{Tyler}
“Fucking hell Tyler! You reek of smoke, and I see the blood starting to soaking through! Give me the bag.” Preston reached for it, but I yanked it back,
“No, leave me alone.”
“I’m not going to leave you alone if your harming yourself! I’m trying to help!”
“Well, I’m sorry to say this, but you aren’t fucking helping! You’re just making this shit worse!”
“Then I'm sorry!” He tossed my backpack at me, whacking me in the face, “You're a fucking asshole.”
“Thanks.” I slid the plastic bag inside, and slung it over my shoulders, and began walking away again,
“Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait!” He grabbed my wrist, making me wince in pain, “I'm sorry, I didn't mean that.”
Even though it was clear that he was upset, my brain kept telling me that he was lying to me, that he didn't actually care.
“No. No, you're not.” I shook my head, taking a step away from him.
“Please, Tyler.” A tear streamed down his cheek, and I frowned, scanning over his face again, “Stop being so stubborn. You know that I care about you.”
“No, I-I don't know that.” I turned around, but before I could move, Preston forced me into a hug, and cried into my shoulder.
“Tyler, you mean the world to me. I need you to know and realize that.” He sobbed,
“Stop crying…”
“I can't help it… I don't like knowing that you're harming yourself, I don't like knowing that you hate yourself, and I sure as hell don't like you thinking that I hate you. I could never hate you.”
“You could.”
“No, I couldn't. I've tried. I've tried so hard to not care, and to hate you, but I can't because I… I…”
“You what?” I turned around to face him,
“Nevermind.” His face was bright red,
“Okay…” I sighed, deciding to sit on a crate,
“Can… Can you show me your arms?”
“Why?”
“Because you're bleeding pretty badly, and I want to make sure it's not going to become infected, or it needs stitches.”
“Well it doesn't matter if I need stitches or not, I can't just go see a doctor anymore.”
“My boyfriend's mom is a doctor, she could do it.” Amiable informed, alerting me to their presence,
“Oh, uh, okay. Thanks.” I mumbled, avoiding eye contact,
“Just so you're aware, I'm not judging, I used to cut too.” They lifted their sleeve to show me the scars of transphobic slurs that they had carved into their arms.
“Sorry, it just makes me uncomfortable.”
“Well, there's an empty closet in the back, you guys can go there?”
“Yeah, thanks.” Preston nodded, grabbing my arm so I was unable to protest against him,
“Ow, okay, let go, that hurts like a biiitch!”
“Sorry, sorry.” He released my arm, and opened the door to the closet, letting me enter before locking it behind us, just in case.
“Ugh, it smells like weed in here.”
“How do you know what that smells like?” Preston asked, getting reading to scold me,
“Relaaax, some dumbass offered me a joint, I tried it, but it gave me a panic attack, so I didn't do it again after that,”
“Still, you shouldn't have tried it.”
“Well, I didn't know what else to do. I was trying to swap it for cutting. Which is what got me to start smoking, but obviously that didn't work out, did it?”
“Obviously not, now show me what you did.”
“Uh, I'll show you my arms, but I am not taking off my pants.”
“What? You think I'm gonna look?”
“Ew! What?! No! I've just done way more disturbing shit down there, and I don't want anyone to see that.”
“I'm not going to judge you, and I won't tell anyone else what I saw.”
“Trust me, you do not want to see it.”
“You lied to me for four years, and you expect me to trust you. Yeah, right.”
“Okay, okay, you have a point there.” I admitted,
“Are you going to show me, or not?”
“Yeah, in a second… How much of it fo you really want to see?”
“All of it.”
“Fuck, guess I'm stripping then.” I laughed, though neither of us found it funny,
“Tyler…” He put a hand to his mouth as soon as I took my shirt off, “Why?”
“Honestly? I don't even know.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, the first couple times I did it, it wasn't because I was upset. Just that something called me to it, and I didn't resist it. Sometimes there are still moments like this, but now there are times I use as an emotional outlet too.” I confessed,
“Why didn't you… stop?”
“Because it just doesn't work like that. It’s an addiction. No matter what I do, my body craves it. And it sucks. It sucks so bad. I was able to stop for three months, and it felt amazing, but I relapsed after some stupid ass argument.”
“Wait…” Preston bit his lip, and scanned my body, “This is all shit I've called you before when we fought…” Preston sniffled, as he read the words I had written into my skin, that would permanently remind me of who I really was.
I looked away, not wanting to confirm, or deny his statement, but I think my answer was clear enough.
“You aren't insane, you aren't a failure, you aren't an idiot, or stupid, you aren't worthless, useless, and you aren't unloveable. You aren't-” He kept going on, and on, until he had read every visible word on my upper half, “I'm so sorry I did this to you, Tyler.”
“You didn't do anything, Preston.”
“Don't say that. You know that it's not true. I hurt you, and I hurt you really damn bad. I hurt you to the point where you decided that you deserve to imprint words into your skin, because you believed the shitty things I told you! That's not okay, Tyler!”
“But I forgive you Preston…”
“You shouldn't. I totally fucked up your head-”
“Preston, don't say that. I'd be fucked up in the head with or without you. It's not something I'd be able to escape.”
“Still, I said really bad things to you. If you had said that to me, I would be pissed beyond belief, and never talk to you again. You shouldn't forgive me for degrading you to this point.”
“But I never let you know that it was happening. How would you have known?”
“I shouldn't have to-”
“You know what? Let's just stop. I don't feel like arguing right now.” I picked up my shirt,
“No, I want to see your legs.”
“Trust me, you don't.”
“Please,”
“Fine… God dammit…” I pulled my pants off, making Preston sob at the sight of the cuts, and the words.
“Why didn't you tell someone about this?”
“I wanted to. God, I wanted to so fucking bad, but I was terrified, and I believed that nobody would care anyways, so why bother?”
“Why can't you understand how much that I care?”
“It's part of my disorder, so no matter how much I want to, I will never feel cared about, because my brain will never let me know that I am.”
“I hate that.”
“I hate it too, but I can't do a thing about it.” I shrugged, “The only way to get better, because it'll never go away, is therapy, and I’ve never gotten access to that.”
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