Categories > Celebrities > My Chemical Romance > The Poison
Chapter Seventeen
3 reviewsA minor revelation is made. But so far it hasn't made anything better.
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My sister found a picture of Billie Joe Armstrong in her textbook yesterday. Much squealing ensued.
The Poison
Chapter Seventeen
And in the mourning, I'll rise
In the mourning, I'll let you die
I woke to the sound of birds.
That gave me a sense of relief.
The birds never chirped when my father was home, like I never talked. I sat up in bed and placed my hands on the worn mattress, pushing myself onto the floor, where I knelt for a few minutes. I wondered when my father would be back, and if my mother was awake. To the first, I hoped never, and to the second, I hoped not. I needed time to think, without anyone else awake to hear me talking to myself, or see my anxious pacing.
I got up from my kneeling position and walked back out to the front room, where I sat up on the table. The birds continued chirping, sounding oddly similar to the sparrow that had tapped on the window and stolen my gloves, so long ago. A sharp pang of grief rattled my frame and I curled into a small ball, silent tears sliding endlessly down my cheeks.
A choked sob made its way to the back of my throat, but I swallowed forcefully and pushed it back down.
Don’t. I told myself. Crying’s never solved anything before, and it sure as hell won’t now. You need to think of something... some way to deal with this.
But there was nothing.
There was nothing I could do- there goes the person I’ve come to care about, and I’m utterly powerless. I can’t do a single fucking thing.
I felt a cold, gentle hand on my shoulder, and without thinking, I leaned further into Lindsey’s shoulder, ignoring the fact that she passed right through me.
“I thought I had it.” I said. “I thought I understood, and I thought things were finally getting better. And then it just...”
I clenched my fists.
“Why? Why do these things happen to me?”
Lindsey gazed upon my pathetic, snivelling face, and slowly shook her head from side to side. “I don’t know. I don’t know why this happens to you, and I don’t know why I died.” she said. “Sometimes, I guess life just needs to pull the rug out from under you.”
“It’s not fucking fair.” I snarled.
“I know. I know that better than anyone.”
I momentarily stopped crying and looked up at her. Her mouth was pressed into a hard line, her eyes squinted shut.
“I think it’s time you knew how I died, Atropine.”
-.-.-
“An argument. That’s how it started. He’d gone out late again. I was in the living room all night, waiting for him to come back.
And he did. Sort of.
Wasted as hell, sloppy face, clothes messed up. I brought him over to the bed and sat him down, and told him he needed to stop. We had a kid, and he was setting a bad example. I didn’t want Bandit- our little girl- growing up around an alcoholic. For most of it, he just sat there quietly, looking like a lost kid. He didn’t try to protest when I forced him a pain pill to help with the hangover, but when I tried to clear out the liquor cabinet, he flew off the handle. He yelled about me trying to get rid of the only thing that kept him hanging on- back then, alcohol was his only friend, he thought. He didn’t care about me or Bandit or his brother or friends... a bottle of fucking poison was more important to him than his damn family. I yelled back, said some things I regretted to him- ‘alcoholic’, ‘druggie’, ‘abuser’, to name a few.
He hit me.”
-.-.-
A single tear wobbled on the tip of her nose and fell to the floor, instantly evaporating with a hiss as soon as it hit the table. I attempted to put my hand on her arm, but it just passed through.
“You don’t need to keep going, you know.” I tried. “If it’s this painful...”
“No. I’m... I’m fine.”
-.-.-
“It wasn’t really the slap itself that hurt- it was more the intention behind it. We’d never hit each other before. We’ve hardly even argued. But then, in that moment- he had wanted to hurt me. Hurt me. After all those times we’ve said we loved each other, all those times we’d promised to never hurt each other... I just couldn’t stay.
I took Bandit, the car and drove out. Onto the highway, with the radio turned up so Bandit couldn’t hear me crying. We were on the highway when... I died, I guess.
It was a semi-truck. The driver wasn’t drunk, I could see it clearly in front of me, I just wasn’t thinking straight. You know what happens next. Huge pileup. Thirteen people dead. I floated out of my body and saw the paramedics and Gerard, who’d gotten Mikey to drive him as soon as he got the call. They tried to defibrillate me- I felt the shock trying to pull me into my body, but I was so... tired. I just wanted to sleep, to let go.
The last thing I heard was Gerard, crying. As I slipped away, I felt him pull my dead body into a hug and say, ‘I’m sorry.’”
-.-.-
“I was never able to say sorry back.” Lindsey’s eyes shifted away from mine and she bit her lip, trying to push back the painful memories she’d safeguarded for so long.
I put my hand on her shoulder, slowly pulling her into a hug, but let go when my torso felt the unpleasant sensation akin to jumping in a vat of cold water. She cried silently, face hidden in her hands, the tears lacing through her translucent fingers. I looked up and around us, at the drab living room. It was a wonder that my mother hadn’t woken up and heard us.
“Lindsey...” I tried. “I can go back. I really can. I mean- I’ve done it once before, right?”
“No.” she sniffled. “I- I can’t make you. You’ve been through more than enough. You need to- to finish school and live with your family.”
“But I don’t want to!” I cried, grabbing her shoulders, this time ignoring the freezing feeling. “I want to stay with Gerard and Mikey and Ali-”
I was interrupted as the front door opened, revealing a hunched over, bloodshot-eyed father. He leaned heavily on the doorframe, glaring at me below his greasy black hair.
“Who the fuck were you talking to, girl?” he asked lowly, stumbling into the living room.
“No one.” I answered quietly. “I was just... thinking.”
I stood up and skulked away into my room, letting out a huge sigh of relief when he didn’t follow me.
“You see what I have to deal with every day when I live here?” I turned to Lindsey, who still looked a bit surprised at my father’s less-than-impeccable state.
“If you have to live in a place like this...” she began. “I can sort of see why you ran away in the first place.”
I nodded. “Let’s hope he doesn’t decide to pay us a visit.” I looked over at her translucent form. “...Not that it’d matter much to you, anyway.”
Lindsey grimaced at me and pressed her ear against the door to listen- or got as close to the door as she could without going right through it, being made of mist and ectoplasm, and all.
“I don’t hear anything.” she whispered to me.
“He’s probably asleep now.” I replied, still jamming my knees against the door to act as a brace, just in case he wasn’t.
“I think so. It smelled like he drank a lot.”
I snorted. “He always smells like that.” Which was true. Years spent practically living at the bar had caused the pungent smell to seep into his skin and lodge there, souring both his scent and his disposition.
I cracked the door open a fraction of an inch and peered around the corner. Seeing no sign of my father, I opened it enough to crawl through and sit on the floor in the hall next to Lindsey.
"So..." I began, staring awkwardly down at my fingers.
"There isn't much else to tell." Lindsey says. "I don't think I've left anything out of my story- or at least, nothing that you need to know."
I wanted to ask her about that last statement- I didn’t realize her memories that could play a key factor in this strange game were on a need-to-know basis.
Wanting to focus on something else, we both stared down at the rough wooden floorboards and listened to the sound of heavy snoring, coming from my parents’ bedroom. What else was there for us to say? Everything about us had been laid bare- my abuse, her death- there weren’t any secrets left to divulge. So now what? Telling secrets was pretty much the basis of our relationship.
“D’you think I could run away again?” I asked randomly. “I- I don’t really remember which part of town his house is in, but I bet muscle memory could work, and I can run fast if I want to...”
I faltered when Lindsey slowly shook her head.
“I know this is hell for you and all, but do you think running off again would help you? Help your mother?” she said.
I didn’t answer, remembering the horrible purple bruises running up my mother’s arm... how her hands trembled when she reached for the glass.
“You can’t run away from here right away just because there are things here that’re hard to deal with. Figure out how to take care of everything here. Then, I think, it should be okay to go back.” Lindsey finished. Then she sighed. “I kind of wish someone had been around to tell me that when... well, you know.”
I knew for sure that I didn’t want to reenact what Lindsey had gone through. It was true- the image my mother’s delicate form hunched over the kitchen table tugged at my conscience sharply. She’d promised to me last night to protect me from my father, why should I not return the favor? She did love me, she just never had the courage to show it until now.
Maybe. I don’t know.
“Have you ever wanted to come back?” I asked her randomly. “You know... like, be alive again?”
“Only all the time,” she sighed, looking up at the ceiling. “But what happened, happened. Now, all I can do is try to help out from behind the scenes. I wouldn’t be any help mourning my own death, anyway.”
“So he doesn’t see you.”
“Who?”
“Gerard.” I said. “He doesn’t see you. Right?”
Lindsey stared more intently at the ceiling, eyes following a long crack running along the mildewy plaster. Finally, she answered. “I guess not. I’ve tried talking to him many times, believe me, but he never answers me.”
I put my hands on my knees and looked down at a small knothole in the base moulding, absently wondering if a mouse- or a family of them- lived in there.
“That’s weird.” I finally said. “I thought that maybe this whole ‘contact the dead’ thing would work better on those you were close to... or... something.”
“I wouldn’t know.” Lindsey shrugged. “I mean- I didn’t write the ghost rulebook.”
I thought for a minute. As far as I knew, there wasn’t any special connection between me and Lindsey- I hadn’t even known she existed until recently. Maybe it was the shoes. Maybe they were originally for their dead child, or maybe they saw me sitting docilely in church and Lindsey pointed me out, saying, “See that little girl? That’s what I want our daughter to be like when she grows up. A good, smart, quiet little girl.” But they never got to see how their child would grow up, because she died too soon.
No.
That didn’t explain anything. Nothing at all. There had to be another explanation.
“Atropine...” Lindsey began to say. “Have you ever seen any other... things? Things like me?”
I was about to shake my head when I remembered seeing a small blue child when I was only seven, on the playground. Then there was the elderly couple who took to sitting in the front pews of the church after service had ended. And then there was the sad teenage boy with a deep wound blossoming on the side of his head, who sat hunched on the sidewalk by my house every night.
And then there was Lindsey and her lost child.
There were many more, I knew, but that was no longer of importance. How did I get this ‘ability’ to see those passed... and why? I could be sure as hell that I wasn’t destined to be part of some supernatural hero group that helped those departed by granting their last wish or whatever. Was this God’s cruel prank, making me see all the dead people, with such sorrow in their eyes, beseeching me to solve their lives and problems for them? The damn bastard already gave me a broken family, but I guess that wasn’t enough. He had to shovel this shit on to me, too.
For the second time that day, I wanted to scream.
“The answer will come eventually.” Lindsey said. “I hope.”
I shook my head. “By the way things are going right now, I wouldn’t hold my breath.”
So... no reviews on the last chapter, eh? I'll just write it off that you all read it and were so astounded and saddened at the ending that you closed the window and cried for half an hour, totally forgetting to review because it left a large imprint on your conscious. I mean, that's sort of what I was going for with this whole 'tragedy' thing, but FEEDBACK WOULD BE NICE.
The Poison
Chapter Seventeen
And in the mourning, I'll rise
In the mourning, I'll let you die
I woke to the sound of birds.
That gave me a sense of relief.
The birds never chirped when my father was home, like I never talked. I sat up in bed and placed my hands on the worn mattress, pushing myself onto the floor, where I knelt for a few minutes. I wondered when my father would be back, and if my mother was awake. To the first, I hoped never, and to the second, I hoped not. I needed time to think, without anyone else awake to hear me talking to myself, or see my anxious pacing.
I got up from my kneeling position and walked back out to the front room, where I sat up on the table. The birds continued chirping, sounding oddly similar to the sparrow that had tapped on the window and stolen my gloves, so long ago. A sharp pang of grief rattled my frame and I curled into a small ball, silent tears sliding endlessly down my cheeks.
A choked sob made its way to the back of my throat, but I swallowed forcefully and pushed it back down.
Don’t. I told myself. Crying’s never solved anything before, and it sure as hell won’t now. You need to think of something... some way to deal with this.
But there was nothing.
There was nothing I could do- there goes the person I’ve come to care about, and I’m utterly powerless. I can’t do a single fucking thing.
I felt a cold, gentle hand on my shoulder, and without thinking, I leaned further into Lindsey’s shoulder, ignoring the fact that she passed right through me.
“I thought I had it.” I said. “I thought I understood, and I thought things were finally getting better. And then it just...”
I clenched my fists.
“Why? Why do these things happen to me?”
Lindsey gazed upon my pathetic, snivelling face, and slowly shook her head from side to side. “I don’t know. I don’t know why this happens to you, and I don’t know why I died.” she said. “Sometimes, I guess life just needs to pull the rug out from under you.”
“It’s not fucking fair.” I snarled.
“I know. I know that better than anyone.”
I momentarily stopped crying and looked up at her. Her mouth was pressed into a hard line, her eyes squinted shut.
“I think it’s time you knew how I died, Atropine.”
-.-.-
“An argument. That’s how it started. He’d gone out late again. I was in the living room all night, waiting for him to come back.
And he did. Sort of.
Wasted as hell, sloppy face, clothes messed up. I brought him over to the bed and sat him down, and told him he needed to stop. We had a kid, and he was setting a bad example. I didn’t want Bandit- our little girl- growing up around an alcoholic. For most of it, he just sat there quietly, looking like a lost kid. He didn’t try to protest when I forced him a pain pill to help with the hangover, but when I tried to clear out the liquor cabinet, he flew off the handle. He yelled about me trying to get rid of the only thing that kept him hanging on- back then, alcohol was his only friend, he thought. He didn’t care about me or Bandit or his brother or friends... a bottle of fucking poison was more important to him than his damn family. I yelled back, said some things I regretted to him- ‘alcoholic’, ‘druggie’, ‘abuser’, to name a few.
He hit me.”
-.-.-
A single tear wobbled on the tip of her nose and fell to the floor, instantly evaporating with a hiss as soon as it hit the table. I attempted to put my hand on her arm, but it just passed through.
“You don’t need to keep going, you know.” I tried. “If it’s this painful...”
“No. I’m... I’m fine.”
-.-.-
“It wasn’t really the slap itself that hurt- it was more the intention behind it. We’d never hit each other before. We’ve hardly even argued. But then, in that moment- he had wanted to hurt me. Hurt me. After all those times we’ve said we loved each other, all those times we’d promised to never hurt each other... I just couldn’t stay.
I took Bandit, the car and drove out. Onto the highway, with the radio turned up so Bandit couldn’t hear me crying. We were on the highway when... I died, I guess.
It was a semi-truck. The driver wasn’t drunk, I could see it clearly in front of me, I just wasn’t thinking straight. You know what happens next. Huge pileup. Thirteen people dead. I floated out of my body and saw the paramedics and Gerard, who’d gotten Mikey to drive him as soon as he got the call. They tried to defibrillate me- I felt the shock trying to pull me into my body, but I was so... tired. I just wanted to sleep, to let go.
The last thing I heard was Gerard, crying. As I slipped away, I felt him pull my dead body into a hug and say, ‘I’m sorry.’”
-.-.-
“I was never able to say sorry back.” Lindsey’s eyes shifted away from mine and she bit her lip, trying to push back the painful memories she’d safeguarded for so long.
I put my hand on her shoulder, slowly pulling her into a hug, but let go when my torso felt the unpleasant sensation akin to jumping in a vat of cold water. She cried silently, face hidden in her hands, the tears lacing through her translucent fingers. I looked up and around us, at the drab living room. It was a wonder that my mother hadn’t woken up and heard us.
“Lindsey...” I tried. “I can go back. I really can. I mean- I’ve done it once before, right?”
“No.” she sniffled. “I- I can’t make you. You’ve been through more than enough. You need to- to finish school and live with your family.”
“But I don’t want to!” I cried, grabbing her shoulders, this time ignoring the freezing feeling. “I want to stay with Gerard and Mikey and Ali-”
I was interrupted as the front door opened, revealing a hunched over, bloodshot-eyed father. He leaned heavily on the doorframe, glaring at me below his greasy black hair.
“Who the fuck were you talking to, girl?” he asked lowly, stumbling into the living room.
“No one.” I answered quietly. “I was just... thinking.”
I stood up and skulked away into my room, letting out a huge sigh of relief when he didn’t follow me.
“You see what I have to deal with every day when I live here?” I turned to Lindsey, who still looked a bit surprised at my father’s less-than-impeccable state.
“If you have to live in a place like this...” she began. “I can sort of see why you ran away in the first place.”
I nodded. “Let’s hope he doesn’t decide to pay us a visit.” I looked over at her translucent form. “...Not that it’d matter much to you, anyway.”
Lindsey grimaced at me and pressed her ear against the door to listen- or got as close to the door as she could without going right through it, being made of mist and ectoplasm, and all.
“I don’t hear anything.” she whispered to me.
“He’s probably asleep now.” I replied, still jamming my knees against the door to act as a brace, just in case he wasn’t.
“I think so. It smelled like he drank a lot.”
I snorted. “He always smells like that.” Which was true. Years spent practically living at the bar had caused the pungent smell to seep into his skin and lodge there, souring both his scent and his disposition.
I cracked the door open a fraction of an inch and peered around the corner. Seeing no sign of my father, I opened it enough to crawl through and sit on the floor in the hall next to Lindsey.
"So..." I began, staring awkwardly down at my fingers.
"There isn't much else to tell." Lindsey says. "I don't think I've left anything out of my story- or at least, nothing that you need to know."
I wanted to ask her about that last statement- I didn’t realize her memories that could play a key factor in this strange game were on a need-to-know basis.
Wanting to focus on something else, we both stared down at the rough wooden floorboards and listened to the sound of heavy snoring, coming from my parents’ bedroom. What else was there for us to say? Everything about us had been laid bare- my abuse, her death- there weren’t any secrets left to divulge. So now what? Telling secrets was pretty much the basis of our relationship.
“D’you think I could run away again?” I asked randomly. “I- I don’t really remember which part of town his house is in, but I bet muscle memory could work, and I can run fast if I want to...”
I faltered when Lindsey slowly shook her head.
“I know this is hell for you and all, but do you think running off again would help you? Help your mother?” she said.
I didn’t answer, remembering the horrible purple bruises running up my mother’s arm... how her hands trembled when she reached for the glass.
“You can’t run away from here right away just because there are things here that’re hard to deal with. Figure out how to take care of everything here. Then, I think, it should be okay to go back.” Lindsey finished. Then she sighed. “I kind of wish someone had been around to tell me that when... well, you know.”
I knew for sure that I didn’t want to reenact what Lindsey had gone through. It was true- the image my mother’s delicate form hunched over the kitchen table tugged at my conscience sharply. She’d promised to me last night to protect me from my father, why should I not return the favor? She did love me, she just never had the courage to show it until now.
Maybe. I don’t know.
“Have you ever wanted to come back?” I asked her randomly. “You know... like, be alive again?”
“Only all the time,” she sighed, looking up at the ceiling. “But what happened, happened. Now, all I can do is try to help out from behind the scenes. I wouldn’t be any help mourning my own death, anyway.”
“So he doesn’t see you.”
“Who?”
“Gerard.” I said. “He doesn’t see you. Right?”
Lindsey stared more intently at the ceiling, eyes following a long crack running along the mildewy plaster. Finally, she answered. “I guess not. I’ve tried talking to him many times, believe me, but he never answers me.”
I put my hands on my knees and looked down at a small knothole in the base moulding, absently wondering if a mouse- or a family of them- lived in there.
“That’s weird.” I finally said. “I thought that maybe this whole ‘contact the dead’ thing would work better on those you were close to... or... something.”
“I wouldn’t know.” Lindsey shrugged. “I mean- I didn’t write the ghost rulebook.”
I thought for a minute. As far as I knew, there wasn’t any special connection between me and Lindsey- I hadn’t even known she existed until recently. Maybe it was the shoes. Maybe they were originally for their dead child, or maybe they saw me sitting docilely in church and Lindsey pointed me out, saying, “See that little girl? That’s what I want our daughter to be like when she grows up. A good, smart, quiet little girl.” But they never got to see how their child would grow up, because she died too soon.
No.
That didn’t explain anything. Nothing at all. There had to be another explanation.
“Atropine...” Lindsey began to say. “Have you ever seen any other... things? Things like me?”
I was about to shake my head when I remembered seeing a small blue child when I was only seven, on the playground. Then there was the elderly couple who took to sitting in the front pews of the church after service had ended. And then there was the sad teenage boy with a deep wound blossoming on the side of his head, who sat hunched on the sidewalk by my house every night.
And then there was Lindsey and her lost child.
There were many more, I knew, but that was no longer of importance. How did I get this ‘ability’ to see those passed... and why? I could be sure as hell that I wasn’t destined to be part of some supernatural hero group that helped those departed by granting their last wish or whatever. Was this God’s cruel prank, making me see all the dead people, with such sorrow in their eyes, beseeching me to solve their lives and problems for them? The damn bastard already gave me a broken family, but I guess that wasn’t enough. He had to shovel this shit on to me, too.
For the second time that day, I wanted to scream.
“The answer will come eventually.” Lindsey said. “I hope.”
I shook my head. “By the way things are going right now, I wouldn’t hold my breath.”
So... no reviews on the last chapter, eh? I'll just write it off that you all read it and were so astounded and saddened at the ending that you closed the window and cried for half an hour, totally forgetting to review because it left a large imprint on your conscious. I mean, that's sort of what I was going for with this whole 'tragedy' thing, but FEEDBACK WOULD BE NICE.
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