Fear To Live For

CHAPTER 7

  2 days ago

  I had lied to Jacob when I had said that I didn’t need the rush anymore. And from that very moment, I had set on trying to convince everyone of this lie. But it was hard. It still is. You can only force your mind to cooperate only to a certain extent before it gives up.

  I hid my injuries that day pretty well. My ribs were bruised badly and I rested as much as I could. In school, I behaved like I always did, sans friends of course. Not that it mattered. Everyone still avoided me like the plague whenever they saw me and it kept increasing the pull of depression to just give up. And nine days later, when the suspended trio finally returned acting like gods, and being treated such as well, that’s when the true bullying began. Dunking in toilets, targeting me for unnecessary reasons in P.E., ruining my locker so much that even janitor stopped cleaning it and keep filling teachers’ ears against me. Not that the last one really needed to be done either. In every possible way they could think of, they publicly humiliated me. And no one stepped to my defence because either they were too scared or thought I deserved it all.

  And when I returned home, it got worse. Threatening calls in distorted voices, hate messages, regular cases of vandalism and even sudden attacks just outside my home took place. The culprits were never caught and I couldn’t just point anyone out either because it could have been anyone from the sports teams. Not that anyone would have believed me either. Everyone kept pushing me away from them and others and slowly the pull of the idea of giving up finally won.

  Two days ago, in the morning, when I usually hurried off to school, I laid down in my bed with my eyes open and no other movement for hours. I kept staring at the art of the sky I had made on the roof of my room while redecorating. It looked just how it would on twilight from outside the window with birds and stars and stuff. It was the only thing that made me believe that I could really do things. But right then, it didn’t help at all.

  Dad finally came up when it was 8:01 AM in the alarm clock. School started at 8. “What’s up Andy? Why aren’t you off to school yet?” Maybe he didn’t realize it but I noticed how he talked to me as if this last month hadn’t happened. But it had. And I could never forget things I went through.

  “I can’t do it anymore Dad. I can’t. I don’t even want to live anymore.” My voice is low when I begin but it cracks as tears come out while I finish. Having lived with a less severe case of this, Dad immediately recognizes the signs of depression and takes his seat by my side.

  “So you finally broke.” Dad mumbles and I look away from him, trying to make myself believe that he didn’t mean it in a bad way. I don’t succeed. The only response in my head is that he now has proof that he was right. I really was depressed because I didn’t do that stuff anymore. And now he will scold me for being so weak. I swallowed a lump in my throat as I wondered how, if I can, I will deal with all that. And I realize I won’t. Maybe this really would ensure that I should just give up and spare him and Mom the misery. She calls me daily with some happy memory of ours to make me smile. It helped until the day she slipped up that she was talking to a psychiatrist on advice for her depressed son. After that, they just became another reminder of the pain I was causing them.

  “Andrew, you have a problem, you face it son. You don’t run from it. And these last few days, all you have done is run. I am surprised at how well you managed to hold on to maintaining your charade.” Even though a part of me notes that he doesn’t sound angry or cynical, I feel my feelings take a turn for the worse as the last words keep ringing out in my head. Staring at a ‘The Libertines’ poster I bought online, I ask him in a somewhat controlled voice, “When did you knew?”

  He strokes my head and slowly whispers, “I always did. You didn’t really expect to fake emotions at me, did you? You are so strong to have held out this long.” I wait for the other shoe to drop as I process the fact that he did have pride while saying that sentence. The other shoe better drops quickly, I pray. Because the longer he takes, the more it will hurt. And then a part of me wonders if that is what he really wants.

  “I know things haven’t been easy on you. Even I have noticed how they treat you. Which is why I tried to keep pushing you in their view so they just adapted and dealt with it. But it seems that people here are more stubborn than I thought. They still haven’t budged an inch and Simon’s confession hasn’t really helped too.” Here it is, I think as I try to control any tears from falling out. In indirect words, he had just said that his opinion towards me hadn’t changed yet. And they won’t change any time soon. I wonder what he will do now. Send me to a mental asylum? Or keep me in a strictly grounded? He wouldn’t try to get rid of me to save himself, would he?

  “Which is why, I made a decision to send you to your mothers’ a week ago. Everything was arranged on both sides, except the tickets.” He continues but I don’t listen anymore. He really is sending me away. This time, tears do escape as I lay on my bed, feeling worse with every passing moment. Maybe I would just sneak out tonight and jump from the edge of the falls to the rocks. That would finish me off.

  I am distracted from my thoughts when he wipes my tear away and says, “I don’t want to send you away either, Jonah, but I have to.” Oh so comforting lies. “I saw how much hurt you were on the first day back to school. But I didn’t know what to say, I was still so much hurt by your actions.” He knew and he didn’t do anything about it. “And now, to see you like this, I feel so helpless and lost in helping you, the only thing I can think of is how much a change in scenery would help.” To me or to your reputation? “It is cowardly of me to send you away but I don’t know how to make all this better to you.” I don’t either. Dying would be an escape though. “And your unwillingness to live right now? It scares me so much that I cannot even bear to leave this room.” Because you don’t want me to give up in your care.

  Fortunately, he runs out of words to further depress me. And then begins the awkward silence. He stares at his shoes while I look around the wall. The ‘collage’ wall of the pictures of our entire old group. My wardrobe which still has some clothes spilling out. The study table which has more fashion accessories on it than the books. And my painting stuff which I loved to do once but couldn’t even imagine lifting the brush anymore. Things that remind me of the life of another Andrew who lived here until a month ago. These things now haunt me. They make me hard to breathe as they keep reminding me of what I have lost.

  Thankfully, I hope, I am pulled from these thoughts by some knocking on my door. We both look at it in surprise when Kevin’s head pokes in and ask, “May I come in?” So formal. A detached part of me notes that being formal shows the distance we want to make with other people. After Dad nods, he enters immediately and asks, “Are you alright, Andy? You didn’t show up today.”

  Feeling all the pain and embarrassment I have been through at school come back at sight of him, I barely manage a neutral tone. “Leave”. Dad, thankfully immediately sensing I don’t want him around, says, “Kevin, could you come down with me for a moment? I would need a little help today.”

  The change in Kevin’s posture is immediate. I see how his easy-going persona dissolves into a serious mode. Thanks Dad. Have my breakdown posted in the newspaper, why don’t you? Still, Dad runs his hand gently on my forehead before he leaves the room. You just said you wouldn’t leave me Dad and yet you are leaving me all alone.

  I want to hear them but I am too scared to hear the hateful words he might say to Kevin about me which will forever scar my opinion of them both. If I hear something bad, I don’t know how I would manage. I contemplate lying down on my bed the whole day but my personal obsession of being clean wins out finally. By continuously repeating the mantra of ‘stay clean no matter what’ I force myself to brush my teeth and have a long cold shower. And I force myself to feel every single drop of water that falls on my body. To feel the coldness they bring. To feel the muscles relaxing under their steady flow. And when I am finally done, my depression hasn’t li
fted but I feel cleaner. Better.

  When I walk out, I feel like I had been in the shower for merely a few minutes and so am very surprised to see that I have been bathing for an hour. I think about lying down on the bed again but being that lazy has never been my preference. Looking around my room, I feel a need to try painting again. To paint the blue skies. To paint one of those ‘haunted’ Victorian mansion I had seen, but not entered, in Anacresia. So I walk to the blank canvas I set up a few days before the ‘attempt’, as I now call it. To make myself feel something, I run my hand over the paper and feel its texture on my hand. And then I look at my painting equipment kept nearby and am suddenly stuck by uncertainty. How do I begin?

  I consider starting with a blue colour for the sky in the background but then doubt creeps in and I wonder if I should start with the outline first. I usually don’t need it as I let the borders fade but at this moment, I feel a need to stick within the lines. And so grabbing a light 3H pencil, I began to draw its outline. But the pencil shakes in my hands. I can't even draw a straight line properly. As I kept erasing it, hopelessness and irritation began to grow within me. I noticed them both growing equally as I kept grabbing the pencil too tightly so that it almost broke or completely loosening my hand and almost letting it fall from my hands as if it had been somehow balanced for so long between my fingers but it was now lost.

  It must have been at most five minutes, but it felt like five hours had passed since I began and kept failing. Tears clouded my eyes and I finally grabbed the pencil so tightly that it snapped. And with it, I too somehow snapped.

  What followed it is a haze but I do remember screaming and throwing stuff around until Dad and Kevin physically restrained me until the haze cleared. When I observed the room, all I saw was a one big mess.

  Colours were covering the room in a non-artistic manner. The easel was destroyed so badly that I winced at the sight. The stuff on my tables were now everywhere on the ground and the large mirror was not so large anymore. In fact, I had some pieces embedded on my hands and I didn’t even feel them. The art at the roof of my room was now ruined with the stray colour attacks. My wardrobe held no clothes anymore. All of my stuff, in short, was thrown around as if a hurricane had gone through this place.

  It took some more time before I realized that Kevin and Dad were both speaking to me, trying to calm me down. And when I finally calmed down, for the while at least, they led me downstairs and while Kevin talked to me, Dad bandaged my hands. It wasn’t anything serious or recent stuff that Kevin talked about. Just instances of the past when we were kids, before having met any of the others. Trying to have them a little relaxed, I smiled and nodded and laughed but even I heard the fake quality my laughter possessed.

  “I won’t get through this here, would I?” I finally broke the ice, unwilling to delay this conversation any longer even though I wanted to. The school was over by now and I had no doubt that soon the hate calls would begin. I didn’t even realize I had been staring at the phone until Dad went over and disconnected it. Then I looked to Kevin and his sad expression and I wondered if I should have delayed further.

  “As much as I would like so, no. The people aren’t going to forget or let you forget all that has happened. And you need to forget and move on to heal, Andy. You have no idea how much this sucks to say to you but I want you to go. I want you to forget this, forget Witchbury Falls and forget… us.” His voice cracks as he says this to me and I realize I feel only sadness, no more anger or depression. Maybe that snapping did help me a little. Behind him, Dad, who was listening to our conversation with no pretence to let us think otherwise, stiffens and I try, but fail, to imagine the hurt he must be going through at hearing Kevin recommend me to forget about this town, his home, my home. But he doesn’t say a word to contradict him because he knows Kevin is right or maybe it is him who asked Kevin to convince me.

  “And I know this seems like way too much to ask but I want you to promise not to return here back for a very long time.” Kevin asks of me and this time the silent shaking of Dad’s shoulders is making it clear that he is crying. When Kevin wipes mine, I realize that so am I. But he still doesn’t object. So going against every part of me that lives and breathes freely in this small town, I promise him this. But my traitorous heart also makes a promise at that moment. To not let Kylie go.

  We go back to my room after, despite my protests, Kevin and Dad clean it up as best as they could and we all pack my stuff to take to Mom’s in Seattle. By the time we are truly done, it is dinner time. It’s a silent dinner that night between the two of us, as Kevin’s parents still don’t let him stay near me for long, as we both consider and try to accept the fact that this will be our last night together in this house. Dad reconnects the phone before going to bed and just as I change for the bed, another call comes.

  “Hey freak! You dead or something. I hope you are. If you aren’t, do us all a favour and then die!” It is followed by loud laughter and some background laughter. I hear it all through, trying not to let it get to me, before I hang up on them. Having spent the day with Kevin, I feel a little of my old self return as a prank comes to mind and when the caller calls again, no doubt completely angry, I respond in a quite perfect imitation of my father’s sad voice, “Hi, you reached Donald Peters. I…” I make a hitching sound, as if my throat is clogged with tears, and I continue, “… am very busy planning for my son Andy’s funeral. Please leave a message after the beep.” And then I make a beeping noise.

  I would have felt bad about spreading rumours of my own death but Kevin reasoned me that if these people had any soul inside them, then this would make them feel guilty. I only had to stay silent.

  “Holy- really? The fr- I mean, Peters’ dead?” I hear some sharp inhalations on the other side as the caller tries to come up with something to say. But I do not respond. I want to know how this person reacts to the news. “So how did he die? He commit suicide. That’s obvious, sorry. I mean how did he do it?” He sounds curious and amused and I know I am talking to someone inhuman. I hear some very low but stern voices and a part of me relaxes at the appearance of small, but now inconsequential, remains of humanity. Fortunately for me, since I couldn’t fake being a machine any longer, the caller hangs up.

  I wait for two minutes before I hear a loud thump from the back and Kevin rushes in, looking so pale that he might as well be a ghost. He has opened his mouth to speak, or scream my name probably, that he notices me and freezes with his mouth open. “Close your mouth Kev, flies will get in.” I joke and he finally releases a huge breath.

  With a smile, he speaks, “I just about had a heart-attack when Cam tweeted that you were dead.” I smile at his concern while a part of me mentally confirm that Cam was one of the hate-callers and was probably around when this was done. The phone rings just as Kev slaps me on the back of my head in a scolding manner and I immediately pick this up, making a guess on who it could be.

  “Andrew?” Kylie’s cautious voice asks into the phone and I mouth her name to Kev, who is silently sitting across me with a questioning expression. Kevin smiles and barely smothers a laugh as I repeat being a fake recorded message. As soon as I finish the beep, Kylie responds just how I expected her to.

  “Andy. You think this is a joke? And what was that trying to imitate your dad’s voice? You know you are a fail in faking emotions, don’t you? So what’s this tweet about? You played the same message to those idiots? Of course you did.” I had put her on the loudspeaker when she had started and both I and Kevin were holding our stomachs to hold in our laughters as she kept ranting on. “Stop laughing you idiot. And you too Kevin? Of course, it probably was your idea, wasn’t it?” She continues, completely annoyed by our laughter. “Imbeciles!” She screams before going silent, into pout mode.

  “Nope. Andy came up on this all on himself. I think I even hurt my knee when I jumped through my window when I got the tweet. Thank goodness this idiot’s father had given me a key today so that I could sneak in wi
th ease.” Kevin speaks up as he tries to control his laughter. “He was just getting back to Cam, and most likely Jacob and Simon, for all the hate calls they have been making and Cam freaked out. He never really was the brightest bulb in the group.” Outside, I hear someone knock on the door heavily and after quick goodbyes, I hang up and make Kevin leave.

  I may not know how to act in general but I do know how to fake being sleepy. And I use this talent to answer the door, only to find Mr and Mrs Simons at the door looking scared. Once they look at my sleepy appearance though, the scared look changes into a confused one. In my best sleepy voice possible, I speak, “Mr and Mrs Simons?” Cue one large yawn. “What happened? Is everything alright?” They both look at each other confused and then Mr Simons turns to me and says, “I heard that you were dead.”

  I almost dropped the act as I tried to act surprised. “What?” I spoke out loud, trying to maintain a sleepy quality in my voice. “It’s a lie. I am very much alive.” I let out to state the obvious before continuing the charade. “Would you like to come in? Dad might be awake yet. I could call for him if you want.” Then I made a show of turning around to call for Dad when Mr Simons held my arm gently and said, “it’s okay. Don’t worry Jonah. We can talk to Donald in the morning. Go to sleep son.” If nothing else happened by this, like destroying Cam’s credibility, at least I knew the Simons had recognized that what they had been doing was wrong and wouldn’t stop Kevin from seeing me again. With this hopeful thought, I went to sleep yesterday knowing that even though I have to leave tomorrow at dawn, I would have made even a little impact in healing the bridges.