Daily Malec Fix (Wattys 2017)

9. Don't Show the Pain

Answer: Listen to music and write or read. Or if I really need to block it all out I watch a show and read/write at the same time so I really can't focus on what happened. Sometimes I write the scene out of what would help me get over it or create a dark story like this that slowly gets better.

Magnus slammed the front door and stomped up the stairs to his room.

"Magnus is that you?" His mom called out cheerfully. Magnus wanted to torch that annoying voice. How could she be happy while he was more upset than he'd ever been? He felt worse than he did that night even, almost. Honestly, he'd never feel worse than that night.

"Magnus, sweetie. Dinner's almost ready." His mom said not giving up.

"I'm not hungry." Magnus called.

"Magnus, I may be the sick one but you need to eat too." She walked up behind him and placed her hand on his shoulder. "What's going on, honey?"

"Nothing. I'm just tired." He didn't look at her before running up the rest of the stairs and slamming his door.

"I'll put your plate in the microwave!" His mom called out and he groaned. She didn't deserve his anger; none of this was on her. He paced his room for a couple of minutes to calm down and then gave up and punched the punching bag he had in his room. He kept punching until his knuckles bled and then finally felt the anger leave his body.

He left his room and put on a smile. "Sorry, Mom." He kissed her bald head and took the pot of spaghetti from her hands.

"Do you want to talk about it?" She asked him and touched his bleeding knuckle.

"Do you want to talk about your last appointment?" He countered her question.

"I'll just get the alcohol and a couple of band aids." She ruffled his green hair and gave him a sad smile. "One of these days you're going to have to tell me what's going on."

"And one of these days I will." Magnus drained the water from the pot and put the spaghetti into a bowl. "Are we having guests?"

"Jocelyn and Clary are coming over. They should be here any minute." She said from the hallway where they kept the first aid kit along with the basket of pills she had to take for her treatment. The irony wasn't lost on him that she was the one who was sick while he was the one who wished that he could leave the world.

She was the sweetest person he had ever known and yet her own body was trying to kill her and the only explanation the doctors had was that life is fucked up. But didn't Magnus already know that; if life were anything else he wouldn't have been left on a church doorstep in nothing but a felt blanket in the middle of December. The therapist told him that Lucy finding him had to be proof that life wasn't all bad, but he fought the idea by saying that it was yet another cruel trick for him to lose another mom.

"Honey, I'm home!" Clary sang as she danced into the kitchen, sliding on the tile in her socks.

"Hello, darling." Magnus kissed her cheek and gave her a tight squeeze then nodded at her mom. "Jocelyn."

"Look at your hands." Jocelyn took his hands in hers. "You need to stop doing this to yourself."

"I just got lost in the workout." He shrugged, uncomfortable from the look that Jocelyn was giving him. Being an artist, she seemed to see into his very soul with a simple glance let alone a deep stare. He worried that she could see how loosely he was clinging to life.

"Jocelyn, how are you?" Lucy walked out with her hands outstretched and a beanie covering her head. One thing the doctors never tell you when you lose your hair is that not only will you not have hair, but your head is going to look like a boulder. His mom was self-conscious about the bumps and freckles so she often covered it with a scarf or hat. She had a wig but it gave her a rash from scratching and the heat.