Finding the Pure Note

Prologue: Choices

They say life is made up of choices, the choices that domino and change a life. For the better. Often worse. Everything you do has a consequence and every decision you make creates a ripple effect that affects not only you but those around you. Often, the choices you make you know somewhere inside are toxic, but they feel good in the moment. Or you see no way out of them, so you stick your thumb deeper into the rose's thorn and wince through it.

Smoke a cigarette; take that pill. Tell yourself dad will make it. You'll understand that one soon enough... Lie to your mum. Tell her you're studying, not out at the pub on a Sunday evening getting smashed to forget the shit you deal with every day in sixth form. Lie to yourself. Keep lying until the lies are your reality. Until they no longer have the power to hurt you. Believe that bullshit.

I've tried weed a couple of times. An alien world before I started hanging with the new crew. I've tried a couple of harder things though I don't know what the fuck is in them. It feels good after. You inhale the poison because it frees you from exams, deadlines, pressure from school, from mum and yourself. Let yourself forget. Get high. Make the choice to let Fletcher go. It doesn't matter that you love him. It's not enough to liberate you from the fucking stress.

It's not like he did anything... I don't think that kid has a mean bone in his body. Or he hides it well. The nice ones snap and you know you've fucked up. Not that he's some flawless angel. Fletcher can be a bit of a dick sometimes, but he's my dick, and... Wait a sec; that came out wrong. What I mean to say is, I've known him since I was three. He's been with me through my worst, and I through his.

Where was I? Oh right, shit, choices... It's easy to reflect now, after everything that's happened. The pain is still raw, and it's worse than the actual poison that's ravaged my body. That too will pass, but I have to endure the consequences of what I've done, who I've screwed over.

I know I'm not saying much. Best to go back, but I think there does need to be something said for the crossroads, and the paths I could have taken. Should have taken.

I didn't want to go out on a Tuesday evening. Sixth form just began and already a shit-load of homework dumped on us. Fletcher, in a dizzying moment of power-lust and rebelliousness, said to fuck it all. We went to the pub and had a few too many pints. You turn eighteen and you start seeing everyone at your local pub. Beer starts to taste actually pretty decent and it's just the place you hang, you know? A couple of pints, play some pool, watch the footy on the telly. Have a good time. Don't tell mum. Remember that one.

That will come back to bite me in the arse. A lot.

It's ingrained in me that a school night is an early night. That conditioning broke when I fell in with Kaylee and her lot. I still made it to school in the morning, just took some coaxing from mum. I didn't let her come in. She'd smell the cigarette and alcohol—not like I'm anyway decent at hiding that shit.

But this was a more innocent Clay. A Clay who'd never smoked a cigarette, never touched that scary stigma called drugs that school gives a million assemblies over the dangers of. I mean, like, seriously? You're telling a bunch of teenagers not to do a thing. They're gonna do the fucking thing!

I guess Fletch and I were still kids at heart. Playing video games, watching cartoons and making dirty jokes only a twelve-year-old would still find funny. I... Shit, I miss that. It's fucking mortifying how quickly you grow out of that, that you look back and cringe. Why? Those times were everything.

So that naive Clay of seven months ago—god it feels like way longer—knew staying out would incur the wrath of mum. Fletcher had my heartstrings and could pull them with a hint of bashful eyes and very little coaxing. It had been a month since the wonders of the pub were exposed to us. But we rarely went on a school night. Something inside my gut was telling me it was a stupid idea. I didn't fucking listen.

Four pints later and I was tipsy. Fletcher could take his alcohol. I wanted to stop at two. He was about to order the fifth when I convinced him, in words not to be uttered in the light of day, where he could shove his fifth pint. He got the message. One arm tucked snugly around my neck, he started to lead me outside. And I guess I was more than a little tipsy. I started singing. A wholly intimate thing, something I'd only shared with Fletch and now was serenading to the entire crowd of regulars and kids at school. One girl peeled away from her table and stepped in front of us. She said my voice was beautiful. I thanked her then burped. Nice one, Clay! Fletch started to excuse us, striding past.

But she followed, stepping in front again, this time a hand on my wrist. And look, Kaylee Fisher is definitely attractive. Everyone says so. Maybe I felt something was there. I think really I was just overjoyed to be noticed. I was so, so fucking naive. When she asked for my number, I happily obliged. Fletcher didn't look too happy about it then. I didn't know why. I felt like the luckiest guy in school. Hers wasn't the only heart I'd break in the months to come.

What followed is a tale of treachery, debauchery and the like. It wasn't me, and I knew it, but I had hopped aboard a train that everyone wanted to be on, and I couldn't get off. And this had all come from a simple act of rebellion, of being somewhere I shouldn't have been that night, and it's these ripples that can destroy us. I was trapped in a place that looked good but felt wrong, and I couldn't look back without thinking that there was no going back. And I was wrong.

At any rate, it's these kinds of things that really make me think. Like actually lie on my bed and stare at the ceiling thinking: shit, life is pretty... well... incredible. In a good way sure, but also in a way that eats at you to your core. Take for instance—on a lighter note now—the fact that your choice in a school determines the friends you'll have, the teachers' you'll despise—or love—and even your career. I mean, what if you chose another school, made different friends that impacted the course of your life? All it takes is one simple decision, one direction: left or right—which path do you take?

I suppose I should be grateful. I don't think I could have found better friends than Fletcher and Chelsea.

I don't deserve them and I've tested their patience well past the point most people would give up. It's a miraculous, ludicrously stubborn thing. They won't give up on me even though I'd already given up on myself. Accepted I was drawn to that poison, digging my finger deeper into that thorn, watching blood spill and smiling like it didn't fucking matter. Here I sit, finding it harder to hold onto anything real, letting depression claim me, feeling numb, feeling too many things too strongly—or nothing. Things couldn't possibly be worse for me, and I look back to that first turning point. I mean, the exact instant. Where the crossroads presented themselves and I chose the road—whether that was agreeing to go to the pub on a school night with Fletcher, or accepting Kaylee's number—that ended with me here, sitting in hospital, no friends besides me, the addiction threatening to swallow me whole, and the cold guilt knowing someone very dear to me is dying in this very same building. And here I am wallowing in a cesspool of my own making. They don't know that yet. It would break them.

Everyone makes a big fuss about who you are, that you're growing into the person you're meant to be, experimenting and making mistakes. They allow you to fall, only so long as it doesn't hurt anyone else. I've hurt too many; I've shattered trust and I know I'm sick at heart. I'm toxic, not the cigarettes, the drugs. Me.

I was selfish, and I put my own dreams ahead of those I cared about, and they're paying a far greater price than me. Can things be fixed...? I just don't know, but maybe looking back, you can decide where I could have made the right decision, and led to the happy conclusion. If it exists.

Or was I always destined to fuck everything up...? To aim for perfection, that pure note, and only find my life falling to shambles like those who fly too close to the sun, never once considering how those below would be affected by my fall.