Before the Rain

Nine: So I Think We Should Just Let This One Take Care of Itself

We had finished eating dinner about an hour and a half ago, and Adam, much to my surmise, still hadn't left yet.

We were watching a movie in my room, some indie film he had picked; I wasn't paying attention.

There was some kind of an awkward and definitely uncomfortable tension between us in which I created.

I just fucking had to kiss him.

"You like it so far?" He asks me, otherwise completely ignorant to the fact that I had violated any kind of professional and platonic relationship in which we had had. Was he seriously alright with this?

"Yeah I guess," I mumble away from him.

He positions himself closer towards me, his leg brushing up against mine.

I made an obvious effort to focus my attention on the movie, but Adam kept fucking getting closer and closer. Eventually I end up accepting it, relaxing a bit against him. Despite my raging paranoia, self-defiling consciousness, and the overall suicidal tendencies, I was content with whatever was happening now.

He was too, perhaps, because not a few more minutes into the movie he slowly leant his head on my shoulder.

I felt my face flush immediately, a warm and consuming feeling, countering that of the usual cold and stolid apathy. The central idea of it all was actually leading to my inevitable loneliness. And how foolish am I to think that anyone could ever actually like me, or want to be around me. Keeping each other warm, not only physically but also emotionally. It's emotional because everything I have always ever known is of being alone, and the sharp uninhabited chill that comes along with it. No one holds you when you're of my mental state. Of course they trick you into thinking that you aren't alone, and that you'll always be warm and that you can persevere through shitty days. But eventually those occasional "shitty days" become shitty weeks and months and years and decades and now I'm seventeen and I've already tried to kill myself twice. Only twice.

I want to try again so desperately, but now I've got two things holding me back from doing what I want: unavailability of necessities, self-doubt, self-condemnation, and Adam.

I put my inconveniences at the top of the list solely because I am afraid Adam will get there in a small matter of time. I don't think I'd be able to handle that, as if I am already doing a great job of that now, but I just can't fucking stop. I forbid myself to listen to any sort of rational part of my mind in case I decide to live. After all, it tends to always be mind over body for myself.

I don't expect things to be any different to be honest, but at the same time, there's this annoying hope in the back of my mind that's making itself more prevalent everyday.

❧

I sat in my public-forum speech class a bit weary and unresponsive, as opposed to my usual oh-so-vibrant demeanor.

A boy named Scott sat next to me, always breathing out of his mouth in a rather truculent way. He would attempt to talk to me occasionally, just as a means of getting the homework, but today nothing was said.

In fact, the entire room was under some sort of a strange and anomalous silence.

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, glancing around the room in search for some kind of sign that I am in fact still alive. Was this a way of telling myself that I did want to be alive after all? Definitely not. The paranoia and anxiety was just making its usual appearance.

Although, I needed some sort of background noise to distract from my always wandering mind. Without something to complain about; such as generic teenagers discussing parties or whatever else they're into. I needed something to consume the emptiness.