Unworthy Of Love (BXB)

35. Caged

It's dark and quiet when I open my eyes. I blink and rub my face. The room has been dark since Raven has smashed the only light bulb a couple of days ago, and then tried to cut his wrists with the shards. It was also then that I realized that he couldn't be left alone.

So, with my shifts canceled under the pretense of sickness, I've been staying with him all the time. The stuffy air of the small room has been giving me constant headaches. The place probably stinks, too, although I'm so used to it by now that I don't really smell anything.

At first, it was like living in a cage with a wild animal. I couldn't sleep unless I had him tied up, which required a struggle; and even then, I couldn't get him to shut up, so what little rest I could get was constantly accompanied by his moans, threats and begging.

It's quiet now, though, and my body tells me that I've been asleep for a while, perhaps a few hours. I check my pocket. The key is still there.

I sit up and peer into the darkness. When Raven is awake and moving, his pale skin makes him visible enough, but now I can't see anything.

I crawl over to his mattress. My hand finds his lying shape wrapped in a blanket. He's not moving, not shaking or shivering like he did almost constantly throughout the last few days.

My blood goes cold. Could he have died? Sometimes people in his state can choke on their vomit; or perhaps he has found a way to strangle himself with the sheet.

My hand dives under his blanket and finds his neck. His skin is warm, and weak pulse beats against my fingers. I breath out with relief and remove my hand.

He shifts a little.

"What?"

His voice is faint. Now that I'm sitting next to him, I can see the outline of his cheek turned away from me.

"Nothing. Just checking on you."

"Still alive," he whispers. "Wishing I wasn't, though."

"You're just tired. Go back to sleep."

I start moving away when he speaks again.

"It doesn't hurt as much as before."

"Good," I say.

"What will..." He pauses to catch his breath, even the simple act of talking now requiring an effort. "What will prevent me from doing drugs once I'm out of here?"

"I will," I say. "You wouldn't want to go through all of this again, right?"

He turns to his other side, now facing me, and puts his hand under his cheek. His eyes are two shadows in the dark, his wrists painfully thin. He hasn't eaten much lately, and little of what he ate he could keep down.

"You can't fix me, James," he whispers. "There's too much that's fucked up. You don't really know."

"I know enough," I say. "And I'd like to learn more."

"There's nothing to learn." He licks his lips. "I'm a lost cause."

I reach out, pick a plastic bottle with water, and offer it to him, but he gives a barely perceivable shake of a head. Looks like another forced drinking session will have to happen soon.

"I don't think so," I say, putting the bottle back on the floor. "You can change. You can have a better life. You can become someone."

"Like an accountant?"

I chuckle. "I reserve that for myself. But you're smart, funny, good looking. You can be so many things—a model, a musician, a scientist --"

"A scientist?" He chuckles. "James, I'm dumb. You don't really know what I'm like."

"I do."

The image that comes to mind when I say that is of our time together, the good days—the rock show, the baseball game, the evenings with him and Catherine. The glimpses of the happy, carefree Raven that could have been had his life had a better start. I only wish he could see that side of himself the way I can see it.

"I know what you could have been," I say. "And I know you can still be those things. You just need someone to keep you on track long enough for you to see that there's a better way to live than the one you know."

He lets out a quiet chuckle. "And that someone would be you?"

"For the lack of better options, yes." I reach out and brush away the strands of hair sticking to his face. "I know what you've been through," I add, as he peers at me from the dark. "I know what she did. I won't let that define who you become."