Forged Bonds (BxB)

CHAPTER 17

The library wasn't my only safe spot in school anymore. Despite obligating myself to spend my free time with Lucas in the janitor's closet, I found out the place could be quite comforting, what was surprising considering the fact that I once found a cockroach between the bleaches.

I missed spending time with Jeovanni at school, though. So it left me excited when the day of the week that we had a period together had arrived. I was still thinking about the day before, when he climbed his way to my room.

I liked what I had with Jeovanni. I didn't like the insecure feelings that came with it – as the ones I felt at the party and when he smiled while reading a text of his friend –, but I thought it was worth it. He made me know myself. It wasn't an easy experience – it was agonizing, really –, yet, I supposed it was an agony that I needed. A good sort of agony, as masochist as it sounds. It was a mess. But it was my mess. And who knew I could appreciate something that was mine.

But I couldn't appreciate my dreams. My nightmares. My memories. They kept following me around, working as chains holding me back. I wished to get rid of them, but most of times, I believed I wouldn't. So instead of fighting a lost battle, I let myself be hurt by the chains, which were materialized by my razor blade.

"Look who we have here" I approached Mason with a smirk as he was about to get into his car to leave the school parking lot.

Mason was one of the people who angered me the most in my school. He was 'out and proud', and I thought about how unfair that was. Thought was a strong word for this situation. It was more of a feeling. A feeling mixed with the rage that came with it, which took down all the rational thoughts I could ever have.

"Please, Jack, don't start this now" Mason looked scared, even though he tried his best to hide it.

"I'm not doing anything" I raised my hands in a mock surrender. Yet, I completed in my mind.

"I just want to go home" He opened his car's door, but I kicked it shut.

"I'm not done" I said "How rude interrupting me that way, Mason, really. Don't you have manners?"

"Not with you" He risked to reply me in a challenging tone.

I wish I could describe what I felt in that moment. But I simply couldn't. It was too much. It was too blurry. And at the same time, it was too empty. I just knew that when someone decided to fight back, my mind replaced that person with my father.

"Wrong answer" I closed my hand in a fist.

My alarm rang before one of the memories of my home town had finished. Although I was spared from reliving the part where I beat Mason up in my dream, I did it when I woke up anyway. And I winced as soon as I did.

"Fuck" I groaned, hitting my wrist against my forehead several times, as if that would be enough to change my brain chemistry and take me out of the situation I had been in my whole life.

I tried to give Mason justice without him knowing by cutting my wrists in the bathroom when I aroused, but I'd be lying if I said I did it all for him. The most part of it was because of me. To punish myself. To hurt myself simply because I didn't like myself. It was rare the moments when I did.

And when I saw Jeovanni later that day sitting at the back of the class, I winced all over again. It could have been him. It could have been him instead of Mason if he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Acknowledging that the guy that I kissed and cared about could be the one I tortured under different circumstances was enough to make me hate myself even more. And the fact that he knew about it and still decided to stick around seemed unfair before my eyes. To both of us. I wasn't enough to be wanted. By anyone.