Queen of the 40 Thieves, chapter 54
Nirvana's performance of The Man Who Sold the World coming from the Mtv Unplugged album of Nirvana that was playing on the way back from the Chinese restaurant to my apartment was the only thing to be heard during the car ride. It wasn't an awkward silence or anything, it was just a silence. I don't know, maybe the three of us wanted to listen to the album that was playing, after all, Nirvana was and is great. Maybe we just didn't have anything to say. Who knows? However, it was a pleasant ride; I don't know if it was because of the silence between people that were all familiar to each other, or the music, or both. But the ride was over before the song could even reach its end. Once I parked my car in the building where I lived, I stayed sitting there for a while, without turning off the ignition; seeing this, Mike raised an eyebrow, but I paid no mind to it, so he looked to the backseat of my car to face Jenny.
"My mom doesn't like to turn off the music in the middle of a song, at least no if it is good, or if she likes it, so we're waiting for the song to end." Mike nodded his head to Jenny's explanation and then looked back at me, before staring blankly into the space, probably listening to the music.
I sighed and turned off the ignition as soon as the song finished, very quickly also, before the next song could start. "Let's go." Silently we walked to the elevator. Then the silence came to its end too as Mike started to sing the song we had just listened to, but so quietly that I could barely figure out what part of the song he was singing. Jenny stared at him with some sort of a stunned expression on her face.
"What?" Mike asked as soon as he noticed it, interrupting the song he was singing. I exhaled sharply, so Jenny started laughing. "What?" Mike repeated.
"First...it's just interesting to see Green Day's bassist, Mike Dirnt, singing quietly a song that I would have never listened sung by you if I hadn't had the chance to meet you; sometimes you forget that I'm a fan, Dirnt. And when you start singing a song that my mom likes, in front of her, you gotta sing through the entire song, if not is just like if you had turned off the car before the song had finished. It pisses her off."
"Oh...is that...I don't know, some sort of an OCD you have or what?" he asked me.
"I don't know...I just respect the songs, you know? I really don't know how to explain it, but for me it's like if you were talking with somebody, and when the other person is in the middle of what they're saying, you turn around and just leave. I think every song says something and you just gotta listen through the whole thing. And when you stop singing in the middle of the song, it's like you were the one saying something to me and you suddenly turned around and walked away, you know?" Mike raised his raised eyebrow.
"And you should see it when it is a punk-rock opera," Jenny commented.
"Yes...because when it is a punk-rock opera each song tends to lose its meaning if it doesn't come in between the two songs that where placed before and after in the album...and well, it just loses a lot of its meaning when you take it out of its context...am I making any sense?"
"Oh boy...it must have been hell for you to watch any of our videos from American Idiot on TV."
"Yes, specially the one for Wake Me Up When September Ends, and for more than just one reason."
"Mom, I can't believe you just said that," Jenny said giving me a look.
"What do you mean?" Mike questioned me.
"I mean that the songs were hell to listen to out of context, and on top of that, I really don't think the videos were good. I mean, I loved the American Idiot video, and it was the only one that I could peacefully sit and watch. I also loved the Holiday and Boulevard of Broken Dreams videos though, but that doesn't mean that I think the videos were proper for the songs. I mean, in some odd way they were a little bit related to what the lyrics were saying, but most people don't care enough like to sit and analyze those videos, and well, that's their loss. Though Boulevard was related to the song, I might add. But then Wake Me Up had nothing to do with the song, "the lost of innocence", yes, maybe, but seriously, the video would have been perfect for the song Extraordinary Girl, you can perfectly adapt the story of the video to that song without making any changes on any of them, you know? That doesn't mean I like the video though. And Jesus of Suburbia's "plot" was perfect for the song, but the video is shit, if you ask me. It's all so exaggerated, it's like... let's inhale cocaine, but let's make enough lines like to have an overdose, and let's make them while having sex, but not just sex, let's make it as animalistic as possible, with over-acted movements. And let's be punks too, of those that live on the streets and everything, but let's have a hair style that must cost us a lot more than the money we can do stealing or selling dope in an entire month, the style has to cost a lot more than we could afford, even if we weren't spending all that much in cocaine. And let's cut ourselves, but there has to be a lot of blood coming out and running down through our entire hand. I mean, even if you hit a vein, the blood wouldn't just stain the entire hand, unless you start to play with the blood or something...the video just isn't right." Mike stared at me kind of dumbfound. Jenny was just giving me a look.
"It is...nice to know your opinion," your friend finally spoke, "I'll keep that in mind...I mean, after all, you are Whatsername."
"M.I....I'm M.I., just take my opinion as M.I.'s, not even as M.I.'s the writer of the Illinois' most famous articles about music." The bassist just let out a small laugh.
By now we had already entered the apartment. Mike walked to his room once our conversation was over; I also noticed that Jenny followed him not long after, which made me think of "my stupid theory" again as I looked at her way with a raised eyebrow. However, I preferred not to think about any of that, telling myself I was probably just being paranoid or something, so I led to my own room and then to the bath room, where I got ready for a hot and nice long shower that felt much needed in that moment. Not long after I hopped into the shower, I heard a knock on the door and my daughter's voice asking if she could come in, just after I gave her a positive answer, I heard the door going open and her footsteps into the bathroom. "May I stay at Megan's tonight?"
"Why do you want to spend the night there if your "god" is here?"
"I just want to talk to William. You know we're always together, and I spent the last few days without talking to him, not even on the phone, so I kind of miss talking to him during the entire night and there's also a lot to tell him, he still wants all the details about Christmas with Green Day...so...yeah."
"Well, I know that...I saw you going into Mike's room earlier though," I commented, she knew that that was just a call out for an explanation about that.
"I...well, I was...I was only asking him if he thinks it'd be problem if maybe someday I went to Cali with William, just so he can meet the entire band, you know? I know he's dying to, and I think he's feeling like I'm telling him all these things about how cool they all are just to make him jealous or something and I really don't want him to think like that."
"But you just said that he's the one asking."
"He is asking about everything that happened during Christmas, but I don't think that he likes the fact that I stop after every sentence just to say how cool what I just told him was and how exciting it was to spend Christmas with Green Day."
"I see...what did Mike say about your plan though?"
"He says it's perfectly okay...so I also want to ask William and Megan about that today."
"Okay...then go ask Megan if you can stay there for the night," I said from behind the bathtub's curtain.
"Thank you!" she said excitedly and ran out of the bathroom. I laughed quietly and sighed. I was still half-way through my shower when I had another interruption, this time it was my cell-phone ringing. I didn't bother to get out of the shower to answer it, instead I decide to just make it a quick shower; so it took me just a few minutes to be nice and clean and get out of the shower to see who had called.
It was Jesus. I decided not to call him back. However, after putting on my clothes and looking for Jenny all around the house, only to find Mike, telling me that she had come just a couple of minutes ago looking for her clothes and had already left, after asking Mike to please let me know that she'd be staying at Megan's because my friend had said it was okay, I heard my cell phone ringing again, so I walked back into my room and answered, it was Jesus. I think it's pointless to go through all the details of our conversation when it can be summed up like this: "I'm sorry, I haven't got the courage to tell Mary Jane, but I promise I will, it'll just take me some more time that I had planned. But you must know I love you more than I love anyone else in this entire world." When asking him how long it would take him, I got no answer. I decide not to start an argue with the "you promised me..." thing.
Everyone can make promises, and most people break them all the time too. I've broken lots of promises myself too, so it was very pointless to come with that stuff. Even since that morning, I didn't have too much faith in what he promised me. I believed him the most when he said he was going to do it as soon as she saw her, because otherwise he wouldn't have the courage to tell her after the passing of time, whether it was hours, days or months. And since he hadn't told her already, I figured out that, just as he said, he wouldn't ever have the courage to tell me. After all, nobody finds it easy to admit their flaws and weakness, and if he said that time would make it impossible for him to talk to her, I decided to believe that part of his speech.
Soon our conversation over the phone was over, and, after doing things I need to do first, I decided to continue writing this letter, because I still had a lot to say, but I wasn't being able to focus all that much, maybe due to the talk I had just had with Jesus. I felt completely hopeless. For a moment I thought of calling him and get everything out of my chest, but I decided that instead of making a scene over the phone, if that's even possible, I'd rather just to stay quiet, I didn't want to make him feel like I was trying to manipulate him.
So I simply took a blade and cut my right arm once before trying to continue writing, which probably was a bad idea, because I still couldn't focus, which made me feel frustrated, besides the feeling of being hopeless I already had, so I made another cut, right next to the one I had done minutes earlier, and then another. Now it wasn't only about the conversation that I had had with Jesus and the fact that I couldn't focus on anything, it was everything that had happened for the last few months. Besides, I must also confess that I had waited to make a cut for most of the day. I pulled up the left sleeve of my black sweater and sighed heavily before making another cut. Then I almost jumped from the bed when a knock was heard on the door of my room at the same time as I had started to make another cut on my left arm. I exhaled sharply and threw the blade by my side, on the bed, and took the pile of papers that formed what I had written of this letter so far and placed them on top of it, in order to hide it, "Come in," I spoke as I quickly pulled down the sleeves of my sweater.
"Hey," Mike said as he slowly opened the door.
"What's up Mike?" I asked forcing a smile.
"Not much. You?"
"Not much either. What brings you around my room though?"
"Well...the fact that nothing much is up...I'm kind of bored, and I'm in California's time still, and I go to bed late anyways, so I don't think I'll be sleepy anytime soon, and I was going to the kitchen but I noticed the light of your room was on, so I decided to come to see if you are bored too and can use some company?...or am I being just a bother?"
"Not at all...but nobody gets bored in my house though! Come," I said getting up from the bed and heading to the living room. "Here are all my albums, which makes a very extended collection...you'll find every thing, from The Ramones, The Clash and Sex Pistols to Britney Spears and N'Sync, going through Bob Marley to Aerosmith, Green Day, of course, and I even have Daddy Yankee's album, if you even know who he is, and I'm hopping you don't because it's crap," I said pointing to something that looked like a bookcase full of albums. "Down here I have all the cassettes and vinyl's, you'll find some pretty old stuff there. Here you have the stereo and cassette player and here the vinyl player. I have cable television too, if you haven't noticed. Here you have all the books, some are mine, some are Brian's, a few are Jenny's, but you can get your hands on whatever you want." Then I walked back to my room and pointed to a table and a little stand, "Here are some of my personal favourite albums and books. In the TV room there's also a set of video games, lots of movies and a DVD and VHS player and there's also a computer with Internet access and some more games. You can also get online from every room of the house if you brought your laptop or something, and you can also feel free to use the phone if you want," I gasped as soon as I finished. Your taller friend just looked at me with his right eyebrow raised. "Damn, I see I probably should have pleased Jenny when she asked me to install a recording studio in the house about seven years ago." Mike broke into a hearty laugh. This time I was the one to look at him with an eyebrow raised. "Okay, there's also paper, pencils, pens, Jenny has an acoustic guitar and an electric one as well, unfortunately not a bass." Mike was still laughing his ass off.
"Oh god," he finally spoke trying to breathe between laughs, until he managed to stop laughing. "You don't need to freak out...you remember when we first met at Jesus'?" I simply nodded my head. "Well, I liked it better then, because you didn't freak out about everything...just forget the fact I became a celebrity, just remember the old times...if I'm staying here at your place is because I thought maybe we could spend sometime talking or I don't know, like during those good, ol' times, you know?" My mind immediately ran to the memory of me having sex with Mike in the bookmobile, which I think he somehow noticed as he immediately added, "Without the having sex part, of course, just the random chatting and all that, you know? It's just that everytime I stay at a hotel, this is exactly the kind of treatment I get...people sometimes seems to forget that I'm only human, and that I can easily enjoy the same things everyone else does, if you know what I mean?"
"You're right," I said with a nod of my head, "I'm sorry, I'm acting like Jenny...I promise I'll try not to freak out again." He just smiled softly. I sat on my king size bed that was at the moment covered with pieces of paper I had used to write part of my letter, but that I eventually dismissed for considering it crap, books and a couple of music albums, so I cleared the spot on the bed right in front of me and patted it; Mike sat there, he still had the same smile on his face. None of us said a word for a kind of long while. "What did Jenny talk to you about when she went to your room earlier when we arrived from the restaurant?" I finally questioned when the silence was starting to be awkward.
"She just asked me if I thought it was okay for William to go to California someday with her so he could meet Billie and Tré and maybe even the rest of our crew...I said I didn't think there was any problem with that." I nodded my head.
"I'm sorry if I was too bitchy attacking your videos earlier when we were on the elevator. I feel really guilty about it now, I mean, I can't even imagine how important those videos must be to all of you after putting so much work on them."
"It's okay...I like opinionated people, and honest people. I actually think that was one of the best moments of the day because you treated me probably as a job partner trying to give me some ideas for an article about the Green Day videos instead of as Mike Dirnt, the Green Day member." I let out a small laugh as he said this, then, another moment of silence followed. "So...what are all those pieces of paper?"
"That's just...I was trying to get some articles for the paper done, I usually like to get them hand written before typing them into the computer, so I can edit them while I'm getting them from the paper to the screen," I said, lying only about the content of the papers, because that's actually the process I follow when writing my articles.
"Nice...may I read one of them?" he said taking the pile of papers that was by my side, but I immediately took them away from him.
"No!...I mean, no...I have all my articles that have been published on that stand, you can read those...I just don't like to show the ones I'm working on until they're done and look clean on a computer screen, you know?" He just nodded his head very slightly, and continued doing so for almost a minute long, without saying another word; his eyes were fixated on the spot of the bed that was right beside where I was sitting, for a moment he looked kind of hypnotized. Just when I was about to ask if there was something wrong, I realized what was going on. "Shit," I muttered for myself as I put my left hand on the same spot where the pile of paper was lying just a minute ago. His blue eyes quickly moved up to look into the green ones of mine.
"I'm sorry...I didn't know that..." he spoke nervously, but before he could even finish what he was saying I started shaking my head and bit my lips, trying to not moan because of the pain I was feeling due to the blade cutting the palm of the hand that was covering it.
"It's okay, I know you didn't."
The expression on his face turned completely into a sad one as he slowly reached for my left hand and touched it softly, "Let me see," he spoke before looking down at my hand, which he took and lifted. He sighed heavily. I simply looked down and felt how my cheeks were turning red with embarrassment. Slowly, he placed my hand on top of my knee, then he got up, "Is that the bathroom?" he said pointing to a closed door inside my room, without looking up, I nodded my head as a response. He walked in there, "Do you have any towels that are not white?" he called out after a few seconds of being inside the bathroom.
"I...just use..." I said before pausing and getting up to walk into the bathroom where the bassist was, "Just use this one..." I said pointing to one of the towels, but before I could even try to take it he held me gently by my upper arms, guiding me out of the bathroom and sitting me back on the bed.
"You just stay here, okay?" Soon, he came back with the towels I had pointed to, an end of it was wet. He took my hand in his and softly tried to clean the blood from my hand, but I moaned, even though I tried not to. "I'm sorry," he said looking up at me briefly, and then he tried again, but got the same response from me.
"Let me do it myself, okay?" I said trying to take the towel away from him.
"No," he said firmly shaking his head, "I'll try not to make it hurt this time."
"It's more than just that...this is really embarrassing...let me take care of my self-inflicted cut by myself."
"This doesn't have to be embarrassing; you didn't do this cut intentionally."
"But you know it is embarrassing...and it makes me feel extremely guilty about it...I'm sorry that you saw this, but really, you don't have to take care of it."
"But I want to. And don't apologize...not to me anyways," he added before looking back down at my hand and trying to clean the cut again, this time he did it so softly that I could barely feel it. "It looks really bad, I think it might need stitches," he finally spoke while looking into the cut. I looked at it as well.
"That's why I cut my hand once and never did it again, all the cuts in the hands look way worse than they are. It'll be fine without stitches."
He sighed, "I'm going to bandage it then."
"There's no need to."
"It'll start bleeding again as soon as you start to use your hand and it will also hurt like hell, especially if anything touches the cut."
"I'll dress it later then."
"Just while you gather bandages and everything else you'll stain everything around and it'll hurt like hell...so, do you have a first aids kit or something?" I sighed and nodded my head. "Where is it?"
"In the bathroom's cabinet...but the ones under the sink." He nodded his head as he got up.
"I found it," he said coming back from the bathroom. "And I also found these," he said showing me a few blades.
"Where were those?" I said looking down again.
"With your tampons...I'm not like your husband. I'm a punk, one of those who made stupid things with tampons just for the hell out of a laugh, so a box with tampons doesn't make me uncomfortable," he spoke very quickly as cleaned the cut again.
"See? I told you if you cut your hand, you won't get blood all over your fingers and stuff, just the palm of your hand," I said trying to joke after a short silence, but it came out hollow.
"I need to see your arms before putting on the dressing," he said looking up at me, but I was still looking down.
"No."
"Yes," he said. He didn't sound very patient, at all.
I used the back of my right hand to wipe the tears that had just rolled down my eyes. He was making me feel so guilty for the simple fact that he was trying to take care of my self-inflicted cuts, and the whole situation was just so embarrassing and awkward. "But first I want you to answer something, honestly," I finally spoke.
"What?" he said tilting his head down to his left side trying to look at my face, but my long hair wouldn't let him.
"You came here just to do this, right? I mean, there's no sister at the hospital or anything...you just wanted to keep an eye on me."
He took in a deep breath and remained in silence for a moment. "You're right...how did you figure it out?" he finally spoke.
"I'm not stupid...you're a great actor, but the plot is what sucks. I mean, you're flying here because you're worried about your sister, but you spent the entire flight joking, and during all the time we've been together here you haven't called your family one single time, neither any of them has called you. The only part where the acting failed a little bit was at some point in the airport when you and Jenny shared some weird looks...and also when you acted shocked on the way here when I said something about the divorce, specially because in the plain I had also made a comment about me going to be single, when we were joking around, and you didn't pay the least attention to it then. Besides, you couldn't have found those blades so easily because I'm sure they were inside the box with the tampons and hidden between them...which takes me to the next question: Is Jenny part of the plan?"
"Yes...she'll kill me for saying it, but you're not stupid, and you'd figure it out anyways. She said she was really scared about you being on yourself, that you've been cutting a lot and eating too little...she basically asked Billie to help you."
"When was that? Because I'm aware about the conversation they had when we got to California, but it didn't sound much like that."
"That was last night, while you were sleeping after your panic attack...earlier today, she went to my room to ask me what I just told you, but she also asked me if it was okay for me to keep an eye on you tonight so she could spend the night over at Megan's, and I took the chance to ask her if she knew where you kept your blades, she told me she didn't but she also said that Brian would never touch your "feminine private stuff" like tampons and such, so that they could probably be with those...so when I saw the box in there I looked inside of it and found them."
I nodded my head. "Billie, Jenny, you...who else is part of this plan?"
"Tré and Adrienne...Jenny talked to Billie last night, she begged him to help you because she was really worried, Billie wasn't sure of what to do, so he talked to Adrienne, she suggested to send somebody to keep an eye on you, besides Jenny, because she's really scared and because being you her mother, she's on a weakest position. They decided not to send Billie, thinking it'd be too obvious, and Adrienne wouldn't come either, because you two barely know each other, even though she's heard a lot about you since the first day she met Billie. Then Billie called me and Tré, it had to be one of the two of us, at the end we decided that I should be the one to come, since I'm the closer one to you out of the three of us and that seemed more important for the plan that the fact that Tré would make you laugh every three seconds...Jenny also told Megan about it all."
"Wow...umm...so basically you're taking advantage out of the fact that we had sex sixteen years ago."
He laughed, "I guess you could say so."
"Well...you've been doing a good work with the making me laugh thing...why did Jenny have to tell Megan though? She knows I hate to drag Megan into this stuff."
"I guess she had her reasons," Mike answered simply. "Anything else?"
"Yes...what did you do during all those long hours you spent at the hospital?"
"Can you look up at me?" he asked cupping my face with his free hand, as he was still holding my hurt hand with the other. I just nodded my head and tried not to cry, and then he lifted my chin, making me face him. "I...I went to psychiatry...talked to a psychiatrist and a psychologist about your situation, asked about treatments...made an appointment for you for tomorrow."
"What? When were you planning on telling me? When you took me tomorrow to the hospital to visit your imaginary sister?"
"Exactly." I just shook my head. "You deserve to give it a try. Billie is right, everyone tries to treat you right because that's what you deserve, we all can see it, except for you...if you started to admit that you're a great person and you started to see all the good things you deserve you wouldn't feel so bad right now because I'm taking care of you. The only reason why you feel guilty and embarrassed right now is because you think you deserve all the shit you do to yourself, well, guess what? You don't! You should treat yourself the way I'm treating you right now, the way everyone is treating you most of the time." I was looking at Mike the whole time as he spoke because he was still cupping my face with his left hand, and then I just broke in tears. "Come here," he said letting go of my hand, leaving it rested on my knee, and taking his other hand away from my face, only to use both of them to pull me into a friendly and comforting hug. "I meant every single word I said, you know? You're way better than this."
After a while, when I seemed to have clamed down already, he gently pushed me away from him. "Are you feeling better?" I nodded my head and I wiped my tears again. "So will you go to the appointment tomorrow?"
"It's useless, I've gone to so many psychiatrist and psychologist already and I've been on a few meds too." Your friend just gave me a look characteristically of him. "But I'll go; I'll give a try, as you say. You gotta go with me though."
"Deal," he said with a smile. "You wanna go wash your face?" I nodded simply and got up from my bed; he followed me and leaned against the doorway of the bathroom watching me the whole time as I washed my face with the cold water. Once I was done, he gestured with his hand for me to go back to the bed. We sat in the same position as we were before, my back was leaning against the bedpost and he was sitting right in front of me. "Will you let me see your wrists now?" he asked after a couple of minutes of silence. I nodded my head quietly and started to play nervously with the end of the left sleeve of the sweater I was wearing. "So you did cut after we got here," Mike commented seeing this attitude, I just looked at him with questioning eyes. "You took off your jacket at the airport as if it wasn't such a big deal, but now you can't pull up your sleeve," he added. I took in a deep breath and pulled up my sleeve. Mike's eyes grew wide open, but he tried to hide it. "The...the other..." he said after clearing his throat.
"Can you help me? My hand hurts," I said looking down as I slowly tried to pull up the right sleeve of the black sweater. He nodded his head and pulled up my sleeve very carefully. Without saying another word he started to clean my cuts. Sometimes it would hurt, but I wouldn't let out a single moan. "You don't need to bandage them," I finally spoke when he was about to put the dressing on them. He just ignored my words and continued covering them with the bandages. "I don't want Jenny to see them, she might think I tried to kill myself or something," I finally added.
"It'd be worst if she saw the cuts," he said simply. Another long silence followed as he ended dressing the cuts of my right arm. I looked all around the room, searching with my eyes for a sight that could distract me so I could stop thinking of how uncomfortable and embarrassed I felt, but I couldn't find anything so I started thinking of how boring my room was. At some point Mike must have noticed I was getting very absorbed in my thoughts, which might have scared him. "Why are you being so cruel?" he finally said, making all my thoughts get dispersed in my mind.
"What?" He had caught me totally off guard.
"You have three cuts on your right arm, two on your left one, I'm assuming you did them before I walked in, considering the facts that they're still bleeding, so they must be very fresh, and that you apparently tried to hide your blade under a pile of papers...but why? What did you cut about this time?"
"I don't wanna talk about that," I said looking down.
"Wouldn't you feel a lot better if you talked instead of cutting?"
"You must have no idea of how many times I've got asked that."
"I was just two rooms from here, if you were feeling so bad you could have come talk to me," he said, being almost done with the bandages on my left arm and hand. I just remained in silence until he finished. "How does it feel?" he asked gesturing in the direction of my wrists.
"It's good, thank you."
"Nothing to thank," he said looking up at me with a smile.
"Where did you learn about first aids though?"
"I guess you're not a real punk until you've bandaged a friend or two after a street fight." I let out a small laugh and looked down. "Hey...you wanna go drink some water?"
"Yeah, let's go," I said standing on my feet and leading to the kitchen followed by your bassist friend. Using just my right hand I took a glass and filled it with water, which I drank while I watched Mike going through my kitchen gathering what seemed like the ingredients to make a sandwich. "What are you doing?" I finally asked with curiosity.
"A sandwich," he answered simply, I raised an eyebrow and nodded my head as I put the empty glass in the sink. I stood there watching for a couple of minutes until the sandwich was finally ready, then Mike put it on a plate which he pushed through the counter of the kitchen in my direction. "It's for you," he finally spoke.
"I'm not hungry."
"I bet you are...you barely touched your Chinese food even though that at Megan's you said you were starving." I laughed quietly and shook my head. "And, since tonight I'm taking good care of you, because apparently you can't do that at the moment, I decided that you have to eat something before going to sleep." I stood there without moving a single muscle, a short awkward silence was the only thing to be heard then. "Come on, I can't do everything, you gotta help me by helping yourself a little bit too," he finally spoke.
"So you're trying to give me orders in my own house," I laughed.
"Don't come with childish stuff...because if that's what you're gonna do, I have the perfect argument to beat you."
"Oh yeah?"
"Oh yeah...I'm older than you. Eleven days older than you, to be specific." We both laughed.
"Oh god...okay, I'll eat the sandwich. Get over it," I added with a roll of my eyes before starting eating the sandwich. Just then Mike quietly started to sing The Man Who Sold the World again as he pushed himself up with his arms that were rested on the counter until he sat there. About a minute after the song was over I finished my sandwich.
"God, and you were saying you weren't hungry!" he exclaimed while standing back on his feet.
"Shut up!" I said walking out of the kitchen and back to my room, Mike followed me again. "What do I have to do now, dad, go to sleep?"
"If that's what you want...if you're not feeling drowsy yet I can stay around for as long as you please though."
"I think I've had enough for today, so I'm going to sleep."
"Okay...so before I leave you alone I'll have to ask you something..."
"Yeah?"
"Okay, I really don't wanna ask this, and I don't know how to ask it," he said nervously playing with his hands.
"Then don't ask," I said simply, having the feeling that I would hate to question.
"I have to," he paused and sighed. "Are you gonna cut yourself again tonight?" he finally asked sitting on the bed and right in front of me.
I shook my head and looked down, "I don't think so."
"Good...so I'll take these with me because you won't need them tonight," he said taking the few blades that were on my bed before heading out of my room. I couldn't help but let out a small laugh at the whole situation, which Mike heard as he was just going out through the door, so he suddenly turned around and looked at me. "What did you laugh about?" I just shook my head. "What?"
"Nothing, really." He just stood there in silence for a moment until he started to nod his head.
"I know what your laugh was about," he finally spoke; I just raised an eyebrow as my response. "Yes, you must be thinking I'm really stupid because you have more blades hidden around your room."
"Oh please Mike, don't act like this...Jenny is always like that, and I have more than enough with her."
"I came here to take care of you, so I won't let you cut yourself again while I'm just a few feet away from you, okay?" I just gave him a look. "I'm staying here for the night. This little couch seems to be really comfortable," he added pointing to a little couch in one of the corners of the room as he walked up to it and sat there. "Yep, it is comfortable."
"Are you planning on spending the night sitting on there?"
"Yes."
I laughed and shook my head. "You're being overly paranoid and...I don't know...dramatic."
"Maybe...but it's worth it. You are worth this." I decided to not get into an argument, thinking that he'd give in and go to the guestroom as soon as his back stared to feel tired on that seat, so I turned off the lights and after a while of rolling from one side of the bed to the other, and crying a little over the thought that from now on I would have such a big bed just to myself and nobody to hug at night while I was sleeping. But of course that I cried in silent, like I'm used to do most of the time, so your friend wouldn't notice it, but then, with my eyes already tired from crying, I fell asleep. However, just about an hour and a half later I woke up, feeling the need to go to pee. For my surprise Mike was still sitting on the small couch by a corner of my room and he seemed to be playing around with his cellphone.
"Mike?"
"Hey you...what's up?"
"Nothing much, I just need to pee...you're still here."
"I told you I'd be spending the night here."
"What are you doing?" I said gesturing to his cellphone.
"I'm texting Billie and Tré and Brittney..."
"Why don't you go to sleep?" I said feeling that half of my brain was still sleeping.
"Because I'm taking care of you."
"Damn...I'll go to pee so we can continue this unproductive conversation," I said getting up from my bed. By the moment I walked back out of the bathroom I saw Mike still sitting there. "I'm back."
"Welcome back."
"Thanks...so you're definitely spending the night here?"
"Yes."
"Do you want to at least sleep on the bed with me?"
"Whoa...the last time I shared a bed with you we ended up having sex," he said nervously.
I laughed. "But that was a twin size bed, where the contact between the two of us was inevitable, and this is a king size bed, where we can both sleep leaving like a feet or two of distance between us. Besides, we were horny seventeen years old and..."
"We were high," we both ended my sentence in unison. "Yeah," he said and laughed.
After that we started talking about nothing and everything all at once, until two or three hours had passed us by without even realizing, then we finally fell asleep, Mike was on the bed because he had sat by my side at some point of our conversation, and he just fell asleep there, probably not long after I fell asleep.
When I woke up it must have been around 10:30am, I turned around and found Mike sitting there, already awake and texting god-knows-who.
"Morning. Did you sleep well?" he finally said noticing that I just had woken up.
"Yeah," I said with a sleepy voice, "You?"
"Yep," he said as he continued pressing different keys of his cellphone. After a few moments of silence he laughed softly, "Everyone from California says good morning to you," he finally spoke. I looked at him with questioning eyes. "Billie just sent me a message, "Tell Whatsername good morning from everyone down here". Apparently Tré is over his house too and they're just having breakfast."
"I can't believe they're already having breakfast when we are like two hours ahead them and I'm just waking up."
"I think the kids woke him up and then he called Tré, waking him up, to invite him over."
"Has he told you anything about my boys, and how they're doing?"
"Nope...ask him though," he said handing me his cellphone. "And get ready because your appointment is at 1pm." I nodded my head as I typed the text message that I was about to send you. "Come on, let's do some breakfast." After sending you the message I followed Mike into the kitchen. "What do you want?"
"I don't know, I was thinking of doing some eggs and bacons. We could simply have a sandwich though...what do you feel up to?"
"The sandwich sounds good...I mean, it requires less work." I laughed and shook my head as I made a couple of sandwiches with Mike's help. "Mm...I've got a new message, I think it must be Billie's answer," he said out of the blue handing me his cellphone once again.
"Haha..."Hyper! They're playing with my boys at the moment. They asked for you earlier"," I read out loud so Mike could hear it. He laughed a little too.
We ate our breakfast quietly.
"I miss my boys already," I finally commented, feeling on the verge of tears as I pronounced each word. Mike looked up at me, I could sense this something in his eyes, like if he wanted to tell me something but he just couldn't for some reason.
He took in a deep breathe, "Things will be alright if you work on it...it's up to you," he finally said.
"No, it isn't. Brian has all on his favour to get the custody of the kids, I even talked to a lawyer yesterday, he basically said things might end up even worse if I decide to take it to the court."
A short silence followed, I still got the same feeling from looking at Mike's blue eyes. "What if you stop self-harming...don't you think that'd help a lot?" he finally said.
"I can't stop right now...I'm just not ready. It's more complicated than it seems. Besides, I'll have scars anyways; a judge would notice it, especially because Brian would bring it up anyways, and he'd still have the fact that I cheated on him as a good argument."
He ran his fingers through his hair, for some strange reason he was overly tense. "But...it...it would mean that you're a fighter, that you're strong, that you got over something difficult...I don't know. If you stop it'd help you a lot if you had to go to court, you know?"
I felt a tear rolling down my cheek. "Let's just leave it this way and change the subject, okay?" He nodded. I quickly drank a glass of water and headed to my room.
"Hey, where are you going?" I heard Mike calling from the kitchen.
"To the bathroom," I replied simply from my room.
"What are you going to do in there?"
"That's none of your business."
Just when I was about to walk inside the bathroom I heard Mike's footsteps coming from behind me until I felt his hand touching my shoulder. I gave one more step so I was inside the bathroom, just then I turned around and slammed the door in his face. I took the blade I had put just a couple of seconds ago inside the only pocket of the sweater I was wearing and started to pull down my pyjama's pants.
"What are you doing in there?" I heard Mike asking from the other side of the door.
"I'm peeing," I lied with an irritated voice as I took the blade in my hand.
"Hey...just don't cut yourself...I'm sorry if it seems like I'm overprotecting you or something...or if I just asked you for too much while we were eating...I just care about you, I worry about you."
"I won't cut myself, okay?"
"Okay," he said with some resignation.
I really hadn't cut myself, but I was about to when I heard Mike sighing from the other side of the door. I stared blankly at the door for a moment and then I sighed too as I pulled my pants back up. I opened the door of the bathroom and saw Mike sitting by one of its sides, with his back leaning against the wall. Without saying a single word I sat beside the blue-eyed bassist. "How did you figure out I was going to cut myself?" I finally asked after a few minutes of silence. In my hands I had the blade and Mike was staring at it.
"Did you know I had some addiction to methamphetamines back in the early 90's?" I just nodded my head. "I thought so...we all did. I remember when we were trying to stop...it was Billie's idea...and it was hell," he laughed quietly. "I figured cutting is like all the other addictions...I think that you probably have been wanting to cut since last night, I know it must have been a really embarrassing moment for you, but you just had a trigger, a perfect excuse to do it...I know how things work," he finally added looking at me. I looked away and stared blankly into different spots of the room as I began to cry quietly. Suddenly I felt Mike's hand touching mine softly, he held the blade between his fingers too but without taking it away from my hands. "Did you finally cut or not?"
I shook my head. "I liked what you told me last night...about me and the way I treat myself and what I deserve...I didn't believe a single word but I liked what you said," I added with a laugh, "And to be honest, I'm tired of making everyone around me feel guilty over what I do to myself. It really isn't anyone's fault. But you said you didn't want me to self-harm being just a few feet from you, so I'll try not to...just because I liked your words." He smiled sweetly. Another moment of silence followed. I moved my hand, taking the blade away from him just to offer it to him then, and he took it as he raised an eyebrow. "You gotta help me though, because yes, I'm pretty desperate."
"And what do you want me to do for you?"
"Have my blades...do whatever you want with them, just don't let me know though...I don't wanna know if you hid them or if you put them on a garbage can in a dark alley." I got up and got all the blades I found in my closet and handed them to Mike. "And don't leave me alone in a store where I can get blades."
"Anything else?"
"Mmm...you don't have to worry about knives...I won't use those to cut...that's it, I think."
He laughed briefly. "You cut yourself when you were a teenager in...Albany...right?" I nodded and looked at him with an eyebrow raised. "How did you stop back then?"
"I don't know. I just cut a few times, until one got infected and it wasn't funny at all so I didn't do it any more until I got here," I replied simply.
"Maybe you should move out of Chicago." This time I was the one to laugh, so he laughed briefly too. "Any words of encouragement you'd like to hear every now and then?"
I laughed briefly again. "I don't think so...if anything good comes to your mind you can just say it though, "give it a try", you know?" I said trying to mimic Mike's voice poorly.
"Well...umm...take one day at the time...?"
"Thanks Mike...that just reminded me we're leaving the day after tomorrow and right now that sounds like a lot of time."
"See? I'm not good at this stuff, that's why I asked. I guess I used it in the wrong moment, this is when I should really say it...take one day at a time."
"My mom doesn't like to turn off the music in the middle of a song, at least no if it is good, or if she likes it, so we're waiting for the song to end." Mike nodded his head to Jenny's explanation and then looked back at me, before staring blankly into the space, probably listening to the music.
I sighed and turned off the ignition as soon as the song finished, very quickly also, before the next song could start. "Let's go." Silently we walked to the elevator. Then the silence came to its end too as Mike started to sing the song we had just listened to, but so quietly that I could barely figure out what part of the song he was singing. Jenny stared at him with some sort of a stunned expression on her face.
"What?" Mike asked as soon as he noticed it, interrupting the song he was singing. I exhaled sharply, so Jenny started laughing. "What?" Mike repeated.
"First...it's just interesting to see Green Day's bassist, Mike Dirnt, singing quietly a song that I would have never listened sung by you if I hadn't had the chance to meet you; sometimes you forget that I'm a fan, Dirnt. And when you start singing a song that my mom likes, in front of her, you gotta sing through the entire song, if not is just like if you had turned off the car before the song had finished. It pisses her off."
"Oh...is that...I don't know, some sort of an OCD you have or what?" he asked me.
"I don't know...I just respect the songs, you know? I really don't know how to explain it, but for me it's like if you were talking with somebody, and when the other person is in the middle of what they're saying, you turn around and just leave. I think every song says something and you just gotta listen through the whole thing. And when you stop singing in the middle of the song, it's like you were the one saying something to me and you suddenly turned around and walked away, you know?" Mike raised his raised eyebrow.
"And you should see it when it is a punk-rock opera," Jenny commented.
"Yes...because when it is a punk-rock opera each song tends to lose its meaning if it doesn't come in between the two songs that where placed before and after in the album...and well, it just loses a lot of its meaning when you take it out of its context...am I making any sense?"
"Oh boy...it must have been hell for you to watch any of our videos from American Idiot on TV."
"Yes, specially the one for Wake Me Up When September Ends, and for more than just one reason."
"Mom, I can't believe you just said that," Jenny said giving me a look.
"What do you mean?" Mike questioned me.
"I mean that the songs were hell to listen to out of context, and on top of that, I really don't think the videos were good. I mean, I loved the American Idiot video, and it was the only one that I could peacefully sit and watch. I also loved the Holiday and Boulevard of Broken Dreams videos though, but that doesn't mean that I think the videos were proper for the songs. I mean, in some odd way they were a little bit related to what the lyrics were saying, but most people don't care enough like to sit and analyze those videos, and well, that's their loss. Though Boulevard was related to the song, I might add. But then Wake Me Up had nothing to do with the song, "the lost of innocence", yes, maybe, but seriously, the video would have been perfect for the song Extraordinary Girl, you can perfectly adapt the story of the video to that song without making any changes on any of them, you know? That doesn't mean I like the video though. And Jesus of Suburbia's "plot" was perfect for the song, but the video is shit, if you ask me. It's all so exaggerated, it's like... let's inhale cocaine, but let's make enough lines like to have an overdose, and let's make them while having sex, but not just sex, let's make it as animalistic as possible, with over-acted movements. And let's be punks too, of those that live on the streets and everything, but let's have a hair style that must cost us a lot more than the money we can do stealing or selling dope in an entire month, the style has to cost a lot more than we could afford, even if we weren't spending all that much in cocaine. And let's cut ourselves, but there has to be a lot of blood coming out and running down through our entire hand. I mean, even if you hit a vein, the blood wouldn't just stain the entire hand, unless you start to play with the blood or something...the video just isn't right." Mike stared at me kind of dumbfound. Jenny was just giving me a look.
"It is...nice to know your opinion," your friend finally spoke, "I'll keep that in mind...I mean, after all, you are Whatsername."
"M.I....I'm M.I., just take my opinion as M.I.'s, not even as M.I.'s the writer of the Illinois' most famous articles about music." The bassist just let out a small laugh.
By now we had already entered the apartment. Mike walked to his room once our conversation was over; I also noticed that Jenny followed him not long after, which made me think of "my stupid theory" again as I looked at her way with a raised eyebrow. However, I preferred not to think about any of that, telling myself I was probably just being paranoid or something, so I led to my own room and then to the bath room, where I got ready for a hot and nice long shower that felt much needed in that moment. Not long after I hopped into the shower, I heard a knock on the door and my daughter's voice asking if she could come in, just after I gave her a positive answer, I heard the door going open and her footsteps into the bathroom. "May I stay at Megan's tonight?"
"Why do you want to spend the night there if your "god" is here?"
"I just want to talk to William. You know we're always together, and I spent the last few days without talking to him, not even on the phone, so I kind of miss talking to him during the entire night and there's also a lot to tell him, he still wants all the details about Christmas with Green Day...so...yeah."
"Well, I know that...I saw you going into Mike's room earlier though," I commented, she knew that that was just a call out for an explanation about that.
"I...well, I was...I was only asking him if he thinks it'd be problem if maybe someday I went to Cali with William, just so he can meet the entire band, you know? I know he's dying to, and I think he's feeling like I'm telling him all these things about how cool they all are just to make him jealous or something and I really don't want him to think like that."
"But you just said that he's the one asking."
"He is asking about everything that happened during Christmas, but I don't think that he likes the fact that I stop after every sentence just to say how cool what I just told him was and how exciting it was to spend Christmas with Green Day."
"I see...what did Mike say about your plan though?"
"He says it's perfectly okay...so I also want to ask William and Megan about that today."
"Okay...then go ask Megan if you can stay there for the night," I said from behind the bathtub's curtain.
"Thank you!" she said excitedly and ran out of the bathroom. I laughed quietly and sighed. I was still half-way through my shower when I had another interruption, this time it was my cell-phone ringing. I didn't bother to get out of the shower to answer it, instead I decide to just make it a quick shower; so it took me just a few minutes to be nice and clean and get out of the shower to see who had called.
It was Jesus. I decided not to call him back. However, after putting on my clothes and looking for Jenny all around the house, only to find Mike, telling me that she had come just a couple of minutes ago looking for her clothes and had already left, after asking Mike to please let me know that she'd be staying at Megan's because my friend had said it was okay, I heard my cell phone ringing again, so I walked back into my room and answered, it was Jesus. I think it's pointless to go through all the details of our conversation when it can be summed up like this: "I'm sorry, I haven't got the courage to tell Mary Jane, but I promise I will, it'll just take me some more time that I had planned. But you must know I love you more than I love anyone else in this entire world." When asking him how long it would take him, I got no answer. I decide not to start an argue with the "you promised me..." thing.
Everyone can make promises, and most people break them all the time too. I've broken lots of promises myself too, so it was very pointless to come with that stuff. Even since that morning, I didn't have too much faith in what he promised me. I believed him the most when he said he was going to do it as soon as she saw her, because otherwise he wouldn't have the courage to tell her after the passing of time, whether it was hours, days or months. And since he hadn't told her already, I figured out that, just as he said, he wouldn't ever have the courage to tell me. After all, nobody finds it easy to admit their flaws and weakness, and if he said that time would make it impossible for him to talk to her, I decided to believe that part of his speech.
Soon our conversation over the phone was over, and, after doing things I need to do first, I decided to continue writing this letter, because I still had a lot to say, but I wasn't being able to focus all that much, maybe due to the talk I had just had with Jesus. I felt completely hopeless. For a moment I thought of calling him and get everything out of my chest, but I decided that instead of making a scene over the phone, if that's even possible, I'd rather just to stay quiet, I didn't want to make him feel like I was trying to manipulate him.
So I simply took a blade and cut my right arm once before trying to continue writing, which probably was a bad idea, because I still couldn't focus, which made me feel frustrated, besides the feeling of being hopeless I already had, so I made another cut, right next to the one I had done minutes earlier, and then another. Now it wasn't only about the conversation that I had had with Jesus and the fact that I couldn't focus on anything, it was everything that had happened for the last few months. Besides, I must also confess that I had waited to make a cut for most of the day. I pulled up the left sleeve of my black sweater and sighed heavily before making another cut. Then I almost jumped from the bed when a knock was heard on the door of my room at the same time as I had started to make another cut on my left arm. I exhaled sharply and threw the blade by my side, on the bed, and took the pile of papers that formed what I had written of this letter so far and placed them on top of it, in order to hide it, "Come in," I spoke as I quickly pulled down the sleeves of my sweater.
"Hey," Mike said as he slowly opened the door.
"What's up Mike?" I asked forcing a smile.
"Not much. You?"
"Not much either. What brings you around my room though?"
"Well...the fact that nothing much is up...I'm kind of bored, and I'm in California's time still, and I go to bed late anyways, so I don't think I'll be sleepy anytime soon, and I was going to the kitchen but I noticed the light of your room was on, so I decided to come to see if you are bored too and can use some company?...or am I being just a bother?"
"Not at all...but nobody gets bored in my house though! Come," I said getting up from the bed and heading to the living room. "Here are all my albums, which makes a very extended collection...you'll find every thing, from The Ramones, The Clash and Sex Pistols to Britney Spears and N'Sync, going through Bob Marley to Aerosmith, Green Day, of course, and I even have Daddy Yankee's album, if you even know who he is, and I'm hopping you don't because it's crap," I said pointing to something that looked like a bookcase full of albums. "Down here I have all the cassettes and vinyl's, you'll find some pretty old stuff there. Here you have the stereo and cassette player and here the vinyl player. I have cable television too, if you haven't noticed. Here you have all the books, some are mine, some are Brian's, a few are Jenny's, but you can get your hands on whatever you want." Then I walked back to my room and pointed to a table and a little stand, "Here are some of my personal favourite albums and books. In the TV room there's also a set of video games, lots of movies and a DVD and VHS player and there's also a computer with Internet access and some more games. You can also get online from every room of the house if you brought your laptop or something, and you can also feel free to use the phone if you want," I gasped as soon as I finished. Your taller friend just looked at me with his right eyebrow raised. "Damn, I see I probably should have pleased Jenny when she asked me to install a recording studio in the house about seven years ago." Mike broke into a hearty laugh. This time I was the one to look at him with an eyebrow raised. "Okay, there's also paper, pencils, pens, Jenny has an acoustic guitar and an electric one as well, unfortunately not a bass." Mike was still laughing his ass off.
"Oh god," he finally spoke trying to breathe between laughs, until he managed to stop laughing. "You don't need to freak out...you remember when we first met at Jesus'?" I simply nodded my head. "Well, I liked it better then, because you didn't freak out about everything...just forget the fact I became a celebrity, just remember the old times...if I'm staying here at your place is because I thought maybe we could spend sometime talking or I don't know, like during those good, ol' times, you know?" My mind immediately ran to the memory of me having sex with Mike in the bookmobile, which I think he somehow noticed as he immediately added, "Without the having sex part, of course, just the random chatting and all that, you know? It's just that everytime I stay at a hotel, this is exactly the kind of treatment I get...people sometimes seems to forget that I'm only human, and that I can easily enjoy the same things everyone else does, if you know what I mean?"
"You're right," I said with a nod of my head, "I'm sorry, I'm acting like Jenny...I promise I'll try not to freak out again." He just smiled softly. I sat on my king size bed that was at the moment covered with pieces of paper I had used to write part of my letter, but that I eventually dismissed for considering it crap, books and a couple of music albums, so I cleared the spot on the bed right in front of me and patted it; Mike sat there, he still had the same smile on his face. None of us said a word for a kind of long while. "What did Jenny talk to you about when she went to your room earlier when we arrived from the restaurant?" I finally questioned when the silence was starting to be awkward.
"She just asked me if I thought it was okay for William to go to California someday with her so he could meet Billie and Tré and maybe even the rest of our crew...I said I didn't think there was any problem with that." I nodded my head.
"I'm sorry if I was too bitchy attacking your videos earlier when we were on the elevator. I feel really guilty about it now, I mean, I can't even imagine how important those videos must be to all of you after putting so much work on them."
"It's okay...I like opinionated people, and honest people. I actually think that was one of the best moments of the day because you treated me probably as a job partner trying to give me some ideas for an article about the Green Day videos instead of as Mike Dirnt, the Green Day member." I let out a small laugh as he said this, then, another moment of silence followed. "So...what are all those pieces of paper?"
"That's just...I was trying to get some articles for the paper done, I usually like to get them hand written before typing them into the computer, so I can edit them while I'm getting them from the paper to the screen," I said, lying only about the content of the papers, because that's actually the process I follow when writing my articles.
"Nice...may I read one of them?" he said taking the pile of papers that was by my side, but I immediately took them away from him.
"No!...I mean, no...I have all my articles that have been published on that stand, you can read those...I just don't like to show the ones I'm working on until they're done and look clean on a computer screen, you know?" He just nodded his head very slightly, and continued doing so for almost a minute long, without saying another word; his eyes were fixated on the spot of the bed that was right beside where I was sitting, for a moment he looked kind of hypnotized. Just when I was about to ask if there was something wrong, I realized what was going on. "Shit," I muttered for myself as I put my left hand on the same spot where the pile of paper was lying just a minute ago. His blue eyes quickly moved up to look into the green ones of mine.
"I'm sorry...I didn't know that..." he spoke nervously, but before he could even finish what he was saying I started shaking my head and bit my lips, trying to not moan because of the pain I was feeling due to the blade cutting the palm of the hand that was covering it.
"It's okay, I know you didn't."
The expression on his face turned completely into a sad one as he slowly reached for my left hand and touched it softly, "Let me see," he spoke before looking down at my hand, which he took and lifted. He sighed heavily. I simply looked down and felt how my cheeks were turning red with embarrassment. Slowly, he placed my hand on top of my knee, then he got up, "Is that the bathroom?" he said pointing to a closed door inside my room, without looking up, I nodded my head as a response. He walked in there, "Do you have any towels that are not white?" he called out after a few seconds of being inside the bathroom.
"I...just use..." I said before pausing and getting up to walk into the bathroom where the bassist was, "Just use this one..." I said pointing to one of the towels, but before I could even try to take it he held me gently by my upper arms, guiding me out of the bathroom and sitting me back on the bed.
"You just stay here, okay?" Soon, he came back with the towels I had pointed to, an end of it was wet. He took my hand in his and softly tried to clean the blood from my hand, but I moaned, even though I tried not to. "I'm sorry," he said looking up at me briefly, and then he tried again, but got the same response from me.
"Let me do it myself, okay?" I said trying to take the towel away from him.
"No," he said firmly shaking his head, "I'll try not to make it hurt this time."
"It's more than just that...this is really embarrassing...let me take care of my self-inflicted cut by myself."
"This doesn't have to be embarrassing; you didn't do this cut intentionally."
"But you know it is embarrassing...and it makes me feel extremely guilty about it...I'm sorry that you saw this, but really, you don't have to take care of it."
"But I want to. And don't apologize...not to me anyways," he added before looking back down at my hand and trying to clean the cut again, this time he did it so softly that I could barely feel it. "It looks really bad, I think it might need stitches," he finally spoke while looking into the cut. I looked at it as well.
"That's why I cut my hand once and never did it again, all the cuts in the hands look way worse than they are. It'll be fine without stitches."
He sighed, "I'm going to bandage it then."
"There's no need to."
"It'll start bleeding again as soon as you start to use your hand and it will also hurt like hell, especially if anything touches the cut."
"I'll dress it later then."
"Just while you gather bandages and everything else you'll stain everything around and it'll hurt like hell...so, do you have a first aids kit or something?" I sighed and nodded my head. "Where is it?"
"In the bathroom's cabinet...but the ones under the sink." He nodded his head as he got up.
"I found it," he said coming back from the bathroom. "And I also found these," he said showing me a few blades.
"Where were those?" I said looking down again.
"With your tampons...I'm not like your husband. I'm a punk, one of those who made stupid things with tampons just for the hell out of a laugh, so a box with tampons doesn't make me uncomfortable," he spoke very quickly as cleaned the cut again.
"See? I told you if you cut your hand, you won't get blood all over your fingers and stuff, just the palm of your hand," I said trying to joke after a short silence, but it came out hollow.
"I need to see your arms before putting on the dressing," he said looking up at me, but I was still looking down.
"No."
"Yes," he said. He didn't sound very patient, at all.
I used the back of my right hand to wipe the tears that had just rolled down my eyes. He was making me feel so guilty for the simple fact that he was trying to take care of my self-inflicted cuts, and the whole situation was just so embarrassing and awkward. "But first I want you to answer something, honestly," I finally spoke.
"What?" he said tilting his head down to his left side trying to look at my face, but my long hair wouldn't let him.
"You came here just to do this, right? I mean, there's no sister at the hospital or anything...you just wanted to keep an eye on me."
He took in a deep breath and remained in silence for a moment. "You're right...how did you figure it out?" he finally spoke.
"I'm not stupid...you're a great actor, but the plot is what sucks. I mean, you're flying here because you're worried about your sister, but you spent the entire flight joking, and during all the time we've been together here you haven't called your family one single time, neither any of them has called you. The only part where the acting failed a little bit was at some point in the airport when you and Jenny shared some weird looks...and also when you acted shocked on the way here when I said something about the divorce, specially because in the plain I had also made a comment about me going to be single, when we were joking around, and you didn't pay the least attention to it then. Besides, you couldn't have found those blades so easily because I'm sure they were inside the box with the tampons and hidden between them...which takes me to the next question: Is Jenny part of the plan?"
"Yes...she'll kill me for saying it, but you're not stupid, and you'd figure it out anyways. She said she was really scared about you being on yourself, that you've been cutting a lot and eating too little...she basically asked Billie to help you."
"When was that? Because I'm aware about the conversation they had when we got to California, but it didn't sound much like that."
"That was last night, while you were sleeping after your panic attack...earlier today, she went to my room to ask me what I just told you, but she also asked me if it was okay for me to keep an eye on you tonight so she could spend the night over at Megan's, and I took the chance to ask her if she knew where you kept your blades, she told me she didn't but she also said that Brian would never touch your "feminine private stuff" like tampons and such, so that they could probably be with those...so when I saw the box in there I looked inside of it and found them."
I nodded my head. "Billie, Jenny, you...who else is part of this plan?"
"Tré and Adrienne...Jenny talked to Billie last night, she begged him to help you because she was really worried, Billie wasn't sure of what to do, so he talked to Adrienne, she suggested to send somebody to keep an eye on you, besides Jenny, because she's really scared and because being you her mother, she's on a weakest position. They decided not to send Billie, thinking it'd be too obvious, and Adrienne wouldn't come either, because you two barely know each other, even though she's heard a lot about you since the first day she met Billie. Then Billie called me and Tré, it had to be one of the two of us, at the end we decided that I should be the one to come, since I'm the closer one to you out of the three of us and that seemed more important for the plan that the fact that Tré would make you laugh every three seconds...Jenny also told Megan about it all."
"Wow...umm...so basically you're taking advantage out of the fact that we had sex sixteen years ago."
He laughed, "I guess you could say so."
"Well...you've been doing a good work with the making me laugh thing...why did Jenny have to tell Megan though? She knows I hate to drag Megan into this stuff."
"I guess she had her reasons," Mike answered simply. "Anything else?"
"Yes...what did you do during all those long hours you spent at the hospital?"
"Can you look up at me?" he asked cupping my face with his free hand, as he was still holding my hurt hand with the other. I just nodded my head and tried not to cry, and then he lifted my chin, making me face him. "I...I went to psychiatry...talked to a psychiatrist and a psychologist about your situation, asked about treatments...made an appointment for you for tomorrow."
"What? When were you planning on telling me? When you took me tomorrow to the hospital to visit your imaginary sister?"
"Exactly." I just shook my head. "You deserve to give it a try. Billie is right, everyone tries to treat you right because that's what you deserve, we all can see it, except for you...if you started to admit that you're a great person and you started to see all the good things you deserve you wouldn't feel so bad right now because I'm taking care of you. The only reason why you feel guilty and embarrassed right now is because you think you deserve all the shit you do to yourself, well, guess what? You don't! You should treat yourself the way I'm treating you right now, the way everyone is treating you most of the time." I was looking at Mike the whole time as he spoke because he was still cupping my face with his left hand, and then I just broke in tears. "Come here," he said letting go of my hand, leaving it rested on my knee, and taking his other hand away from my face, only to use both of them to pull me into a friendly and comforting hug. "I meant every single word I said, you know? You're way better than this."
After a while, when I seemed to have clamed down already, he gently pushed me away from him. "Are you feeling better?" I nodded my head and I wiped my tears again. "So will you go to the appointment tomorrow?"
"It's useless, I've gone to so many psychiatrist and psychologist already and I've been on a few meds too." Your friend just gave me a look characteristically of him. "But I'll go; I'll give a try, as you say. You gotta go with me though."
"Deal," he said with a smile. "You wanna go wash your face?" I nodded simply and got up from my bed; he followed me and leaned against the doorway of the bathroom watching me the whole time as I washed my face with the cold water. Once I was done, he gestured with his hand for me to go back to the bed. We sat in the same position as we were before, my back was leaning against the bedpost and he was sitting right in front of me. "Will you let me see your wrists now?" he asked after a couple of minutes of silence. I nodded my head quietly and started to play nervously with the end of the left sleeve of the sweater I was wearing. "So you did cut after we got here," Mike commented seeing this attitude, I just looked at him with questioning eyes. "You took off your jacket at the airport as if it wasn't such a big deal, but now you can't pull up your sleeve," he added. I took in a deep breath and pulled up my sleeve. Mike's eyes grew wide open, but he tried to hide it. "The...the other..." he said after clearing his throat.
"Can you help me? My hand hurts," I said looking down as I slowly tried to pull up the right sleeve of the black sweater. He nodded his head and pulled up my sleeve very carefully. Without saying another word he started to clean my cuts. Sometimes it would hurt, but I wouldn't let out a single moan. "You don't need to bandage them," I finally spoke when he was about to put the dressing on them. He just ignored my words and continued covering them with the bandages. "I don't want Jenny to see them, she might think I tried to kill myself or something," I finally added.
"It'd be worst if she saw the cuts," he said simply. Another long silence followed as he ended dressing the cuts of my right arm. I looked all around the room, searching with my eyes for a sight that could distract me so I could stop thinking of how uncomfortable and embarrassed I felt, but I couldn't find anything so I started thinking of how boring my room was. At some point Mike must have noticed I was getting very absorbed in my thoughts, which might have scared him. "Why are you being so cruel?" he finally said, making all my thoughts get dispersed in my mind.
"What?" He had caught me totally off guard.
"You have three cuts on your right arm, two on your left one, I'm assuming you did them before I walked in, considering the facts that they're still bleeding, so they must be very fresh, and that you apparently tried to hide your blade under a pile of papers...but why? What did you cut about this time?"
"I don't wanna talk about that," I said looking down.
"Wouldn't you feel a lot better if you talked instead of cutting?"
"You must have no idea of how many times I've got asked that."
"I was just two rooms from here, if you were feeling so bad you could have come talk to me," he said, being almost done with the bandages on my left arm and hand. I just remained in silence until he finished. "How does it feel?" he asked gesturing in the direction of my wrists.
"It's good, thank you."
"Nothing to thank," he said looking up at me with a smile.
"Where did you learn about first aids though?"
"I guess you're not a real punk until you've bandaged a friend or two after a street fight." I let out a small laugh and looked down. "Hey...you wanna go drink some water?"
"Yeah, let's go," I said standing on my feet and leading to the kitchen followed by your bassist friend. Using just my right hand I took a glass and filled it with water, which I drank while I watched Mike going through my kitchen gathering what seemed like the ingredients to make a sandwich. "What are you doing?" I finally asked with curiosity.
"A sandwich," he answered simply, I raised an eyebrow and nodded my head as I put the empty glass in the sink. I stood there watching for a couple of minutes until the sandwich was finally ready, then Mike put it on a plate which he pushed through the counter of the kitchen in my direction. "It's for you," he finally spoke.
"I'm not hungry."
"I bet you are...you barely touched your Chinese food even though that at Megan's you said you were starving." I laughed quietly and shook my head. "And, since tonight I'm taking good care of you, because apparently you can't do that at the moment, I decided that you have to eat something before going to sleep." I stood there without moving a single muscle, a short awkward silence was the only thing to be heard then. "Come on, I can't do everything, you gotta help me by helping yourself a little bit too," he finally spoke.
"So you're trying to give me orders in my own house," I laughed.
"Don't come with childish stuff...because if that's what you're gonna do, I have the perfect argument to beat you."
"Oh yeah?"
"Oh yeah...I'm older than you. Eleven days older than you, to be specific." We both laughed.
"Oh god...okay, I'll eat the sandwich. Get over it," I added with a roll of my eyes before starting eating the sandwich. Just then Mike quietly started to sing The Man Who Sold the World again as he pushed himself up with his arms that were rested on the counter until he sat there. About a minute after the song was over I finished my sandwich.
"God, and you were saying you weren't hungry!" he exclaimed while standing back on his feet.
"Shut up!" I said walking out of the kitchen and back to my room, Mike followed me again. "What do I have to do now, dad, go to sleep?"
"If that's what you want...if you're not feeling drowsy yet I can stay around for as long as you please though."
"I think I've had enough for today, so I'm going to sleep."
"Okay...so before I leave you alone I'll have to ask you something..."
"Yeah?"
"Okay, I really don't wanna ask this, and I don't know how to ask it," he said nervously playing with his hands.
"Then don't ask," I said simply, having the feeling that I would hate to question.
"I have to," he paused and sighed. "Are you gonna cut yourself again tonight?" he finally asked sitting on the bed and right in front of me.
I shook my head and looked down, "I don't think so."
"Good...so I'll take these with me because you won't need them tonight," he said taking the few blades that were on my bed before heading out of my room. I couldn't help but let out a small laugh at the whole situation, which Mike heard as he was just going out through the door, so he suddenly turned around and looked at me. "What did you laugh about?" I just shook my head. "What?"
"Nothing, really." He just stood there in silence for a moment until he started to nod his head.
"I know what your laugh was about," he finally spoke; I just raised an eyebrow as my response. "Yes, you must be thinking I'm really stupid because you have more blades hidden around your room."
"Oh please Mike, don't act like this...Jenny is always like that, and I have more than enough with her."
"I came here to take care of you, so I won't let you cut yourself again while I'm just a few feet away from you, okay?" I just gave him a look. "I'm staying here for the night. This little couch seems to be really comfortable," he added pointing to a little couch in one of the corners of the room as he walked up to it and sat there. "Yep, it is comfortable."
"Are you planning on spending the night sitting on there?"
"Yes."
I laughed and shook my head. "You're being overly paranoid and...I don't know...dramatic."
"Maybe...but it's worth it. You are worth this." I decided to not get into an argument, thinking that he'd give in and go to the guestroom as soon as his back stared to feel tired on that seat, so I turned off the lights and after a while of rolling from one side of the bed to the other, and crying a little over the thought that from now on I would have such a big bed just to myself and nobody to hug at night while I was sleeping. But of course that I cried in silent, like I'm used to do most of the time, so your friend wouldn't notice it, but then, with my eyes already tired from crying, I fell asleep. However, just about an hour and a half later I woke up, feeling the need to go to pee. For my surprise Mike was still sitting on the small couch by a corner of my room and he seemed to be playing around with his cellphone.
"Mike?"
"Hey you...what's up?"
"Nothing much, I just need to pee...you're still here."
"I told you I'd be spending the night here."
"What are you doing?" I said gesturing to his cellphone.
"I'm texting Billie and Tré and Brittney..."
"Why don't you go to sleep?" I said feeling that half of my brain was still sleeping.
"Because I'm taking care of you."
"Damn...I'll go to pee so we can continue this unproductive conversation," I said getting up from my bed. By the moment I walked back out of the bathroom I saw Mike still sitting there. "I'm back."
"Welcome back."
"Thanks...so you're definitely spending the night here?"
"Yes."
"Do you want to at least sleep on the bed with me?"
"Whoa...the last time I shared a bed with you we ended up having sex," he said nervously.
I laughed. "But that was a twin size bed, where the contact between the two of us was inevitable, and this is a king size bed, where we can both sleep leaving like a feet or two of distance between us. Besides, we were horny seventeen years old and..."
"We were high," we both ended my sentence in unison. "Yeah," he said and laughed.
After that we started talking about nothing and everything all at once, until two or three hours had passed us by without even realizing, then we finally fell asleep, Mike was on the bed because he had sat by my side at some point of our conversation, and he just fell asleep there, probably not long after I fell asleep.
When I woke up it must have been around 10:30am, I turned around and found Mike sitting there, already awake and texting god-knows-who.
"Morning. Did you sleep well?" he finally said noticing that I just had woken up.
"Yeah," I said with a sleepy voice, "You?"
"Yep," he said as he continued pressing different keys of his cellphone. After a few moments of silence he laughed softly, "Everyone from California says good morning to you," he finally spoke. I looked at him with questioning eyes. "Billie just sent me a message, "Tell Whatsername good morning from everyone down here". Apparently Tré is over his house too and they're just having breakfast."
"I can't believe they're already having breakfast when we are like two hours ahead them and I'm just waking up."
"I think the kids woke him up and then he called Tré, waking him up, to invite him over."
"Has he told you anything about my boys, and how they're doing?"
"Nope...ask him though," he said handing me his cellphone. "And get ready because your appointment is at 1pm." I nodded my head as I typed the text message that I was about to send you. "Come on, let's do some breakfast." After sending you the message I followed Mike into the kitchen. "What do you want?"
"I don't know, I was thinking of doing some eggs and bacons. We could simply have a sandwich though...what do you feel up to?"
"The sandwich sounds good...I mean, it requires less work." I laughed and shook my head as I made a couple of sandwiches with Mike's help. "Mm...I've got a new message, I think it must be Billie's answer," he said out of the blue handing me his cellphone once again.
"Haha..."Hyper! They're playing with my boys at the moment. They asked for you earlier"," I read out loud so Mike could hear it. He laughed a little too.
We ate our breakfast quietly.
"I miss my boys already," I finally commented, feeling on the verge of tears as I pronounced each word. Mike looked up at me, I could sense this something in his eyes, like if he wanted to tell me something but he just couldn't for some reason.
He took in a deep breathe, "Things will be alright if you work on it...it's up to you," he finally said.
"No, it isn't. Brian has all on his favour to get the custody of the kids, I even talked to a lawyer yesterday, he basically said things might end up even worse if I decide to take it to the court."
A short silence followed, I still got the same feeling from looking at Mike's blue eyes. "What if you stop self-harming...don't you think that'd help a lot?" he finally said.
"I can't stop right now...I'm just not ready. It's more complicated than it seems. Besides, I'll have scars anyways; a judge would notice it, especially because Brian would bring it up anyways, and he'd still have the fact that I cheated on him as a good argument."
He ran his fingers through his hair, for some strange reason he was overly tense. "But...it...it would mean that you're a fighter, that you're strong, that you got over something difficult...I don't know. If you stop it'd help you a lot if you had to go to court, you know?"
I felt a tear rolling down my cheek. "Let's just leave it this way and change the subject, okay?" He nodded. I quickly drank a glass of water and headed to my room.
"Hey, where are you going?" I heard Mike calling from the kitchen.
"To the bathroom," I replied simply from my room.
"What are you going to do in there?"
"That's none of your business."
Just when I was about to walk inside the bathroom I heard Mike's footsteps coming from behind me until I felt his hand touching my shoulder. I gave one more step so I was inside the bathroom, just then I turned around and slammed the door in his face. I took the blade I had put just a couple of seconds ago inside the only pocket of the sweater I was wearing and started to pull down my pyjama's pants.
"What are you doing in there?" I heard Mike asking from the other side of the door.
"I'm peeing," I lied with an irritated voice as I took the blade in my hand.
"Hey...just don't cut yourself...I'm sorry if it seems like I'm overprotecting you or something...or if I just asked you for too much while we were eating...I just care about you, I worry about you."
"I won't cut myself, okay?"
"Okay," he said with some resignation.
I really hadn't cut myself, but I was about to when I heard Mike sighing from the other side of the door. I stared blankly at the door for a moment and then I sighed too as I pulled my pants back up. I opened the door of the bathroom and saw Mike sitting by one of its sides, with his back leaning against the wall. Without saying a single word I sat beside the blue-eyed bassist. "How did you figure out I was going to cut myself?" I finally asked after a few minutes of silence. In my hands I had the blade and Mike was staring at it.
"Did you know I had some addiction to methamphetamines back in the early 90's?" I just nodded my head. "I thought so...we all did. I remember when we were trying to stop...it was Billie's idea...and it was hell," he laughed quietly. "I figured cutting is like all the other addictions...I think that you probably have been wanting to cut since last night, I know it must have been a really embarrassing moment for you, but you just had a trigger, a perfect excuse to do it...I know how things work," he finally added looking at me. I looked away and stared blankly into different spots of the room as I began to cry quietly. Suddenly I felt Mike's hand touching mine softly, he held the blade between his fingers too but without taking it away from my hands. "Did you finally cut or not?"
I shook my head. "I liked what you told me last night...about me and the way I treat myself and what I deserve...I didn't believe a single word but I liked what you said," I added with a laugh, "And to be honest, I'm tired of making everyone around me feel guilty over what I do to myself. It really isn't anyone's fault. But you said you didn't want me to self-harm being just a few feet from you, so I'll try not to...just because I liked your words." He smiled sweetly. Another moment of silence followed. I moved my hand, taking the blade away from him just to offer it to him then, and he took it as he raised an eyebrow. "You gotta help me though, because yes, I'm pretty desperate."
"And what do you want me to do for you?"
"Have my blades...do whatever you want with them, just don't let me know though...I don't wanna know if you hid them or if you put them on a garbage can in a dark alley." I got up and got all the blades I found in my closet and handed them to Mike. "And don't leave me alone in a store where I can get blades."
"Anything else?"
"Mmm...you don't have to worry about knives...I won't use those to cut...that's it, I think."
He laughed briefly. "You cut yourself when you were a teenager in...Albany...right?" I nodded and looked at him with an eyebrow raised. "How did you stop back then?"
"I don't know. I just cut a few times, until one got infected and it wasn't funny at all so I didn't do it any more until I got here," I replied simply.
"Maybe you should move out of Chicago." This time I was the one to laugh, so he laughed briefly too. "Any words of encouragement you'd like to hear every now and then?"
I laughed briefly again. "I don't think so...if anything good comes to your mind you can just say it though, "give it a try", you know?" I said trying to mimic Mike's voice poorly.
"Well...umm...take one day at the time...?"
"Thanks Mike...that just reminded me we're leaving the day after tomorrow and right now that sounds like a lot of time."
"See? I'm not good at this stuff, that's why I asked. I guess I used it in the wrong moment, this is when I should really say it...take one day at a time."
