Catharsis || Lashton AU - boyxboy

25. alliberament

trigger warning for this chapter--talk of suicide and self-harm.

"Well I don't know where you're going,
but I know where you've been.
I've been tracing all your footsteps,
I've been counting all your sins.
A ticking bomb, a false alarm, a wrecking ball.
You left before I had the chance to say,
Just call me in the morning.
Call me when you're home.
I know what you've been through, don't let go.
Don't let go."
-Taking Back Sunday, Call Me In The Morning

My breath hitched in my throat. I squeezed my eyes shut in hope that I would open them and everything would have just been a dream. I opened them again, however, and Sully was still smiling sadly at me and my hands were still shaking and I still couldn't breathe.

"Is this a joke?" I asked quickly. "Is this some kind of joke? Because that's sick, Sully, even for you, and it sure as shit isn't very funny, I--"

"I'm not kidding, Luke. Come on. You know I wouldn't joke about that. You know that." he breathed. I stilled couldn't move. "Noël knew. He wanted me to tell you. I guess this is how he cornered me into it."

"Noël knew--for fuck's sake, Sully, I'm your best friend! How could you not tell me?" I snapped, and it took me a moment to realize that there were tears trailing down my cheeks. "How long have you known?"

"Luke--"

"How long, Sullivan?" I hissed, and I hated the way his full name felt in my mouth, all straight lines and sharp edges.

"A few months." he whispered.

"A few months? A few fucking months? Oh my--oh my fucking God. Oh my god I--I can't fucking breathe--oh my g--I can't--there's no air in here--I can't--"

"Luke?" Sully asked, stepping forward and grabbing me by the shoulders. Tunnel vision, fuck, fuck, I couldn't see anything, I couldn't breathe, fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.

I spun around and grasped the counter in my hands. Sully stood with me still, hands braced behind me but not touching. Good--I didn't want him to. Couldn't bear the feeling. Needed to pretend he didn't exist right now.

So I tried to pretend he didn't exist.

And I couldn't.

"Fuck!" I slammed against the counter. "Fuck, fuck," I turned around away from Sully quickly, who had his hands raised in innocence. "Fuck, I need you to not--stop, please just--I need to go--" I stepped back towards the door, ignoring the apron still clad around my neck. "I can't--" I said quickly, grabbing the door handle and bursting through the door into the cool air, ignoring the way he looked as his hands fell. My jacket was still inside. I didn't care. I wasn't going back in there.

I walked down the street with no idea where I was going, but I didn't care. I was in my favorite shaggy hoodie, despite the raggedy cuffs that tickled at my hands when they hung down. I usually didn't mind it, but now it was the cancer sweatshirt, and I'd never not associate it with today, and the threads no longer tickled my hands but burned them, rather. And as I walked, I pulled the apron from around my neck and tossed it off to the side of the sidewalk as I went, and though it was November and there was a strong, cold wind, and I had scars lining my arms that would give children nightmares, I shed the hoodie as well, and I didn't acknowledge the people I shoved past looking down at my arms or looking at my wet cheeks or acknowledging me in this weird way that people in New York never did.

I fisted my hands at my side and for this moment, I didn't care. I bared my arms for the whole world to see--I let my bare arms swing freely and I let the people of New York gawk at the skin covered in so many scars you couldn't see anything else. I allowed the people of New York a free look into my past--allowed them a free look at the loss of my mother and my father and my brother(s), and a free look at the part in the story where I lose my best friend, and I figured that it didn't matter, really, because it'd be the last time they saw me anyways, so why should I? Why should I have cared?