in a mirror, or had she meant it in some other kind of way? Emotionally? It had been a curious statement from her, something I hadn't been sure I wanted to pursue.
"Say something." I could hear the nervousness in her laughter. "You aren't fair at all."
"What do you mean?" I took her hand away from her mouth. "I mean, if it's something I can fix..."
"It's me. I have no idea what to do in this situation, like I feel all this different shit but I'm clueless." she took a breath. "I've never dated a guy or had feelings for one before. I've only ever seen other girls have them. It's not that guys didn't try, I wasn't allowed to have one."
Brushing my hair back, I hadn't really had an answer for her. What had I been supposed to say to that, what answer would have satisfied her? Had that been what she even wanted, to be satisfied with words? Maybe she had been right, in a sense. Had I ever truly paid attention to someone I cared about, or had I always been so involved with myself and protecting my own self that I had always brushed passed theirs? Maybe that was why the people I cared about had always left me, be it willingly or through death.
"How do you expect me to answer that?" I brushed her hair away from her eye, cracking a smirk. "All I have to say is fuck anyone who gets in the way of what you want. Ava, your parents, or anyone else. Nobody is worth it if they are stopping you."
Straddling my lap, she hooked her arms around my neck. Her light breathing coating the line of my jaw.
"What about you?"
ns 15.158.61.5da2
