My Reason To Live

10

Warnings:
-(Short) self harm

Clay's POV

It was Saturday and after dinner my dad went with me to my room. I took his work laptop home and bought Minecraft so I could teach him how to play.

I sat in my room behind my PC with all curtains closed, lights off and a lot of energy drinks and crisps. I was only wearing a shirt at the moment and my dad seemed to glance at my arms sometimes with a sad look. He didn't comment on it and ignored it once I told him what to do.

'How do I start?' he asked when we made a multiplayer server.

'Just walk,' I said with an eye roll. I started mining wood, but I didn't want to play survival. I just wanted to play some good Minecraft games with him, but he appeared to be too dumb for that.

'What keys do I use?'

'You're dumb,' I said as I pointed at my fingers. 'WASD.'

He didn't comment on me calling him dumb and did what I told him. 'You have to sprint, idiot.'

'What's the sprint key?'

I sighed loudly and rolled my eyes. 'Just look yourself.'

'If you tell me how to.'

I sighed again and clicked esc, showing him what keys he needed to press. He looked at it and nodded.

'Okay, that helps. Let me try.'

He started running around and managed to jump into a cave, dying immediately.

'You're actually so bad,' I said with a sigh.

'I know,' my dad grinned. 'I'm trying, but it's really difficult for your old dad.'

I rolled my eyes and we continued playing once he figured out what the respawn button did. We continued playing for a few hours and he started understanding it a bit more, so I put us in a bedwars game.

'I play this game a lot,' I said. I noticed I didn't dislike playing with him anymore and waited for the game to start.

'Clay, I have no idea what I have to do.'

'You need to buy some blocks and make a bed defence. I'll rush another base.'

My dad nodded slowly.

'Do you understand?' I asked. I showed him what he had to do and he nodded.

'I get it. How big should it be?'

'Just make it as big as possible,' I said as I got some wool to rush the base next to me.

'Oh my goodness, how did I place a block again?'

Then the weirdest thing in my life ever happened. I still didn't feel happiness, but I smiled. I smiled and rolled my eyes after, clicking his mouse to show him how to do it.

He grinned and looked at me with a really happy smile on his face. He never saw me smile and I never saw myself smile either. Unfortunately, I still felt just as empty, but apparently I liked this so much that I couldn't resist the tiniest smile.

My dad continued the game while I focused on my screen again and killed a few people. Surprisingly enough, we ended up winning the game and my dad looked at me.

'Did I do good?'

'You did fine,' I said as I nodded. I opened a can of energy drink as I leaned back in my chair.

'I enjoyed playing that with you. Would you like to play with me more often? I know I'm not as great, but I can try to get better for you so I won't ruin the game.'

'We can play sometimes,' I said, nodding slowly.

'I'm going to bed now,' my dad said as he stood up. 'Are you going to sleep soon?'

'No, I'm staying up,' I said, chugging a bit of the energy drink.

'Aren't you tired, sweetie? You need a bit of sleep.'

'That's why I'm drinking energy. I'm fine, please just don't get involved in what I do.'

'I'm sorry. Have fun I guess, I'm going,' he said with a small smile, turning around to go to his bed.

I sighed softly and looked down at my arms. I really wanted to self harm to feel the pain again, but realised I couldn't go to hospital again. I would be sent to a mental hospital immediately if I came there twice a day.

I started thinking of different things I could do to feel something. I sighed again and stared at my desk. Couldn't I just hit something? It wasn't really meant to be self harm, but I would feel something at least.

TW self harm

I looked at the wall and stared at it without any emotions. I ended up just randomly punching the wall as hard as I could, leaving my hand to bleed. I stared at it, noticing it was actually hurting a lot.

TW over

I tried to move my fingers, but such an extremely pain came up that it caused tears in my eyes. I wished to feel empathy, but I didn't and went to my parents' room to wake them up again.

My dad stared at me when I came in and looked at me holding my hand in the air.

'What's it this time?'

'I hit my wall and my hand hurts incredibly much now.'

'Clay, I'm so sorry, but I actually need sleep. Do you think it's an emergency or can we better watch till tomorrow to see if the pain gets less and it's just a bruise?'

I shrugged. 'Fine.'

'Do you think you broke it?'

'I don't know. I'm not a doctor, am I?'

'Take a rest and if it still hurts tomorrow, I'll take you to the hospital again.'

'Ok,' I said as I turned around and went to my room again.

The pain in my hand was really bad and I stared at it, shining my phone's night lamp on it. It was pretty swollen and bruised already, causing me to roll my eyes.

I didn't want to self harm and ended up breaking my hand. I would only make everyone even more annoyed. Though, how annoyed they were, I couldn't care less about it. I didn't care that my dad couldn't sleep because of me, I didn't feel anything and he could be happy that he felt pain, sadness or happiness.

1045 words