Invisible

You Did This

The car ride home is sickening. I keep opening the door and gagging onto the street at stoplights, but I don't actually vomit again. When we finally pull into our driveway, Dad can be clearly seen watching TV in his room upstairs.

Chris turns to me and says, "Don't make any noise when you get inside. We'll to into the basement and we can talk. But we have to be quiet."

I nod, and sloppily unbuckle my seat belt after four tries. 

As we step out of the car, he grabs my arm and helps me into the house, opening the door with one hand as to not drop me. We make our way to the basement, and he sits me down on the floor. I start telling him about tonight, and start sobbing again.

He moves so he is sitting right next to me and puts his arm around my shoulder. "I know it sucked but please stop crying. You're going to make Dad come down."

I try and stop crying, but I can't. So I cover my mouth to try and at least make my sobs quieter. 

"Chris, everyone knows I'm gay now. It's not fair. I don't even know if I'm gay." I mumble. He wraps his arms around me, and I bury my face in his chest, crying even harder.

"Hey, Connor, it's going to be okay. Everything will be fine." He lets me out of the hug, and we both lean against the wall.

"I don't want to talk about me anymore. I'm sick of my life. Do you have anything you want to tell me? I can't promise I'll have good advice, I'm drunk as fuck."

He lets out a chuckle and sighs. He doesn't say anything, but even in my drunken haze, I can tell he wants to. 

"You know you can always talk to me right?" I ask him.

"You have enough going on. I don't need to put my problems on your shoulders too."

"You can talk to me. I mean it."

There's a pause. "Its just hard. To see you with all your friends, being invited to parties. I don't have that. And I don't get how you got that and I didn't. And somehow, you're a jock, but you're still caring and sweet. I don't get you Connor. You're like the epitome of perfect. And I'm just that brother of the popular kid who doesn't really have friends or go out much."

"But you're always going to parties and hanging out with friends."

"I tell you I am so you don't think less of me. I'm the older brother, I should be doing what you're doing. Whenever I go out, I drive to the lake."

"The only lake around here is 45 minutes away, though."

"I like the drive. I get in the car, and listen to music. Not thinking about how shitty my life is, just listening. And when I get to the lake, I do nothing but think. A few times I've contemplated jumping in. And not coming out."

Suddenly, after hearing those words, I feel more sober and awake than if I actually were sober.

"You don't actually want to kill yourself, do you?"

I look over to him, but he avoids my eyes. 

"You would just leave? Without even leaving a note, or anything."

"Leaving a note is selfish. It blames other people for what the writer chose to do. Leaving a note makes it about revenge. It's bullshit."

"But we wouldn't know where you were!"

"Good."

It goes silent again. He stands up and walks up the basement steps. I hear loud footsteps walking through the kitchen, and up the stairs. I hear his bedroom door close.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Time Skip~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My Dad lightly shakes my arm to wake me up. He asks me, quietly, "Hey, if you're going to school today, it's time to get up. But if you want to skip one more day you can. Tomorrow you're going back though. You're not skipping three days in a row."

I groan and roll over. No way in hell am I facing school any time soon. He gets the message and closes the door behind him on the way out.

I wake up an hour later, my mind still spinning with everything that happened at the party. Without really knowing what I'm doing, I take out my phone and start texting Ethan.

C: Hey

The word read appears beneath the text, but he doesn't answer. I text again.

C: Ethan, I'm sorry

C: Please answer

He keeps reading the messages but still won't respond.

C: We need to talk

Finally, he starts typing.

E: No we don't. Stop texting me. It's pointless anyway. Bye.

I don't quite understand what he means, but I get the message that he doesn't want to talk, so I put my phone away. Suddenly, the room feels really stuffy and I can't breathe, so I put on clothes and go to get some fresh air outside.

As I slip on my shoes, I call to Chris, "I"m going for a walk," and slip out the door.

I find myself walking in the direction of Ethan's house. As I approach his street, I contemplate turning back around, so he doesn't see me. He obviously doesn't want to ever see me again so I shouldn't bother him. But I'm pulled in the direction of his house by blue and red flashing lights and loud sirens coming from behind me. I follow them, gradually starting to run as I get more nervous the closer they get to his house. When I see the police cars already stopped in front of his house I break out into a sprint.

I reach his house a few minutes after the ambulance does. The paramedics are already making their way into his house, and I see his mother in hysterics on the front porch.

"What happened? Is everything okay?" I call to her. She looks up at me, mascara, lipstick and tears smudged all over her face.

"Who are you?" she asks, still sobbing.

"I'm Connor. Ethan's... uh... friend from school."

She stands up, storms over to me and puts her face an inch from mine. 

"You're not his friend! You did this to him! You're the reason he stopped eating, and talking, and slit his FUCKING WRISTS TRYING TO KILL HIMSELF! YOU DID THIS! GET THE HELL OFF MY PROPERTY!"