TALK TO ME ¯ᶠʳᵉʳᵃʳᵈ

-ˏˋｆｏｕｒ：ｔｅｍｐｏｒａｒｙ ｃｏｍｆｏｒｔˊˎ-

trigger warning: self-harm

Useless. So useless. That's all I was. Of course Gerard ignored me because he was sick of me, that was basically all he was saying. I shouldn't have been so surprised or hurt by it. This was nothing new. The only people I could hold on to were Mikey and my mom and that's only because I talked to them. They were both probably sick of me anyways. My mom just couldn't say it because she was my mom, she had to accept me. And Mikey was too nice to ever be honest with me and tell me he was tired of me. But I knew. They didn't say it, but I knew.

The only honest one was Gerard. He was the only person who finally came right out and said it. Why was I such a freak who couldn't even talk? I wish I knew the answer. If I did, I would answer him. But there was no answer. The closest thing to an explanation was just that I was useless.

I was running home, hoping neither Mikey nor Gerard was coming after me because if they did, I knew they'd catch up. I wasn't a fast runner, especially now. Breathing was already difficult enough with this oncoming panic attack; running didn't help. My heart kept getting faster and faster to the point where my chest ached with each beat. Every limb and joint in my body felt so numb, I wasn't sure how I managed to keep running on legs that felt like jelly. There was a cold trail of tears on my cheeks being whipped by the cold Jersey air. I had to get home and get away. I knew my mom wouldn't be home for a few more hours so I would be alone.

After a few more minutes of running, I finally reached my house and took no time at all to get my key out and run inside. Straight to my room. Straight to the bathroom. I locked the door and stared at my reflection. My eyes were bloodshot and would obviously be swollen once the tears stopped. So pathetic.

I pulled the medicine cabinet open and pulled out a box of band-aids and fell to the floor. Inside the box wasn't just band-aids. I emptied the box onto the ground and along with the band-aids fell out a razor blade. This was always my comfort. I didn't need to talk to it. I didn't need to do anything to impress it, because no matter what, every time I used this razor, I found comfort. And that comfort would always be there.

I pulled up the sleeve of my hoodie. Old scars that were trying to heal covered my wrists, but I wouldn't give my skin time to be clean because I went to work, adding fresh scars to the old ones. Once the blade broke through the skin and drops of blood oozed out, I forgot about how useless I was. My mind focused on the stinging as the air hit my raw flesh. This was all I felt now. I didn't feel pathetic, useless, hurt. I didn't want to die. I just enjoyed the pain that ran through my arm as I added cut after cut to my wrist.

I dropped my razor to the ground and sat against the wall, allowing my head to rest against the wall behind me. There was blood on my pants and on the floor, but I didn't worry about that now. I would clean it up later. For now, I just sat there, eyes shut, ignoring the pain of the outside world.

I didn't know how long I was sitting there, but by the time I got up, the blood on my wrist had begun to dry up. I went to the sink and washed over the scars, getting the dried blood off. Only small amounts of blood seeped out of the scars now, not enough to drip or anything, so I would let it dry out naturally.

I left my mess in the bathroom and crawled onto my bed, pulling my guitar out from under it. I sat back against the headrest and held my guitar in my lap, strumming a few random notes. My wrist stung when I moved it, but I continued playing, the music filing the room and soothing my thoughts. This guitar screamed Gerard to me, because he's the one who gave it to me. I remember that day so clearly.

Gerard was sitting on his bed, busy sketching away as always. I sat next to him, looking over his shoulder at his current drawing. It looked like the start of a mummy. I always loved watching Gerard draw because of how into his art he was. His face was so tense and focused yet his hands danced across the page swiftly and smoothly. He was about to start adding detail to the bandages on the mummy, but he suddenly stopped drawing and flipped his sketch book to a new page and started drawing something else. I hated when he did that because I didn't like seeing an incomplete drawing. I tapped his shoulder and he looked up at me. He gave me his pencil so I could write what I needed to say.