How it Happened is Irrelevant (Mabbell)

34

TJ's POV:

"GET OFF ME GET OFF ME GET OFF ME!!!!" Someone shouted, pushing me to the floor. I fell into the darkness, seeing a figure that I soon remembered was Craig thrashing about and screaming. I flicked a light on and grabbed his arms. He fought me aggressively, pushing me off of him. The force of this push was so immense that I slammed up against the door. 

"CRIAG! CRIAG! IT'S ME!" I shouted to him. 

He gasped, still screaming while sweat dripped from his head. "TJ!!" He screamed, finally stopping his fit. 

"What the fuck is going on?!" Max demanded, entering the back lounge. 

"Oh, shit." Craig raced out of the back lounge and flew into the bathroom. I didn't know why until I heard the sound of him heaving. 

"What happened?" Max asked once more.

"I-I don't know," I said quickly. "He just woke up, panicking. He's freaking out." 

Craig came back into the back lounge, even more sweat-covered and shaking all over. He looked like a mess. "Get out. Get out now," He told Max. His tone of voice terrified me. I'd never seem a grown man look so petrified in my life. Once Max had fled, he shut the door. His breath was really unsteady as he came and sat next to me. "I'm sorry. Did I hurt you?" He searched me for any signs of damage. 

"I'm fine. What happened?" I shook my head. 

"I just had a really bad dream," He looked away. "It's nothing really."

"Craig, you woke up screaming, covered in sweat, mindlessly attacking me, and just vomited purely out of fear. It's not 'nothing'."

"It's not a big deal. It's just been a while since this- This is why I stopped sleeping. I didn't want- I'm sorry." He pulled at the ends of his hair.  "I have really bad night terrors." 

"Why haven't you had them before?"

"I was too tired to dream before. Now you've got me sleeping again and well-" He gestured to himself. 

Now, if this were the morning, and I could think straight, I might've kept my ego in better check. I knew it'd been manifesting even more ever since Craig and I got together, but it wasn't until that moment that I realized just how big I'd let it grow. "You're saying this is my fault?"

"Wait, you're offended by that?" Craig stood up and threw his hands in the air in frustration. "I never said my night terrors were your fault." He shook his head. "I can't believe you turned this around to be about you." He jabbed his finger into my chest. "You always do this. You always have to be the center of attention."

I swatted his hand away harder than I'd meant to. "I can't help it! I work my ass of every day just to find out that the only person in this fucking band that anyone cares about is you. I could die, and they would just hire a replacement. If you died, we'd never hear the end of it."

"Why the fuck are you jealous of me? You want all the attention that I get? Is that what you want?" He held up a bottle of tequila that was on the floor. "You know what I have to do every damn day just to get up on stage? You know what that's like?" He threw the bottle against a window, shattering it. The alcohol ran down the walls. "I honestly thought that you'd get better if I just gave you the attention that you wanted. Now I see that it would never be enough. I could worship you like a god, and it still wouldn't be enough." He pointed to the window. "I could get them to worship you too, and it still wouldn't be enough." He pushed my chest with his hand hard, and I brushed up against the wall once more. "Everyone on this planet could be on their knees for you, begging you to memorize their name and look in their direction, and even that still wouldn't be enough."

His words burned me to my core. I didn't know why they stung so much. It was true. And yet, even so, it only helped his case. He was giving me his full and undivided attention. "If you think that's true," I started, overconfident, "then why give me all this attention now?"

Craig's face flickered with disappointment. "I thought I would prove a point to you. Clearly I was mistaken. I thought that you might've actually wanted to comfort me. I mean, I helped you when your mother said she wished you were never born."

If his words before burned, these were the final blow. Only instead, this time I felt defeated. "I- You're right." I looked down. "I really- This was your problem. I should've- You deserved help. And you still do." Something I'd learned about apologies forever ago: If you really want to apologize, don't make it all about you. Self-pity and begging for forgiveness doesn't change a thing. If you want to make an impact, tell the other person that they deserved something, or that they were right. It's all about them. "What happened in the dream?" I asked gently. 

He shook his head. "You go from zero to sixty so fast I can't stand it."

This time, I controlled myself. It was a direct insult, but I tried not to let it bother me. "I'll change."

"No! Don't do that!" His eyes grew wide. "I like that you can let things go." He sat down while looking at the shattered glass on the floor. "I couldn't breathe. Something was gripping at my lungs, and I felt you squeezing my torso. I felt like I was drowning." Even as he spoke, there was something about it that told me he wasn't telling the whole truth. 

I beckoned it forth. "You don't have to keep secrets."

He blinked. "I was treading water. It was open ocean. I begged for someone to come and rescue me. Below me, something grabbed my legs. I struggled to fight it off, but then it grabbed my stomach and pulled me down below the surface. I was drowning. I could physically feel my lungs burning. When I opened my eyes, I saw something under the water." He didn't meet my eyes. "It was you. You were the one drowning me."

I was slowly becoming a believer in clairvoyance, but I wanted to pretend that I wasn't for a while. I didn't want that dream to mean anything to me at all. I didn't want it to mean anything to Craig either. "At least it was only a dream. I'd never do that to you," I assured him, taking his hand in mine and squeezing it. My greatest fear was that I already had. 

After all, I'd just taken my biggest score. I had no intentions of returning it now that it was finally mine.