Chapter Text
Alex pushes his legs off the side, gripping the edge of the metal beam below him. It’s late, the lights are off, the town falling asleep for the night. No one’s out here. It’s just him. Him and the soft breeze ruffling through his dark hair. Him and the ocean below him, gently lapping at the thick legs of rock holding the heavy bridge from collapsing.
He tilts his head forward and closes his eyes. A sob gets stuck in his throat and tears well up in his eyes. He won’t cry, he won’t let them slip down his cheeks. He won’t. He won’t.
He’ll sit there and he’ll heave and he’ll wipe at his eyes - desperately - with sleeves too rough to be tender. He’ll swallow thickly to stay silent. Not out of fear he’ll let himself be found, but because he didn’t want to ruin the silence of the world succumbed to the late hours of the night.
He can’t hear cars or animals or footsteps. He can’t hear voices or music or cries.
Just the ocean and the docks.
With the boats gently swaying back and forth, metal wires tapping against masts in rhythmic notion.
He cracks open his eyes to look down below. His vision is blurry so he blinks it away. It’s hard to tell how far away the water is but he’s sure if he’ll fall it’d be enough to render him unconscious.
He always heard drowning is the worst way to go.
It fills your lungs and burns you from the inside out. It makes you feel hopeless and pathetic and alone. Sinking down and down and down as you claw at your throat and beg for oxygen. Beg for your legs to kick and work and push yourself to the surface faster and faster to cough out the water and forget the pain.
The pain of salt filling your body and stinging your stomach.
But sometimes Alex wants to feel that. Sometimes, he wants to be surrendered to the deep blue water. Sinking down and down until his body realises whats happening and tries to fight it.
But it’ll be no use, really. No use at all.
He covers his face with his hands and stifles another sob.
He could do it, he knows, he could push himself off and fall and fall until he smacks against the water and sinks into the unknown blue depths—
“Alex?”
He lifts his face from his hands and looks to his side.
Henry is there. He’s sliding through a gap in the fence and carefully manoeuvring himself beside him.
“Hey,” he says softly, slowly reaching out to place a hand on his shoulder. Alex can’t feel it.
Alex can see him. The blond of his hair and the blue of his eyes. He can hear him, too, the gentleness of his voice wrapping around him like a hug.
But he can’t feel the hug, nor can he feel his hand that moved around his shoulders.
“Hey,” he says again, “what are you doing out here, hm? It’s freezing.”
Alex hiccups, “I don’t want to live anymore, Henry.”
Henry’s face breaks, he shuffles closer until their thighs pressed together. “I know, love. I know. It’ll get better.”
“Why do I have to wait?” He whispers, “why can’t it be better now? Why has it been bad for so long? When will it be better? Will I know?”
“Of course you’ll know,” he says immediately, latching onto anything easy to answer. “Sometimes life just takes time. And I know it’s unfair, but you have so much more life to live.”
“What if that life isn’t good?” Alex tries to lean into him but there isn’t much there, “what if I keep waiting and waiting for the good but it doesn’t come?”
“It will,” he says in a way that Alex wants to believe. Wants so desperately to believe. He looks at Henry and sees he’s telling the truth, but that doesn’t mean his words are a guarantee. He believes one day Alex will be good and better and happy, but regardless of how much he believes, how much he can imagine, how much he can see, that doesn’t mean Alex will wake up one day and it’ll come true.
Despite how much he wishes for it. More than anything, he wants to go at least an hour without feeling bad. Without feeling so desperate for it all to just… end. Be over. To fall asleep and never wake up and never deal with the world again.
“I’m so alone, Henry,” he says, voice breaking. He slumps to his side and stares at the vast expanse of ocean. It’s so dark. He can see the moon reflected on the wobbly surface.
“There’s nothing here for me. Everyone I know lives so far away. June and Nora moved to California with dad, mom’s in D.C. and Liam’s in Texas…” he shuts his eyes and shakes his head, fisting his hands together tightly.
“God— I hate being alive. I hate waking up and feel like all I’m doing is wasting time. I hate feeling so hungry, all the time. You don’t know-” he sniffs, “do you? You don’t know that I hate to eat because it always makes me feel like shit so I go the whole day avoiding food only to eat so much fuckin’ shit for dinner and to lay in bed and feel fuckin’ awful about it but I don’t throw it up because it never fuckin’ works when I try, and it scares me too much to get better at it.”
Henry’s other arm comes around his waist and he presses his face to the top of his head.
Alex breaks. It stars with a sob, ringing out into the silent world around them. Bouncing off the metal frames of the bridge.
“And I hate- god,” he lets out a heavy breath, “I hate being trans so fuckin’ much. I hate feeling like testosterone is so god damn far away, because it fucking is. It’s just obstacle after obstacle and I don’t care how much money I have to pay but why does it take fuckin’ weeks for appointments and-and one after one they just tell me I have to see somebody else too and how many fuckin’ people will I have to talk to before I can start being seen as who I am?”
He looks up at Henry, desperately, but all he sees is his sad face and quivering lips, unable to speak because he doesn’t know what to say. It doesn’t matter. Alex doesn’t know what he wants to hear.
He pushes his face into his chest, “it’s just so. fucking. much, and I’m so alone ‘cus I don’t know what to do. I don’t know who to see or who the fuck to talk to because what if it doesn’t help? What if I’ll keep going to people for help and… nothing does? Why do I have to know everything, H? Why do I have to know how to get blood tests or what the fuck an endocrinologist is?”
He sits up, only then realising Henry’s hand was stroking along his back. He shifts across the metal beam and ignores the way Henry reaches for him, worried he may slip and fall off. He doesn’t think he’d be able to catch him, anyway.
“There’s no one here and I’m so alone and it doesn’t matter how many times June or Liam or Nora text me, telling me I’m not, because they’re not here.”
He swallows. Tears had began trailing down his cheeks. He didn’t know when they began and he doesn’t know when they’ll end.
He looks up at Henry’s broken face and feels his heart crumples in his chest. “Do you wanna know the worst part?”
Henry nods slowly.
“You’re not even here,” he says, “you’re just here because I’m too pathetic to cope with this myself. You’re so far away, Henry, and no matter how many times you tell me I’m not alone-” he squeezes his eyes shut and presses his hands against his thighs. When he opens his eyes again he doesn’t know how much time has passed, but he’s facing the ocean again, and he’s alone, again.
“I am,” he utters to the wind. “I’m so fuckin’ alone. And it hurts so bad. It hollows you out and makes you feel like you’re not even alive…”
He turns his head to where he once sat, wondering for a split second if he’d see him again, but he doesn’t.
“So what’s the point? If I’m not alive…” he feels like if he tips his foot forward, he’ll skim the ocean with the tip of his shoe. “What’s the point in living?”
He guesses he’s spent too much time up there when he starts to shiver, but he doesn’t move until his phone buzzes in his pocket.
He pulls it out and looks down at the message.
henry <3
Good morning, love. Text me when you wake up, I’m missing you already.
Alex lets out a final, quiet sob. It’s broken and horse.
alex
hey baby, you alright?
henry <3
Alex, why are you awake? It’s extremely late for you. Yes, I’m okay.
alex
couldn’t sleep. glad you’re okay though
henry <3
I’m sorry, love. How are you feeling?
Alex thinks about everything he could say. Everything he said earlier to everything that was left unspoken. He thinks about it all in those fleeting seconds.
And then he thinks how worried he’ll be.
And then he thinks if he can’t deal with all of this by himself, then what’s the point in even trying at all?
alex
im okay. feel better talking to you
henry <3
I’m glad, love. I love you so much.
At least Alex manages a small smile.
alex
i love you too
Alex isn’t okay. But at least he can be okay for Henry.