I'm Not Okay (I Promise) • Geetrick

22

---Patrick---

Everything looks so far down.

Especially the street. It's like a small black strip the size of my thumb with tiny, tiny white specks lining the middle. Ants are walking the sidewalks, some wearing hats, some wearing hoods, some letting their hair flow in the soft autumn breeze. I wonder what they would do if I fell. No. I wonder what they will do when I fall. Will they stop or just keep going? Would anybody even care? No. Nobody cares about me. Nobody except Megan and even she's tired of me. I know it. I deserve this, and honestly, it's the first thing I deserved that I also want. I'm craving it. Just one step and I'll be falling, the wind whipping my hair. My hoodie possibly flying off and landing somewhere else. My fedora falling maybe ten feet away and my glasses glued to my face. My heart is racing. Am I really going to do this? Oh fuck, I want to... But what if Gerard does love me...? What if-

Stop.

Oh god. It's back.

Yes, I'm back you little whore. Just do it. You're such a fucking pussy.

I step up to the ledge. The thrill of it all is sending my heart pumping in my ears. I want to scream. Oh god. I'm going to die. I'm just going to kill myself. My eyes are wide as I take in my surroundings for the last time. The adjacent buildings. They're gray and worn out but much newer than my neighborhood. The white clouds in the sky. The occasional pigeon flying by and landing on the rooftop beside me. I look straight up into the sky, and I shut my eyes, but I don't dare fall. Not yet. I want to remember everything. I want to take in... Life... It's the last time after all...

The cracked pavement of my street is the first thing that flashes through my mind. It's a dark gray, not black, though. It's much too old to be black. I remember tripping over one of the larger cracks once. I was on a walk with Mom, and I didn't see it, so I ended up tripping and falling, landing on my hands and scraping them up pretty bad. I was... Four I think... She picked me up while I was crying salty, salty tears and even though the memory is slightly fuzzy, I remember her taking me home and cleaning me up while calming me down whispering, "It's going to be okay, Honey, shh, it's okay."

Kevin and I got along back then. He'd always tease me but in a big brother sort of way. He was always a lot of fun to hang around, and when Megan was born, he teased her more, and I honestly got a little jealous. I remember how he'd always blow a puff of air into my ear and make me squeal.

Then there was the time I got the talk. Crap, that was cringy. I remember running straight to my room and screaming into my pillow because I was so embarrassed. Dad was laughing his ass off the whole time, and Mom was there glaring at him with her light green eyes and huffing slightly. Megan and Kevin had been sent to bed early that night, but it didn't matter because they were soon awakened by my hysterical screaming.

Time passed. I grew a little more distant from Mom and, frankly, I felt guilty. I was spending more and more time with Pete, Brendon, and Joe. I laugh slightly to myself, my breath showing cloudy in the cold, late September air. I remember when I first met Joe. That was awkward, I was eight, he was seven, and we had both been dragged to the bookstore by our moms.

He was pretty outgoing and me, well I was shy. I'm still pretty fucking shy. I'd always hang out behind my mom's leg until she told me to go socialize. That day, though, she didn't push me to leave her side because she was looking through books. Then the next thing I know, though, this kid with short, curly brown hair comes sprinting at full speed down the aisle and stopping right in front of me. I was looking at him like he had just grown a horn from his forehead and you know what he did? He just got real close, my mom was completely oblivious, but he leaned into my ear, and he whispered five words which immediately sparked a friendship, "I really like your shirt."