To the Beat of My Heart

Take Me Back

It's daylight. A white roof greets me. The smell of antiseptic and lemon prickles against my nostrils. I got to know this smell really well when I camped outside of Clay's room waiting for him to recover from his overdose. He was only eighteen, a kid, and our future was so fucking bright. We had our shit, drama fit for Netflix. And still, I feel like those were my innocent days, the naïve bloody child I was back then. I want his stresses and anxious episodes. That Fletcher doesn't find himself exactly where his boyfriend was when once upon a time, he swore he would never be that stupid or selfish.

I feel eyes on me and ever so slowly I crane my head to the left. Framed in bright white sunlight, Clay is sitting hunched forward, hands linked, arms propped up on his knees. He's looking right at me. Everything inside me screams, then it crashes.

I drop my head back on the pillow and close my eyes. I wish this were a dream.

"Fuck," I finally manage. "How utterly pathetic. What a strange bloody reversal..."

"I," Clay starts, voice cracking. "didn't, like... fucking hell, Fletch." He's crying now. My heart breaks, just a little. "Why did you fucking do this to me? Not this, anything but fucking this."

"Are we..." I lick my lips. "uh, talking about the drugs or...?"

Clay just stares for a good while. Then he shakes his head and slumps back in his chair, biting at his thumbnail.

"I was so scared," I say, "so fucking scared that you were, like you were spiralling back and..."

"No. Never. Fuck that. Fuck. That."

"Kai really was looking out for you."

"This..." His smile is all crooked and wrong. "This isn't about... Look, Kai was playing with fire but he saw that. Ansel helped him see that. He was trying to do better. But me... I'm good. You... I don't know who the fuck is laying on that bed. 'Cause it sure ain't hell the guy I love."

"No. I don't think I've been that guy for a long fucking time."

The look he gives me is heartbreaking. Though I imagine he's receiving the same despair plain as day on my mug.

"When did we become...?" Clay drops that line of thought, shaking his legs anxiously, almost stomping. "It really is like fucking symmetry, an echo. All it took was one pill for me and now the bloody same deal for y—"

"You had a lot more shit going on. All those toxins in your body. The heavy drinking. Barely eating. You were a mess. You looked like death. It's a fucking miracle you... you survived."

The tears fall freely. Clay just looks tired now.

"I don't even recognise you," he sobs. "Taking some fucking... shifty-ass pill—no fucking clue what's in it. If I hadn't come back when I did..."

"You found me...?"

"Yes." Clay sits forward, arms folded across his chest. His legs have stopped shaking now. "I came back to see you. I found you writhing on the floor, foam in your mouth. A look of death in your eyes. I lost it..."

I can't speak to Clay for a long time. I let him sort through those emotions, let that heaviness sit in the air. After a while, Clay sighs and I start to put some words together.

"I, like... this, us... I failed you. In so many ways. You're right. I don't even know who the fuck I am anymore. Everything I did... It was a fucking cry for help. I'm so much more fucked up than anything you saw on the surface. I have no fucking excuses for any of it. I have to live with that. And I—I'm sorry I did this to you. I'm sorry I'm not good enough for you. I can't... I can't be here anymore.