Cuts and Bruises (ON HOLD)

Chapter Two: Trust

Now things never happen very quick for me, especially in the concepts of trust. It took me about five months to ever open up to my best friend. So I think it should go without saying it was even harder to open up to a guy. He didn't even know my last name for three weeks, for God's sake.

So sullenly, I drove over to his house for the third time this week to study. I rang the doorbell and knocked softly; I still wasn't sure if I was welcome. I never really was so I guess you can see why. Footsteps shuffled; his mom came to the door. She sighed and yelled up the stairs, "Blaze! Your study date is here!" I stepped inside an inch, "Oh, I'm not his date," I said quietly, realizing she wan't listening.

I walked up to his room and knocked. He opened the door and sat right back down, "English first. I'm sucking at this book report." He ruffled his wavy hair. That was what we did for the next hour and a half. I talked about the book; he wrote about the book. He never asked anything more about me. That was, until we were done.

"So," he said, "tell me one thing about you, Something at least remotely personal, please." I rolled my eyes, "Fine. Um..." I sat there for a minute, not knowing what to say. I wanted it to be personal, but at the same time I didn't.

"I'm not normal. At all," I said, looking down. "You're normal." he said nonchalantly. "Yeah. I'm normal. I'm normal for crazy and depressed and socially awkward. I sit in my bathroom floor. Just sit and listen to music because I feel like that's where I belong. I don't belong out there with other people. They're too normal for me. They're too perfect, too.. not me."

"You are the perfect amount of you and none of those people are like you because they shouldn't be."

"You don't understand," I said after a minute. "What? What is it I don't understand?" He was pleading now. "Any of it," my voice cracked because I was close to tears. Oh great, I'm going to open up and then cry, Perfect. Good job, you look weak and crazy now, I thought. I stood up only for him to pull me back down.

"Then explain." His voice was soft. But it was hard, like always.

That's the thing about him. I've only known him for about three months and I can tell so much about him. He's everything and he's nothing. He's the same and he's consistent but he's always different. I have no idea what he is. He's just... he's Blaze. That's all and everything and the nothing that he is, He's everything I never imagined and I would never want him to be anything else.

"It's just.. I'm me. And that's about the only thing I don't want to be. I don't know why. I just hate being me. Everyone disagrees, they say I'm beautiful and I just cant see it yet. But that's never how I'll ever see it. I'm always going to feel worthless and ugly and fat and that's all I can do.

"I- I don't know what to say. I'm-"

He was about to say I'm sorry. I could tell, but I cut him off. I hate sympathy. I decided to quote a poem instead.

"From day one I talked about getting out but not forgetting about how my fears were letting out. They said 'Why put a new address on the same old loneliness when breathing just passes the time until we all get old and die?' Now talking's just a waste of breath and living's just a waste of death. So why put a new address on the same old loneliness? This is you and me and me and you until we've got nothing left."

And that was how I left him. Staring at me with his mouth open and I felt like I'd just let him into a piece of me few have ever seen.