Fall For You ~Muke Clemmings~

Chapter 35

I don't remember what it was like before Michael. I don't remember what it was like to feel so happy yet so alone. For a while, I felt so isolated and I felt so... hated. By everybody. And it has been three weeks. Three whole weeks since Michael left me alone with a bleeding wrist in my room. His number has been disconnected. I felt more alone than I ever have. So, I make a cut a day. Tallying the days since I fucked up. It may be hard to understand, but I have 23 tallies on my arm. 

I got out of the taxi I was in and looked at the nice brick building surrounded by a large, dark green field in the night. I walked up to the doors, opening them and seeing one woman at a desk. She was a resource person, meaning if family visited she had to guide them to a specific room. "Hi..." I said awkwardly as the woman, who was frantically gathered her belonging, glanced up at me.

"Look, I am out for the day." She tells me bluntly, throwing her purse over her shoulder. 

"Michael Clifford. Look his name up. You don't have to guide me. Just tell me what dorm." I begged of her.

And she did just that. She must have detected the sorrow that I had in the tone of my voice. Third floor, dorm 3-21." She tells me. "Now I have to go. Good luck." She nods, closing down the computer again and scurrying out of the building.

I walked the clean hallway. I walked up a couple flights of stairs, my stomach aching. I haven't eaten in five days. Five days and I want to keep that going. What if he was turned off by my body? I needed to be skinnier. I have gained weight since high school, and when he found the opportunity to get away; well, he took it.

3-17, 3-19, 3-21. It was on the right. I knocked on the door hesitantly and I am greeted immediately by the familiar boy with the skunk hair. The smile he had fades and he just looks at me with surprised green eyes. "Luke." He says. I look in his room and see a a beautiful brunette, looking at us with sparkling blue eyes.

Could just be a friend.

"I thought... I thought I made it clear that I didn't want to see you again." Michael told me.

I closed my eyes, my tired eyes burning and my heart falling. "Why." It wasn't even a question. It was more a question for myself. Wondering what I did wrong. So my why was a statement. My voice cracked and a lump formed in my throat.

He shook his head, a couple tears falling from his eyes as well. "I-um, I couldn't. I just... I have been dealing with it for months. I needed... I couldn't..." He tries explaining the situation to me. "Why do you look skinnier? Have you been eating?" He asks me.

I shook my head no. "How long has it been?" 

"Five days. Before that I cracked and ate a piece of cheese. I have eaten maybe 10 times since you've been gone. And they have been small. I thought that I needed to be better for you." I told him, my head falling as my blurry eyes looked at the ground. 

"This is what I mean! You know what, I have moved on! Already. I wasn't happy. Not anymore. I thought I could be. When I thought all of this was over. But it isn't over. I can't deal with it Luke! I want you to meet Kai. She's my new girlfriend!" He yells at me. Kai comes to the doorway, giving me a sympathetic look as she puts her arm around Michael.

Have you ever been in such hurt that you could hear your earth shattering around you? Like all the pieces you have put together, just breaking? Like glass hitting the floor. It was loud and it caused your ears to ring. At this moment, I couldn't cry. I came here because I needed to see him. But seeing him broke me. It broke me because he was with somebody else. Like I meant nothing to him. "I didn't mean anything?" I asked him with teary eyes.

"You did. But I can't... Kai has only been my girlfriend for two days. She hasn't run off and self-harmed when I got mad. She can take a joke." He snaps.

I felt that hatred. The hatred I felt a couple months ago, when he sat with me while I cut my food into pieces. The coldness. The numbness. "A joke? Like the one... like the one to ask me out for money? The one where you recorded me? Threw a drink at me? Pretended to care about me?" I questioned. I shoved him roughly as he stumbled into his room. "Like what fucking joke Michael? The one where you bullied me everyday? Was that fucking funny?" I asked, shoving him again.

"Let's not forget 'Gay Boy'. That one was a great joke. Everybody fucking hated me!" I screamed, shoving him again.

"That's enough!" Kai screamed. She pushed me away from Michael but I pushed her right back. She stumbled and fell onto the floor. 

I laughed a bit and turned back to Michael. I felt the hatred. I felt the numbness. "The fucking joke where you wanted to hurt me? Where you beat me up but showed up at my house later? Like when you kissed me? Was it all a fucking joke?" I asked. My volume declined as I just broke into heavy sobs.

"Did you think it was funny, Michael? When I cut myself because you made me hate myself? When I cut myself because I had bruises all over me because people hated me? Or when I starved myself because you made me feel like I would never be good enough?" I asked him multiple different questions. He seemed as if he was at a loss for words.

"Was it funny when you made me fall for you?"

"Kai, leave." Michael told his 'girlfriend'. 

"But Michael-" She began protesting to his request.

He rolled his eyes and said, "Stop being a clingy bitch. Get out." 

"You know what? I don't care, you seem like a psycho anyway. A gay psycho may I add. Bye Clifford." She snapped, getting up off the floor and grabbing her bag. She walked past us like a pretentious whore and slammed the door behind her.

We stood in silence for a minute. Tears were falling from his eyes too. "I couldn't... Luke... That's not what I meant. You know that, and you know that well. I couldn't handle it anymore. I had to get away." Michael told me.

"So you disconnect your number?" I asked.

He let out a loud cry. "I knew you'd be calling me. I needed... time." He told me.

Michael moved towards me and lifted up my sleeves. "Are those tally marks?" He asked me, a couple tears falling from the tip of his nose onto my arm. 

"Does it matter?" I questioned him.

He pushed me up against the wall. "What are you going to do, Michael? Hit me? Call me gay boy? Hurt me? Do something!" I screamed.

Michael leaned in and our lips connected once again for what seemed like forever. Our lips were quivering from us crying as our salty tears mixed as our faces touched. The pieces re-winded back into place and the shattering of the glass seemingly never happened. "Promise me." He ordered.

I didn't say anything. "Fucking promise me you'll toss away your razors. Fucking promise me you'll never break another one apart. Promise me that you'll eat a decent amount and be a healthy weight. Fucking promise me." He mumbled, our lips still close to each other.

"I promise." I whispered.