The Process of Losing & Gaining

2.Choose My Company

It's been two weeks since I first met the band and, with the exception of Jaime, they understood I was a little stand off-ish. Jaime honestly had the same stubbornness that caused me to be friends with Mike. Mike never gave up and always stuck his nose in my business even though it didn't belong. Theoretically, Mike forced his way into my life, found a not so cozy, but still more cozy than the rest of the wasteland that is my life, and curled up in it until death. The thing that held me back from Jaime was that he didn't know my story. I didn't want anyone to know. I hardly wanted to know. It was hard enough that Mike had to know.

I couldn't stop thinking about how stupid I was for letting Jaime get so close so fast. I was going to have to fix that. I couldn't let him in. He was intoxicating and I didn't like it. I didn't like that he made me feel. Sometimes, when I didn't want to feel, I'd lay awake at night and listen to my music so loud it was a deafening roar. The best feeling in the world is when you shut the music off and you lie perfectly still, there's a numbness that compliments the silence. Even though I had no music playing and I was burning my cigarette, I felt the overwhelming numbness that I'd come to find comforting as I sat on the back balcony to my apartment. The sun was falling again. I had made it through another Saturday of the thoughtless numb I tend to feel.

"Hey, this seat taken?" Mike didn't wait for an answer since it wasn't really a question. He leaned over so that our shoulders touched and he pushed me a bit. He never really knocked or asked for seats, not even shot gun, it was just already his. I guess that's why I eventually gave into him. I was already his friend before I chose to be.

"Hey." I was still zoned out. I honestly didn't want to zone in. Zoning in meant thinking and I hated that. I tend to over think and then I just end up upsetting myself because of the past.

"You don't have to be friends with my friends if it makes you uncomfortable." It doesn't, it scares me.

"I know." I bluntly stated. I was terrified to admit I liked them and that I wanted them in my life.

"They are good guys." I already love them so much but letting more people in meant more people to hurt me.

"I know."

"Please don't say 'I know' anymore." I finally turned to look him in the eyes. He looked concerned. Mike is always concerned for me.

"I won't." I faked a smile up at the only face I knew everything about, like that he knew when I was faking it.

"Good." He lit his own cigarette. I looked into the eyes of the only friend, no, family I had left. I wondered how he would look if he knew I didn't want to be here. The one thing I regret most is hiding my cuts from him. His brother has done the same and he knows I've done it before. When he found out about his brother, he ended up in a bad place. I loved him too much to see him hurt like that again. And to know it was my doing? I'd rather die.

"I'll be right back." I told Mike. My phone had started ringing. It was an unknown number. "Hello?" I answered, walking inside my apartment and shutting the glass door.

"Iris!" Their voice was stressed but unmistakable. "Please don't hang up on me." I hadn't spoken to my mother since she dumped me in rehab. I hadn't spoken to anyone I had known before rehab. When I got out Mike let me crash in his room in secret for a little but eventually I started working twenty four seven at any job I could, mostly under the table, and I saved enough money to get my own place. It was crappy and so close to my first home that it made me uncomfortable the first few months but a place of my own was what I needed and I wasn't going to pass one up.

"Why shouldn't I?"

"I'm your mother." She seemed unsure if that was the right answer. It wasn't. I didn't think of her as my mother. She never took the time or effort to understand me.