From The Start (George Daniel/Matty Healy)

9: im rly gay for daughter

Sometimes the air got too much to breathe. Sometimes he forgot the most simple things. Sometimes he forgot the world, sometimes his head was in pieces and he had little idea as to how he might begin to put it back together. This night wasn't quite like that, though. This night was never ending, with twisting pathways leading to the corners of his mind he'd done his best to avoid, but here he was, and here he stood, watching the night grow darker still - sleepless, but content with it.

He could feel it happening again - slowly this time, as everything fell apart. He just wasn't quite so sure what to do about it, what to do with himself. This was definitely one of those instances in which he should wake George up - there was little question about that - there just a question about the fact of whether Matty wanted to or not. Whether he wanted to trouble George, whether he even wanted to voice the mess he'd twisted himself into out loud. It certainly wasn't that substantial - it meant nothing at all, it was simply parasitical, feeding upon itself and growing very quickly out of control.

There was nothing much to say, really, and Matty thought this ought to be the kind of thing he could deal with by himself. He chose to ignore the fact that it wasn't, and the simplicity in the matter that that fact really was a fact. Instead, he sat at his desk, opened the window away, listening to gentle sound of late night rainfall against the rooftop and the outside world, and light a cigarette, smoking it away as slowly as he could.

He let himself make the mistake of trusting his entire psyche to the packet of cigarettes left out on the table and the lighter he'd found by his bed. He reckoned it might have been George's lighter initially, but he came to conclude that it didn't really matter for all that much in the moment, and if George was sharing his bed in that very moment, then Matty could share his lighter.

There was something about their situation, and how everything had fallen together so carefully always seemed to catch Matty out, because everything was always just so natural, so gradual, like this was the only way things could ever be, that was until Matty took a step back, and looked at the man in his bed from someone else's eyes, that his head started to spin. He was quite unsure how they'd gotten here, and quite what that moment, because there was a certain something inside of him that really did demand that it meant something, and that he couldn't just leave it all be. Or perhaps that was just the situation, just the mess in his head, and the nicotine that was only helping him as much as it was tearing him apart.

He'd always thought this would be it. This would be how things got put together again. Matty had never imagined that he could possibly feel alone or feel empty with George asleep so peacefully in his bed, in the room they shared, in the house they lived in, with their lives that were now just so carefully intertwined like things had simply never been any different. But still, Matty sat awake, sat alone, with his head close to split right in two, onto his desk, to sound of raindrops and quiet little snores from across the room. He'd managed to lock himself up not just in the room, but in his own head. Perhaps there came a point where you'd breathed the same air so many times that it turned into poison, into a toxic nothingness all around you. Matty did wonder if that was the case, or if that was just his mind, or if he just needed a drink, or some fresh air, someone to talk to, or everything in the world all at once.

In the end he went for the easiest option - the one he could most put into action at that moment in time, and he did so by getting to his feet, grabbing a jacket from the floor, and making his way through the house and out of the front door. As he'd come to think of the miracles of fresh air and a simple change of scenery in a late night walk and how it might work to calm his thoughts, he'd come to neglect the rain, the cold, and the darkness of the very early morning sky.

Two was hardly the best time for a walk around the block, down a couple of streets, maybe to the twenty four hour shop round the corner, to buy something to pass the time, or as an excuse to send himself out in the rain, but Matty's mental breakdowns never did take the time of day and its convenience into account. Still, he had to be thankful that this was hardly the worst of them, as was proved in the fact that he could get himself to his feet and out of the front door in the first place. He chose to view it as a sign - that things were getting better, that there was hope after all, but deep down he knew that it was just luck, just down to the circumstance - nothing less, nothing more.