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The night seemed to never pass, the hours strangely longer than normal almost as if to lengthen this torture even further. The cold breeze accompanied him as he brooded more and more hidden from the world and from prying eyes.
His hands were shaking as he held a cigarette in his left hand while his right hand was at chest level, massaging the area where he could feel his heart beating faster than normal hoping it would calm down at least a bit for him to take a breath complete without the shadow of the lingering pain that had been with him for so long now.
He almost no longer remembered what it was like to breathe normally without a boulder weighing down on his heart so much that it hurt with every breath.
His dark circles under his eyes, he wouldn't have been able to hide them even if he wanted to, and his eyes burned claiming a sleep that didn't come anyway. His head ached and there was a cold that had gotten right into his bones that he couldn't get rid of. His back ached from all the time spent hunched over drawing and the tiredness had now settled on his soul like a small cloud of smoke that wouldn't let him go.
It hurted to think and even speaking was difficult. He couldn't think of anything and when he spoke his tongue seemed to move more slowly, wasting minutes just to say a few words.
The world around him seemed to move in slow motion adapting to his feelings.
He hated asking for help but maybe he should have tried harder, maybe he should have asked the reason for those nightmares, those visions, that insomnia, that persistent tiredness, really, for everything at that point. The problem is that they weren't always visions and he couldn't always justify his insomnia with it.
It would have been nice to have coverage, right? Placing all the blame on visions that hit him three days a week instead of talking about his real problems.
Mentally he laughed at himself more than he should have. 'Look where I've gone' he thought to himself, his mind busy thinking about everything but his nightmares because his head couldn't shut up for more than five goddamn minutes to doze off at least a little, just a little, to allow him to pick up the pencil without the lines moving on the paper or without the room spinning in a worrying way that made him sick to his stomach every time.
He had finally really become the stereotype his father hated. Weird, weak, a monster whose sanity was scarier than the powers themselves, and apparently useless too. What was the use of his skills if he couldn't even draw anything that wasn't those damned visions that also attacked him?
He could already hear the taunts, the insults and the sarcasm thinly hidden behind his words at the mere thought. He wondered what he would do to him when they would be left alone.
'God, he's going to kill me as soon as we see each other.' He muttered softly, coming to this simple but clear conclusion with so much sarcasm that he finally wondered if there was even anything to laugh about.
Was he supposed to laugh? It was fun? He didn't understand, he just wanted to cry anyway.
He knew that was the truth though, his father was just waiting for his next move to judge him in the wrong way and at this point it could be anything. One argument, one bad grade, one competition gone wrong, a joke that would make him angry, hair still too long or sarcasm still too sharp and his semester would be over early and sent straight home with a master who could use corporal punishment because allowed by his father whenever he felt the need and that squeezed him out of his whole life. A master who, just as it happened when he was a child, would order him to make certain drawings after drawings only to get something out of them again and again.
And maybe that's why he was on the roof where he was sitting.
No, he didn't want to kill himself, he had too much hatred for something as cliché as suicide to actually do it but that wasn't really the point, right?
The point was, that roof wasn't very high. Not short, definitely not short, but if he fell he might even have a chance to survive, yet still he was dizzy, he was afraid of heights like that. He had always been terrified of them, even as a child. Yet, despite that, there he is. Funny, isn't it?
In reality he was only trying to punish himself in a subtle but effective way, in a way that would have been impossible to perceive to the external eye but that destabilized him so much that he stopped breathing every time he looked down or tried to move his legs and they dangled in the void below of him. He terrified him.
Only one person knew about it and that person now wasn't there.
It was a slow torture that he occasionally inflicted on himself. He didn't like to call himself a self-harmer, masochist or anything like that (that was actually more Wednesday's style) and his father was already thinking about hurting him thank you very much, but sometimes the voices in his head came to overwhelm everything and other times instead the silence only became more deafening every day and he felt he was just going madder therefore, almost as if to punish himself for this now that his father couldn't help not being there, he tried to hurt himself a little in other ways and mostly most seemed to work.
Trying to stay still so as not to fall on deaf ears and immobilizing his eyes in a precise point to prevent him from looking down helped him, he avoided thinking about anything else for a while. It allowed him to stay focused on something without going crazy.
It's not like he'd die to do it anyway. It wasn't something he risked his life with or actual physical pain but it was simply a way that allowed his heart to beat so fast for reasons other than usual, for reasons he felt were right. It was a way to finally be able to feel something.
Mental health? It was definetly a taboo in the Thorpe household. It was with his mom and it is with his dad, you can't afford to feel bad and even admit you need help. Emotions in that house were banished and even if he knew that he was no longer there it was still as if a part of him was trapped in that too big house and couldn't get out. Sometimes it was hard just to show joy.
«Don't tell me you really want to throw in.» hearing a voice behind him, an unmistakable voice that warmed his heart and quickened his breathing in a completely natural way, he stirred. Actually, the reaction itself was quite frightening, not counting his constant sense of hypervigilance. Despite their relationship, the way he behaved when the other was around scared him and made him nervous.
«Nah, I have more creative ways to do it.» he answered him without looking at him directly. He couldn't turn around, he was still sitting where he was. He tried to make his voice steady, he didn't think he succeeded anyway.
He couldn't afford to lose concentration enough to turn around and make more movements than necessary, risking falling. Just because he was there didn't mean he was any less scared.
«Oh so are you trying to live up to your name? Got it, got it, that's right, fair enough.» exhaled the other giving a small chuckle as he sat comfortably next to him.
Close enough to feel his warmth but not close enough to bump into him and cause him to panic.
At that answer Xavier let out a mocking sigh continuing to smoke from time to time even though he could tell that the cigarette was consuming itself between his fingers livid from too many hours busy drawing.
God, he felt exactly like that cigarette.
The silence between them was not heavy indeed, on the opposite, he calmed him enough to allow his breathing to regularize and his heart to beat at a normal speed without the risk of causing him a heart attack at a young age.
Tyler knew about Xavier and how things in his head seem to be a little heavy and deafening and loud lately. Difficult , simply.
He hadn't told him, obviously the younger boy would never have said a word about it, but with a careful eye, and in love like that of the taller one, it wasn't really hard to understand.
The smile less and less mocking but more to pretend, the purplish dark circles like bruises, the sleepless nights and the smile even more false than when he had known him years, but more precisely only months, before. Apparently the time had come for the boy to question everything, even himself. He was just wondering when it would happen.
He would have just preferred it to happen in a less painful way for the other.
Tyler knew it was inevitable for him to have mental health issues, especially with that father like that, but he just wished he wouldn't leave it out. He wishes that just once, just once, he would let himself be helped.
But small steps, right?
It was already enough that he was making every appointment with his therapist without missing a single day.
Tyler had already understood that morning that today was going to be a bad day anyway, he knew how to recognize them by now.
To begin with: the other had not shown up for their morning appointment at the bar where Xavier usually stayed there for hours before his lessons only to later discover, after joining him in the afternoon, that he had taken refuge in the bathroom all morning, stuck on the floor between the toilet and the shower with my head in my hands and my shortness of breath coming out in puffs. The bed was cold and completely made up and that meant he was been in his head for quite a while. All night at least.
During all the day he was impatient, ready to pick fights with Bianca and throw fists at any normal he met. He teased more than usual and even made more jokes than necessary. Bad jokes, jokes that screamed "hit me" almost as if he felt he deserved it. Tyler was afraid to find out if he was wrong or not.
He had also tried to argue with him in the late afternoon. He didn't remember the pretext, how or why that fight really started but he only remembers hugging him while the other pushed him away with slaps on the chest.
Tyler wasn't stupid, he knew Xavier did it on purpose and tried to argue so he could justify the voices in his head that told him he was unlovable. He knew he was sabotaging himself because he believed he didn't deserve better.
It sounded so awfully cliché that Tyler wanted to cry, it wasn't right.
Nothing was right in comparing someone like Xavier Thorpe to a cliché.
What he was going through wasn't right either.
He had joined him after he had woken up alone in the other's cold bed, with visiting hours more than finished hours and hours ago, and the window open from which the cold wind was blowing.
«I thought you hated heights.» he said softly, afraid to say something that would drive him crazy.
Xavier didn't answer. He turned to the taller boy, looked at him and smiled softly. A smile full of unspoken words. A smile that screamed tiredness. A smile that screamed anything but happiness. A smile that also seemed relieved that he was there.
A smile that, however, accentuated his tiredness, his dark circles. It didn't bring out his dimples or the usual twinkle in his eyes.
Tyler's gaze turned towards the cigarette that the other was holding with his fingers. He knew that usually he didn't smoke, he only did it when he needed to assert himself against his father and his will, managing to see it as the only way to be able to feel something real.
It was almost like challenging him, doing something he'd normally been punished for many times in the past and would still happen if he were here. It was a matter of control and Tyler was happy to see that his sessions with the therapist seemed to be working.
Xavier was taking control without leaving it to his father, robbing him of the ability to hurt him further.
But he wondered how badly he must be in that moment to do it.
He couldn't find the right answer.
«Tomorrow he will come, you know?»
And there really was no need for Tyler to ask who the shorter guy was talking about.
He put out his now finished cigarette and downed it, inhaling slowly for the chill of the evening while he turned his gaze to the opposite side so that it was as far away as possible from the other's sad eyes.
He didn't want anyone to feel bad for him, never wanted and never needed to.
«For how long will he stay?» he had the nerve to ask the bartender. He really just wanted to hold him in his arms and promise him that everything would be fine but how could he?
It wasn't the truth, he couldn't disappoint him like that, it wasn't right. He didn't deserve it.
He would continue to feel bad about it and the reason was simple: only now had he allowed himself to process his problems and face them. Only now had he had the courage to acknowledge the abuse his father had subjected him to all his life and it was hard to realize, all of a sudden, that your father never loved you and that it's not something you can blame yourself for. The road would still be long but better days than he remembered would come.
«If he deigns to show up, I think there will be just enough time to be seen publicly with the biggest failure of him that he pretends to love and then he will leave. I don't count on it anyway.» he sarcastically replied with an ironic snort that screamed anything but happiness.
It particularly hurt Tyler that Xavier called himself a failure but, again, what exactly could he do? It was how his father had defined him his entire life and he couldn't just come in and undo all the progress he'd made in accepting it and invalidating his story.
«Do you know that you can decide not to see it? You owe him nothing. And if you want I can be by your side all the time, I'll find someone to replace me at the work if you let me." Those words screamed so many different meanings.
'Please don't go' 'Stay with me' 'Take me with you' 'I'll protect you' 'Go and fuck his ass' 'Confront him and ridicule him' 'Please stay.'
As soon as the words left Tyler's mouth, Xavier felt a warmth in his chest that made him turn his face towards the other and look into his eyes with the hope that blossomed on the pale face accentuated by the dark spots under his eyes.
It finally seemed to be back, even if to a small extent, to being the usual Xavier with indecent jokes and curious eyes like a child's.
«Do you think that's a real possibility? I mean.. don't see him.» he asked softly, almost like a child who is afraid to ask for something, but with so much hope in his words. Tyler's heart kept breaking more and more.
The taller one wondered if this was how little Xavier used to deal with his father as a child. He made his heart tremble and his lip tremble at the genuineness of the question.
«Absolutely! Xavier, listen to me very carefully, okay?» The taller one approached the boy, looking him straight in the eyes as seriously as possible. The other looked at him curiously, almost as if he really had no idea this was an option.
The artist nodded softly while the bartender's heart gradually broke.
«You owe him nothing, absolutely nothing. If you don't want to see it, you won't go. If you want to see it, I'll be there if you want. If you go there but change your mind midway or just while you're talking to him then you’ll leave, you understand me? You have the right to do all of this and, indeed, also the duty for your health. You can and you must do it." he tried to spell out each word as much as possible so that he understood that he was serious and they weren't empty words.
The other didn't answer, he got lost in his thoughts.
He probably was trying to process the possibility of these various options without getting eaten up by the enormity of it, of having choices and being able to implement them. Decide for yourself and have the last word on his life.
Minutes passed, many minutes and probably hours, and a comfortable silence was what accompanied them for most of the night until that moment. The night was going away, as the sky began to clear more and more leaving space for a sun that would never arrive because it was covered by the many winter clouds.
Tyler didn't ask any more questions after that, trying to give him time and space to process it all. He didn't want to push.
«I guess I don't want to see him, not yet.» Xavier spoke softly, without breaking the calm atmosphere that was created around the two.
The taller one smiled, trying to give him as much warmth and love as possible for this courageous choice of his.
The night continued to pass regardless of the two still awake and in the meantime they got closer and closer. Their shoulders, as well as their legs, touched and their little fingers were intertwined. From time to time they exchanged shy smiles and stories to pass the time.
Xavier tried to say thank you without saying it and Tyler tried to make him understand that he would always be there for him at any moment of the day.
They weren't well yet: both still had unresolved issues, both between them and personal, and the road was really more than long and not easy but sooner or later the journey would end and if one of them arrived later then the other would waited with open arms and a smile on his face for as long as it would take.
In small steps, they would succeed.