[ 3 / 3 ] - Six Degrees of Separation
tagged by @sparktheblaze / @crimsonbluemoon‘s ( music inspiration prompt )
[ tag - 0 / 3 ]
song: Six Degrees of Separation artist: The Script ship: [ vanogla ] : angst words: 1319
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“first, you think the worst is a broken heart”
It was a pain he’d never felt before, a pain that sat deep below his skin. No medication could relieve it, the cold air biting at his arms and neck and cheeks. Nothing could tear his mind away from the splitting, agonising pain resonating from his chest. A sickness settled in his stomach, a collection of dead butterflies. His insides had become a mere grave for them and he missed the feeling of their wings beating against the insides of his skin. They were dead. They were rotting. He felt sick.
When he watched him walk away each step was like a punch to the gut. Each step struck him directly but left not a single scratch or bruise upon his skin. He lifted fingertips to his upper lip, expecting blood that would gush from his broken nose, expecting bruises beneath his eyes. The pain was internal, was deeply locked away in his chest; a pain he could do nothing for.
So he sought out real bruises and real blood, maybe hoping it would fix the gaping hole in his chest, maybe just looking for a distraction. He threw insults at five leather jackets smoking cigarettes in a parking lot. Words he didn’t even remember caught their attention, he threw a rock at a flashy car.
By the time they left him, his expectations had become more real than he’d hoped. He tasted blood, he smelled the iron, he heard his pulse in his ears. He felt none of it. Just his heart. His shattered heart.
-
“what’s gonna kill you is the second part”
Heartbreak, for the first time ever, was life-changing. There was no known cure or medication that could relieve even the smallest of its pains. He’d thought that truly nothing could be worse, nothing could hurt him more.
He had been wrong. There was no feeling that could compare to that he felt through the entirety of his chest when he walked into class, breath hitched at the sight of him. Soft brown eyes drifted right past him, seeing a face but not seeing him. He was no longer someone of interest. He was no longer a person in his life but a face he would forget about. A face that already had been forgotten.
Those soft brown eyes drove a dagger into his chest and ripped it straight down his middle. He split open, vulnerable for everyone to see.
He sat alone at his table and spent forty-five minutes scratching out the sketchy “DN + EF” encircled by a heart. When he dropped his scissors, his hands were shaking. He stumbled to his feet, threw his bag over his shoulder and ran from the class. The bathroom sink was freezing beneath his hands and he stared down the drain as if something hiding there could help him.
The mound of corpses in his gut stirred with sickness, threatening to crawl up his throat and make an appearance. He clenched his teeth. A broken sob left his lips. He stayed locked away in the last stall for all of period three and lunch.
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“and third, is when your world splits down the middle”
His face. His voice. His laugh. His smile. He could not bleach it from his thoughts, could not force it out of his dreams. Every moment of every day he was constantly reminded of who he was trying to forget.
People he used to call “friends” no longer even noticed he was there, places held memories of giggling and grinning and kissing that he refused to visit, songs had him sobbing into his pillow in the early hours of the morning. He could not get those brown eyes out of his head.
He faked illness for a whole week; thought that maybe if he didn’t see that godforsaken face, maybe it would leave for good. Maybe if he didn’t see those people, or sit at desks, or answer questions about the bags under his eyes; maybe he would be left in peace, maybe he would be able to move on.
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“fourth, you’re gonna think that you fixed yourself.”
It worked. He convinced himself that it worked. He passed the hockey captain in the hall. For the first time in two weeks he locked eyes with the boy who had left him without looking back and he was the one to turn away, brushing past the jersey as he laughed at something Brian said to him.
He felt nothing, but glee. No aching heart, no stinging nose; brown eyes were nothing special anymore.
He was going to be okay. He was healing. He was moving on.
-
“fifth, you see them out with someone else.”
There was a chance that if he had not forgotten his book in English, he may have been able to avoid to. The heartache wouldn’t have returned, the tears would have remained locked away, he could have continued to pretend it was okay, he was okay, he was over it. But life was cruel and didn’t like the pretending.
When he slid the class door open he felt his lungs collapse in on themselves. He had struggled forwards through weeks of recovering, weeks of telling himself he was better, he was happy, he didn’t need him anymore. His slow, unsteady steps had lead him nowhere, circumstance punching him back to his arse, back to the parking lot; bleeding, weeping, broken.
The sob that forced its way out of his lungs pushed the pair apart, blue eyes and brown eyes flicking to him. Brown widened, filling with shock, pity and regret. Blue blinked in confusion but remained silent. Hands retracted from beneath one another’s clothing, lips swollen, pale skin bruising around the throat. The hockey jersey had a word halfway out of his mouth, lips frozen as though he was telling himself that it was always easier to stay silent.
“Shit.” It was the only word that was uttered.
Daithi snapped into action, storming into the class and snatching up the book from the desk closest to him. His hand hovered over his mouth, half covering his quivering lips and half hiding the watery look in his eyes. He choked on another sob, fighting it back with no strength left in him. He ran from the room. He ran from the building.
Grass shaded beneath a rich green-leaved tree waited for him, the weathered bricks not a stranger to his back as he collapsed. His book sat beside him, dropped and forgotten. His head fell to his hands. His whole body shook with the force of his crying.
He never did get better. He wasn’t ever going to get better. He was broken beyond repair.
-
“and sixth, is when you admit that you may have fucked up a little.”
“You’re leaving?” The cry was a repeat of what he’d just told the older woman in a soft voice. His hopes of keeping it silent were pushed aside and he told himself no one cared anyway. Her words of praise and sympathy and wishes of safety and success in his home country washed off his shoulders as a small few words of gratitude dropped from his tongue.
His walk to the back corner of the class was followed by a pointed stare, one he refused to meet or acknowledge. He refused to let any sort of satisfaction touch him at the knowledge that those eyes were aware of him again. Those eyes knew he was more than just a face.
Folded yellow paper sat on his open notebook.
“Can I talk to you? -E”
He threw it in the bin close by his desk. Brown eyes watched as he packed up his bag. Brown eyes that were too late, too faded, too careless. He was moving on, even if it meant moving house, moving schools, moving countries.
He was moving on for good.