‘What are you protecting yourself from?‘ The question is one he manages to avoid for a little while, even though it sits heavy on his mind. He doesn’t like to think about it even though he feels like it’s all he does. He doesn’t think he can answer it, not out loud. Even when the second question Grey asks comes down on him like a hammer. He doesn’t talk about these things, not in the way people normally would, anyway. If you were to listen to the music he writes for himself and others, every single one of his weaknesses seap out. The restaints that exist for him in the outside world, even if they’re ones he’s tied himself, don’t exist when he’s writing. It’s the only thing that keeps him breathing anymore, the only time he allows himself to exhale every bit of fear and anguish and self loathing is when it’s accompanied by the tunes never ending in his head.
He wonders sometimes why more people don’t ask him about the content of his lyrics even though he knows the answer. It’s because he’s become a commodity. It’s something he’s allowed to happen because deep down he knows, if people were to ask those kinds of questions, he’d lie about where the words come from anyway. About the way he feels. He’d tell them the songs are about other people, his biggest inspiration does come from people watching after all, but unlike the stories he tells, that he watches them to put words and music to scenarios he observes playing out, the real reason is he wants to know what it’s like to feel normal.
He’s envious when he sits in cafes and sees friends greeting each other to talk about text conversations with their signicant others and making plans for the weekend or where they want to go out and eat later. He doesn’t remember what it’s like and he knows he’ll never have it again because…”Because I’m trapped up here.” He points to his head, his answer is almost barely audible and he’s surprised he’s said at all. With the admission comes the same old memories flooding back. The places he has to go when he disappears sometimes when it gets really bad. The psychiatrists he’ll never talk about. The cold, clinical rooms, the constant scans, the battery of tests and everything. Everything he does to try and drown it all out.
“Music isn’t the only thing I hear and I can never turn it off. Ever. It’s constant. Every single second of every single day and I can’t…I’m completely incapable of giving anyone what they deserve when this consumes me.” He stares down at the keys, his hands are shaking and the little voice in the back of his head is louder than the music now. It’s exactly what he expected and he laughs sardonically at it, at himself. “So I’m a parasite. I try to convince myself that if I do enough for people I can make up for it, but it’s not possible…To make up for pretending when I’m with people that it actually means something. Fucking people just to be able to feel anything…Anything but trapped. To pretend to know what it would be like if fucking were…love. Something I’ll never be able to feel or give through all the noise.”
His head bows lower and lower the more he talks, his eyes still glued to his own hands. Wolfe feels almost outside of himself at this moment, as if the room is slightly askew and he’s watching this entire scene unfold a few inches outside of himself. “I know what I’m doing and I do it on purpose because…I’m awful. Disgusting, even.”
He watched Wolfe intently once the question had left his lips, their eyes longing for some kind of signal, sign or body language as an answer. It was like his question had put Wolfe on pause, as if he was the master of the remote and his questions were the buttons. He didn’t doubt that this question would be tough for Wolfe. He seemed so fiercely fragile when it came to personal questions like this, just as Greyson probably seemed to him.
They wait and wait and nearly miss the response when it comes; how quietly it arrives being an answer in itself. Trapped. Wolfe was trapped. Greyson wondered what the shackles were, who’d fastened them and why they’d been tied in the first place. How long had he been feeling like this? Still trying to muster up the right response, Greyson shuffled over to Wolfe, placing his hand onto the boy’s thigh. Usually, when this happened, it was a sign of things to come. But this time, it was a touch full of tenderness and comfort, accompanied with the only sentence Greyson could come up with in response. “How do we get you out?” Came his response, his voice taut with worry that his question was too simple for the complexity of Wolfe’s problem. Perhaps Wolfe was the only one who could free himself, but Greyson knew from his own experience that Wolfe had to believe in himself that his freedom was both possible and deserved, to begin to even make a dent.
The piano keys were still underneath the shakiness of Wolfe’s hands, as Greyson observed the boy from above. His honesty was frank, his confessions so strong as they hit Greyson’s ears. It was impossible not to feel sad listening to his self-depreciation. No one seemed to hate Wolfe more than himself and Greyson couldn’t help but feel some kind of anger towards the person, people or events that had made Wolfe feel this way about himself. Music seemed to help, though, from what Wolfe had told him, it seemed to drown out the noise or at least gave him some way of turning the noise into something worthwhile. Meaningless sex on the other hand, as Greyson knew, could often be the opposite of worthwhile. It could make you feel guilty and worthless, as if your body was just a vessel and your mind and heart were unattached and separate, as if they didn’t deserve to all work in unison. For a moment, Greyson wished he could be that person to show Wolfe what love felt like, not just fucking, but Greyson wasn’t who was meant to do that. He needed to sort himself out first before he started feeling and making love with anyone, meaning that he’d just have to pray that someone came along to make Wolfe feel that soon. They almost wished they could shake Wolfe. A shake that would somehow help him to shed these feelings of complete and utter hopelessness, but that wasn’t how things worked.
But when Wolfe began to describe himself as disgusting and awful, Greyson’s opportunity came. With a yank of the piano stool beneath Wolfe, Greyson turned his friend around to face him. Knees on the floor, Greyson looked up to him, his eyes stern as his hands gripped Wolfe’s arms. “Stop.” He commanded, his voice rough, his breath unshaken. “Just fucking stop.” Disgusting and awful were words that Greyson was prepared to attach to his friend nor let his friend attach to himself. “So you think you don’t deserve love, you think you don’t even deserve basic human kindness, you don’t deserve to belong, you don’t deserve to feel free from your thoughts and how your mind absolutely walks all over you. Can you not at least try to believe that those things aren’t true? Fuck whoever made you like this. Fuck if it was yourself, your dad, your high school friends, I don’t know. But you have got to start thinking believing in the possibility of life being some other way.” Feeling exhausted from choosing his words so carefully to only lose it right at the end, Greyson stood up with his fingers on his temples, his eyes closed to give him a moment to breathe. He couldn’t help but think of the state of his own mind and feel that he wasn’t ready to fix anyone elses, it was too hard and too much to think about when he couldn’t even figure out how he felt. He gulped down a breath before his eyes fell on Wolfe once again, his brown hues softer now after a few seconds of thought. He wasn’t responsible for freeing Wolfe, his mind had reminded him, but he hoped he could at least push him in the right direction. “I wish I could be the person to prove you wrong about all of this, but I’m not. Hell, a month ago I convinced you to take drugs that probably made everything worse, even though you probably felt like it made it better. Or at least I don’t think I’m that person, or can’t be right now, anyway. Not with my own head to sort out.” His hands spread out by his speaks, his words earnest and hurtful to say. “I know I asked you to be honest but I don’t think I can be a part of this, this get drunk, take drugs and fuck thing anymore. I think it’s doing me more damage than good and I don’t want that to be the case for you too, especially after today. We need to learn to feel it, like you say, properly.” Running his hand through his hair, Greyson’s eyes looked to the front room entrance, ready to leave. “You deserve it all,” he told him lightly and almost inaudibly, as he turned and headed towards the door. “And you got me spot on. With that song. Wish you could play yourself the way you deserve to be heard.”
