remember me. (crenny)

three

"You're going to kill yourself."

"I'm not going to kill myself, Clyde."

"Yes you are!"

"No, I'm not!"

"You are! You're already dying, Craig! Can't you see it?"

"And that's my fucking business! Mine!"

"I can't keep watching it, Craig. I can't keep watching it like it's not fucking happening, because it is. It's so‒it's too hard."

"You're acting like I'm going to collapse and die at any given moment."

"You could! Your heart could give out right now, and I'd have to be the one to call Laura!"

"Shut the fuck up, Clyde!"

"Either let me help you or consider me out of your life. I can't sit around worrying and waiting for you to feel like getting better. I can't do it anymore."

"Clyde, come on‒"

"No, Craig, you come on! Let me get you help!"

"You can't!"

"Then there's the door, Craig."

"Don't do this to me Clyde."

"I'm sorry, Craig, but I‒"

"Clyde, please, listen to me, don't make me do this."

"You need help."

"I can do this by myself."

"Then leave, and show me that you can before you come back here again."

"Clyde, I‒you‒"

"Save your tears for someone who can help you."

Silence.

The door opening and closing.

Clyde sobbing at the foot of the stairs.

***

I remember Clyde telling me Craig was dying.

"Dying?"

"Dying."

Craig was dying.

"What's he dying of?"

Clyde laughed darkly through his raw throat. He hadn't stopped sobbing since Craig had left forty minutes ago. "Himself."

My expression apparently gave away my confusion. "Oh, you know," he continued, "he doesn't take care of himself. Goes out of his way to actively fuck himself up. Doesn't eat, doesn't talk to anyone, doesn't do anything, slits his fuckin' wrists, constantly making risky decisions he knows better than to make‒God."

That answered the question nagging at me for the last few weeks. I was feeling his cuts on my back. I felt nauseous.

"Maybe he's not dying," I tried to reassure him. It wasn't working. It seemed to make it worse.

"Oh you think?" He sobbed louder, throwing his hands in the air. "He's, like, scary underweight and last night when we went to Olive Garden, he threw up in the bushes on the way back to the car. Maybe it was intentional, maybe it wasn't. Either way, he got really fucking sick over little to fucking nothing."

I buried my face in my hands. Maybe he wasn't dying.

I brought him upstairs to my room and laid with him on the bed while he sobbed and sobbed into my chest until there was nothing left to cry.

I spent the good part of an hour running my hands through his hair until he finally fell asleep.

I remember feeling my entire soul ache for him.