Cigarette under moonlight (bxb)

23

"I- 'm not fine", I breathe out, "but I feel better than before, not lying."

Dev is not looking at me but down, puzzled; I follow his gaze, which lands on my leg at the trickling lines of blood coming. I froze; this was not what I had in mind. Nor am I ready for this conversation.

And because God hates me and personally wants to put me in situations where I would suffer, Dev looks up at me with anger. He doesn't say anything, which is the worst thing you can do to a mentally ill person cause then we start to assume how the person in front of us will leave us, how they will never talk to us, shout at us- which in this case is bound to happen, so thank you God I guess.

He enters my room and sits on the bed, hands on his head. I dare not say anything; I know it's my fault. The calmness I felt minutes ago disappeared; they were replaced by burning in my chest and dizziness. I could feel the sting of my cuts now; all I wanted to do was to sleep now, forget about this, and when I woke up, I would pretend I did nothing, and this was all a dream.

"Sit here" I don't look up; I can't look at his face, knowing he knows. I should have been careful; how can I act so dumb? I should know better.

He gets up and leaves the room, and I get that. I would not want to be in my company too. When I'm about to close the door, Dev returns with a box of bandaids. He takes me by my arm and makes me sit on the bed; I look away, unable to make eye contact with him. 

"What are you doing?" I stop his hand as he rolls my shorts.

"What does it look like, Aarav?"

"No, no, Dev, please don't. It's nothing, I promise. I'm fine, and I will do this. You go-"

"Aarav", His voice firm, and he keeps looking at me. I know he is serious, but I can't do this.

"Please.", I say, unsure if he heard it; it was barely a whisper. I lay on my back, covering my face. "Please.", I say again, a bit louder this time. I hear him sigh, but he opens the first aid box, and I shut my eyes tightly. I can't see his face.

"Oh God", I hear him gasp, "Oh my God, what? You- you?" he stops. I don't know what he is doing now, and I want to tell him to go away and forget about this. But somehow, I'm unable to speak; my throat has tightened.

I cringe and feel a cold cotton dab touch my skin; he's cleaning it again. After that, he applies something and covers it with a band-aid. Tears started to flow from my eyes; I did not want this. I should not live; I don't deserve to live, not after this.

I wipe my face and sit up, and Dev is sitting on the floor with arms hugging his knees. Just a look at him and I feel all the hatred emotions coming towards me. I get up and sit next to him, almost expecting him to get away. But he doesn't.

"Talk to me, tell me why you- what happened?" he says.

What happened? How do I tell him? What should I tell him? I don't know why I started to feel so anxious; it wasn't just a person getting better things than me. It was everything that happened in my life. What should I tell him? Everything I do leads to nothing but failure; even though how hard I try, I never get the results.

"You won't get it."

"I will try; I will try my best to understand it, okay? So, please talk to me."

I debate whether to tell him or not. He's my brother; I shouldn't be scared to talk to him, I've talked about this before, and he helped. He helped me so much, constantly checking up on me, calling me, and even feeding me. He has done so much, and all I've been to him is a burden. I should improve; I can't be like this; I can't let everything get to me.