From The Start (George Daniel/Matty Healy)

6: did i ever mention that I'm really bad at coming up with chapter titles

Matty found himself awake at half past five that morning: at first, pulled awake by the cold chill coming in through the window, and the way that George had stolen most of the blankets.

George. George, who lay asleep in the bed beside him - it was that which kept him awake - that which kept his mind fixated, and his heart thudding in his chest, quickly pulling the rest of his body and mind into gear, as he continued to lay there, no longer quite so cold, but frozen - unable to move, pinned down against the mattress, beside the uncontrollably shaking sensation in his legs.

He let out a gasp of breath: cold air cutting into his lungs like shards of ice, because as he lay there, to breathe, to live felt like to die. He needed to get up, he'd needed to remember how the fuck to move, to get out of there whilst he was still alive, and rejoin reality perhaps forty five minutes later with his head spinning against the hard tiled bathroom floor.

He didn't want to admit that it was George that held him there, still in bed, but there was no way around the fact that he was. He didn't want to admit that, he didn't want to let himself blame George for the way his own fucked up head worked, for the way he only ever could see the worst in things, and how, all of a sudden, the comfort he'd found in George and coming to terms with one another felt like fucking poison, because it was different this time around, this was his own room, this was his own space, for him to wake up early and destroy his whole world in his own company.

Because he wanted to leave, he wanted to lock himself away and break out in a fit of tears, but it was George's presence in the bed beside him that kept him there, almost tied down, trapped inside himself, but of course, that didn't put an end to the way he felt inside, and in fact, things only seemed to get worse as they lay hidden inside himself: growing too large for the parts of his head in which they were kept, and growing close to consuming his whole mind.

And there was a part of Matty that was very prepared to lie back and let that happen - let the whole world crash over him, let the darkest corners of his mind consume his own being, and resorted to sitting in corners of rooms for hours, and locking doors behind him even if there wasn't anyone on the other side. And he knew that was what he would have done just a week ago, and as he had done many times previously, as he'd spent the past four months in the same kind of state, subdued mostly, but always there, always ready to pull him down to the deepest, darkest corners of himself.

And if Matty was being honest with himself, the only thing that kept him from just letting those feelings drown out and destroy every hopeful part of himself, was George, beside him in bed, as in this case, he was the root of the problem, yet also part of the solution. Along with George himself, it was the promise he'd made and how hopeful they'd seemed last night as Matty laid every part of himself out before him, and pulled himself together to the extent where he found himself comfortable with the notion of going out and talking to people again, and maybe he had last night, but he found himself unable to keep that promise even through to the sunrise, and when morning really became morning.

That side of himself was okay - that was the Matty that had everything together, that had hours to think over the world, and think of the worst possible outcome and finally come to conclude that the choice he was making wasn't nearly as bad. That side of him was okay, but forced, not as it seemed, and that side of him was perhaps only available for a couple of hours a day.

It was the rest of Matty that wasn't - the side of Matty that found himself waking up in the early hours of the morning, suddenly unable to breathe, jumping to regret every decision he had ever made with a dozen invisible hands squeezing tight around his windpipe and a dozen more wrapped tightly around his legs, holding him down to the bed.

He needed to breathe.

That was the first thing he needed, and something he couldn't deny - he needed to breathe, but with the way he lay, it was almost as if he'd forgotten how, almost as if every part of his mind had faded away, and everything he'd ever known faded out into nothingness in comparison to the sheer scale and power held in the heavy thudding of his heart in his chest.