I will see you tonight, her text says.
I don’t know how I will get through the day, I text back.
(: She responds. Will your brother really not find out?
I’ll make sure he doesn’t, I reassure her. We’ll sneak in after he’s gone to sleep. And he goes to sleep pretty fast so I don’t think we have anything to worry about.
Okay, she texts.
Heather, I type. I love you.
I love you too, Andy.
Matt raps on the door. “Come on, it’s getting late!”
“Coming!” I yell and place my phone inside my jeans’ pocket, grab my backpack and head downstairs where Matt is waiting for me as usual. But he’s not wearing one of his suits. He’s dressed casually in a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt which means he’s taking a day off from work.
“Morning,” he says, when he hears me coming up to the breakfast bar.
“Morning,” I reply.
“You’re in a good mood,” Matt says, placing the coffee cup to his lips.
“I am.”
“Did Heather finally agree to a date?”
“Yes.”
“You’re not planning on sneaking her into the apartment while I’m asleep, are you?”
“No,” I say. “And I’m offended that you’d even think that.”
“Right,” he says, grinning. “But, if you do sneak her in, make sure you lock up after.”
“Well I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say, drinking my orange juice. “But sure.”
While Matt is driving me to school that day he offers me a couple of condoms and tries to give me the birds and bees speech, which is awkward to say the least, but I accept the condoms because I had forgotten all about protection in all this excitement. I think that satisfies him and when he finally drops me off at school, he almost looks proud. I think he’s just happy that I’m getting out there more; that I’m not in my room, the windows all drawn and listening to death metal on full volume. Sometimes I feel like I was born a vampire because that’s how much I love being in the dark. Thankfully, the apartment has soundproofed rooms, so we don’t have to worry about neighbors getting disturbed by the noise. I’m wearing my favorite Sepultura t-shirt, the one I bought for about two hundred dollars at one of their concerts, and I remember I was totally broke for weeks afterwards. I love that shirt so much I wear it on pretty much every important occasion for good luck. And I know that Heather and I haven’t even kissed yet, but tonight I plan on changing that and it will be even better than kissing just anyone because we love each other.
When I reach school I don’t see Heather anywhere.
I’ve sent her plenty of texts but she hasn’t been replying.
After I don’t see her in English and Math, I start to worry.
I place my books in my locker and decide to look for her outside.
In the parking lot, I find her car, but there’s no one inside, which means she’s here, she’s just not attending classes. Sometimes Heather likes to smoke a joint with the junkie crowd, who always hangs around in the back of the school building, so I head there.
I find Heather.
She’s standing against the wall, her backpack on the floor and the contents spilling out from it, back issues of Cosmopolitan and a bunch of makeup stuff.
Standing against her, pressing into her body is Puck, and I can see his erection from where I’m standing and they’re making out right there in front of everyone, which is surprising because Puck has a hand down the front of her shirt and his crotch is aligned with her skirt.
She sees me.
And I expect her to at least stop now and come after me but she does nothing of the sort. Just goes back to making out with Puck and turns her back on me as though I don’t even exist.
I run.
I run all the way to my apartment building and then I run up the four flights of stairs because I can’t wait for the elevator and then I fumble with my keys for a while before I run right through the foyer and the kitchen to get to my room. Matt is still there, I didn’t even ask why he was home, I was so excited about this whole thing with Heather. He calls after me as I run through the house but I don’t answer him. I just storm towards my room and close the door, put Exiled in Flesh on full volume.
“Awaken again into my daymare.
Location unknown, memory zero,
Vision distorted, sound muted, mind lost.
Slowly stabilizing, removing self-paranoia.
Reconstructing reality from pieces.”
I stand there for a few beats, and then I take out my wallet.
“Acidic air fills my lungs.
Awakened senses assault!
These living shapes, noises from the world outside.
The same frayed edges of the razorblade, I drive it through the skin on my wrist.
Exiled inside myself again, ready to wake up!”
Matt barges in through the door and turns off the music, sees what I’m doing and tries to get hold of the blade but I won’t let him. All the anger, all the rage that I have pent up because of Heather, I let it loose on my brother and the scuffle turns into a full-on fist fight. We’re both trying to hurt each other, struggling to come on top and Matt manages to knock the blade off of my hand and he’s now on top of me and grabs my shirt. “What the fuck is wrong with you!” he yells.
When I look at his eyes there’s nothing but rage.
I’m tasting blood in my mouth.
But I don’t care.
I’m broken.
She hurt me.
And no one cares.
Not even Matt.
“I’m sick of you, you know that?” Matt growls. “I’m sick of this cry-for-attention bullshit of yours, Andy! We both know you’re not going to do anything! You’ve been doing this since you were a kid and you haven’t killed yourself yet! No! You like to play games! You like playing with me, don’t you? What do you want, Andy? I gave up my life to take care of you, you piece of shit! I gave up everything! And for what? So you could do this? Huh? You want to kill yourself, then go kill yourself Andy! But stop this whole cutting business!”
“Fuck you!” I yell as loud as I can.
Matt is still glowering at me.
He holds up the razorblade. “You really want to use this?”
He gets off me, throws the blade in my direction and it falls on my chest. “Here.”
I watch him leaving the room.
I stay on the floor for a long time before I pick up the blade.
I get up off the floor, search for my set of keys which I find on the floor next to a broken toy that I’ve had since childhood but I couldn’t care less about it. Inside me, there is no rage any longer, no anger. There’s just silence. And the words
Quid Pro Quo, Andy.
I grab the keys and sneak out of the apartment, and I head to the roof.
Even though it’s middle of the day outside, it’s dark as though it was night because it looks like it’s about to rain.
I open my palm, with the blade. I let it fall from my hand and it starts its descent to the ground and I know I will never actually hear it hitting bottom.
I step up onto the ledge.
There’s a world out there.
A dark, terrible world disguised as something beautiful.
When they ask me why I jumped off the roof of my brother’s apartment building, I will tell them it was because I wanted the sky to mourn me.

Notes