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Andrew was better, right? Neil thought so, the rest of the team thought so, so did Coach Wymack, Abby, and Bee. But Andrew wasn’t so sure. Yes, he was a year clean, but it didn’t feel like some big accomplishment anymore. It felt like something he’d failed at. Everyone around Andrew was proud of him, and he was glad they were, but he felt disgusted with himself anytime they brought it up. He felt like getting better was something to be ashamed of. There was this constant...buzzing in the back of his head, kind of like a fluorescent light.
Music helped. It drowned out the buzzing just enough that he could function. Neil had started to notice that Andrew always had his headphones on or an earbud in while he did everyday things, but to each their own, he thought. Looking back after what happened, Neil wishes he’d asked how his boyfriend was doing.
Andrew’s flag was at half-mast. He didn’t feel like himself anymore. Every day was like an internal battle to stay alive and not just stop caring. Andrew felt like a shell of what he used to be. At his prime, he felt happy. He was glad to wake up on those days. In fact, some days he would wake up and smile for an hour just because he was okay. But now, he just doesn’t care. He’d stopped caring if he woke up, stopped checking before he crossed the road, his hobbies were left collecting dust, and he’d forgotten how to give 100%. Music was his only escape. Well, that or...something he didn’t want to think about.
That was another thing. Andrew didn’t want to be alive anymore. Every little bit of whatever will to live he had in the first place was gone. But Andrew knew Neil would miss him. He couldn’t do that to his Junkie. So, he made sure he was always in the room with someone. Until Kevin got tired of it. Neil was out of town for an interview, and Andrew was feeling particularly shitty that day. Since Neil wasn’t there, he chose the next best option; Kevin Day. Boy, did he regret it.
Andrew was sitting in the fox tower with Kevin after, following him around for most of the day, when Kevin said, “Dude, you’ve been so clingy today. Can’t you leave me alone for five fucking minutes? God, you’re like a lost puppy, Minyard.”
Andrew couldn’t do anything but stare blankly for a minute. His stomach twisted and turned as the buzzing in his head turned into a loud, booming voice. He got up and left the room calmly before sprinting down the hallway to the bathroom, making it just in time to dry heave into the nearest toilet. Hs knees hurt, and would probably be bruised, from how hard he dropped onto the tile floor, but that was the least of his problems. That imaginary voice was making him think awful things. What if no one really did want him around? Maybe the team, the world, would be better off if he just killed himself and got it over with-
“No. Don’t think about that.” Andrew strained to whisper to himself through desperate gasps for air. He felt like throwing up, but he couldn’t. He hadn’t eaten that day. Or the last. He was hungover that morning and had already puked out whatever was left in his stomach. He collapsed with his back against the stall door, still panting and out of breath. He wanted to cry, he needed to cry, but Andrew Minyard wouldn’t be caught dead crying if it actually killed him. He gripped his arms so tightly there was most definitely going to be bruises, and Andrew didn’t bruise easily. His nails dug into the upper part of his arms so hard there were deep indents that started to turn purple.
Andrew’s body didn’t feel like his anymore. He couldn’t stop his hands from making their way up to his neck and dragging his nails down to his collar bones, leaving long red marks the whole way down. His pointer fingernail, which he’d bitten jagged and sharp not even an hour before, dug into his right collar bone as he scraped it harshly, desperate to break skin just to feel something. He needed the physical pain like he needed oxygen. When he finally did break skin, it felt like a breath of fresh air. The pure rush euphoria of that familiar pain gave Andrew was a release of every emotion that was built up in his chest. It was like letting air out of a balloon that was about to burst.
He relaxed against the wall, his head leaning back, and his eyes closing. Then, he looked down at the blood on his hands. His own blood covering part of his hand and under his fingernail. To others, the scene before him would have been disgusting and disturbing. But, to Andrew, it was his only sense of comfort. The pain was something he could control amidst the millions of things he couldn’t.
It was the same concept with the hunger. Andrew could choose whether or not to eat. He could control how much weight he lost. Sure, he couldn’t run as fast, and he wasn’t as strong, and his stamina was lower, but he was alive. If he had to hurt himself to stay alive, so be it. He’d joined his twin brother, Aaron, in his crippling caffeine addiction. Every morning, he woke up, smoked a cigarette, drank an energy drink, and overexerted himself in every way possible. No one noticed. And that was how he liked it.
Neil would be back the next morning, which gave Andrew approximately twelve hours to fix his bleeding collar bone and come up with a believable lie. He felt bad lying to Neil about things like this, but it was easier that sitting him down and telling him. Because one way or another, the rest of the team would find out. Then Wymack, then Abby, the Bee. Andrew vowed to himself that he’d rather suffer in silence than go back to the medication. So, he did.
He pulled his phone out of his pocket and took off the case, taking out the pencil sharpener blade he kept in there. It was old and probably not safe, but Andrew didn’t care. He slowly brought the edge to his wrist, dragging it in shallow lines that welled up quickly with dark red, oxygenated blood. Andrew watched as it pooled in small areas and barely bled in others. The blade was dull, making the cut uneven and jagged. It was nowhere deep enough to kill him, because that wasn’t the point. The point was the sharp, stinging, and instantaneous pain that followed the cuts. The point was seeing his own blood drip down the length of his forearm as a twisted form of regulating his emotions. He pulled his armbands down over his wrists and stood up. Andrew carefully put the blade back into his phone case as he realized he had to mark his relapse on the sobriety app him and Neil had had a moment with just the other night.
That part stung worse than any cut ever would. He ruined the thing Neil was proud of him for. Andrew drew his fist back and landed a hard punch with his knuckle directly on his thigh. After the small outburst, he walked over and stood in front of the mirror, assessing the damage of his scrape on his collar bone. It was so much worse than he thought. Blood had apparently started to run down his chest, staining his T-shirt underneath his hoodie. He carefully pulled his shirt away from the scrape and dapped the dried, sticky blood on his skin off with a damp paper towel.
Once he’d finished with that, he moved to his wrists. He had to peel and pry the tight armband off from where it had fused to his skin when the blood had dried. He took a deep inhale and ripped it off quickly with a strangled cry. Once the initial pain of having to re-open ever cut had subsided, he ran his wrist under cold water with a wince and lightly dried it off with another paper towel before putting the armband back on. Having finished cleaning his wounds, he left the bathroom. Which is exactly when he ran into his best friend, Renee Walker.