Love Song (LGBTQ+) (COMPLETED)

29. Finder

As I headed back towards the building, I could hear Jay's shoes faintly squeak against the grass behind me. After telling him that I blamed myself for what happened to Grace, he hadn't said another word to me about it or anything else, for that matter. There was only silence as we headed back up the grassy trail that would eventually lead back to a concrete path. I didn't have a word to say, and neither did he, by the sound of it. There was no reason to force a conversation. At least we had that in common.

Then he opened his mouth.

"You have some serious potential with that singing." he continued at his own pace as I ever so slightly sped up. "It's unique. I think people would enjoy it, labels too."

With slowly widening eyes, I stopped myself in my tracks and turned to find him right behind me. Stopping much in the same way I had, his hair bounced backwards and revealed a pair of sharp, cold eyes staring right at what was originally my back. Seconds passed before his eyes slowly traveled up from my chest and back at my own. He remained still, the only movement was the stark smirk spreading across his face.

"You're joking." yet another deprecating smile adorned my face. "Even if I want to be, I'll never have the same talent that you or her have."

"Bullshit. You just a need a little bit of work in places and you're in the studio recording." Jay gave a light laugh, slowly walking past me as his eyes searched the greenery around us. "Guitar isn't that hard once you start picking up the fundamentals."

"Oh, yeah? Then teach me what she didn't." I slowly spun as I followed his leisured movements.

Jay stopped a few feet ahead of me and just seemed to look around him to take in the nature, the fresh air. Dressed in a white tank top and a pair of way-too-tight black jeans, it became clear just how thin Jay was. He was all bone and no meat, just like I imagined a starved child to be, yet he consistently ate twice as much as I did while I had been in this place. Maybe he was just one those people who never gained weight, but he still bordered on looking unhealthy either way.

Grace had always thought I was one of those people, but I wasn't. I just watched every piece of food that went into my mouth, I just watched every last calorie that entered my body. While I never made myself throw up like some of the girls I had heard about at school, I put my body through hell exercising every day to stay in shape for her. Maybe she knew and decided to play the fool, but it hadn't changed the fact that I would've done it either way. No matter what she would've said. It was worth doing if it was for her.

"Sure." Jay's head fell over his shoulder, smiling. "It ain't gonna be easy, though."

Opening my hand, I was just then hit with the realization that it would probably be a couple days before I could touch a guitar as pain blasted through my fist and even a touch into my wrist. While I was pretty sure I sprained my right hand pretty badly, I never actually asked Rebecca. All she had done was go into a bit more detail about what I did to Lucas, and reasons that it may have happened.

She also told me more about the therapy, which started with the breathing exercises. She said that meditation was an option to look into, but told me that she was going to save it for when she had more time to show me. It was in the middle of her explaining the last breathing exercise that her phone rang and she got frantic. After telling me that we would continue a bit later, she pulled me out of her office and took off somewhere with her purse.

That was how I found myself on the dock, alone and trying my absolute best to deprecate myself in every way imaginable. There were points in that past year where I genuinely hated myself for the littlest things, and when everything else failed to work, I found myself back in the arms of the drugs that so openly accepted me. I found myself being taken in and away by heroin, that beautiful feeling of happiness. That feeling of numbness. They became my temporary utopia.