Chapter Text
Till jolts up at the loud sound of his phone alarm next to his ear. His blurry sight makes it significantly difficult to identify the rectangular object and actually turning off the wretched noise.
Since it was 9:30, his mother had already left to go work. Till turns over in his sheets, suddenly feeling overheated by the pile of blankets he had thrown on himself the previous night. It was always so comforting at night and so sweaty in the morning.
He looks up at the unused top bunk to his bed without making any shapes out through his blurry vision.
Till's sight sharpens after running his fingers over his eyes. He sighs and looks at the window to the left of his bed. He had forgotten to close the curtains so light shone in an aggressive waking manner. At least he closed the window to prevent a cold draft from entering. His eyes land on the New Port pack lying on the window sill with a grimace.
Had his mother entered his room at some point, she would've seen the pack so carelessly left out. This fear of getting caught pushes Till to get out of the comfort of his bed.
As Till stands up his vision goes out and he quickly reaches for his bed frame to stabilize. He gasps at the painful pounding in the front of his head. With a squint, Till takes wobbly steps forward to the window to grab the scandalous pack of cigarettes.
Moving through the head ache made him feel as if moving though some form of thick liquid. And as he tries to recall what he had even eaten the day before his mind draws on a blank.
With clumsy fingers, Till picks up the pack and loosely holds it. He walks just as sluggishly as from the bed to his window, to his desk adorned with drawings and stickers. He opens the middle drawer and shoves the pack way back into the mess of randomized paper and stationary.
Tills eyes slowly shift back to his bed and he winces at the movement of his vision. In no way was he ready to get out of bed, especially in the summer. There was no need to anyways.
He reaches for the curtain strings and pulls it undone to make his room dark. Till exhales a soft sigh of relief as the bright sunbeams of the day are no longer piercing his mind.
With more stumbling steps, Till makes it back to his bed and crawls under the covers again. His mom always called him weird for hanging out in such a dark room. But it was comforting. The light hurt, anyways.
His hand searches around the mattress for his phone. It wasn't ever hard to find it because in general, he kept it in the same place plugged in it near his phone charger.
Till's fingers knew the route to open social media easily. He could do it with his eyes closed. It was his only thing he could easily do while staying in his bed. It was his lifeline. His distraction from the barage of emotions he kept pushed down so often.
Every scrolling session lasted longer than he predicted. It was really just so easy to scroll and compare. Look at people with their perfect lives, perfect clean rooms, perfect art, perfect bodies. Till watched them as if watching videos of another's life would suddenly make his better
As the thought of art enters his mind, Till's gaze focuses on his long abandoned desk. He had promised himself that he would get better at art over the summer and now the promise was long abandoned.
Another sigh exits Till. Everytime he felt regretful of yet another one of his decisions or actions this feeling of tingly remorse pricks all over his body. Like a surge of despair and emotions Till couldn't even name if he tried.
Till sets his phone down face down and rolls into his unwashed pillow face down. It certainly smelled.. interesting. Like dirt that Till had most definitely tracked in from sleeping in his outside clothes and spilled soda, perhaps even food. Despite the grimace worthy smell of his pillow and most likely sheets and blankets, he stays face down on the pillow.
Inhaling and exhaling through a pillow was difficult yet it felt comfortable. It replicated hugging someone tightly and breathing into their body.
Till's phone buzzes with a notification. Despite the high chance it's just a notification from one of his many mobile games, he still looks in hopes someone texted him.
Much to his surprise, he did in fact have a text from none other than Ivan. Ivan was a clingy friend, always texting first, taking so much, he was very popular in school, no doubt due to his status as American football captain.
Till lazily slides his phone closer and tilts it at an angle to unlock it via face ID. He opens the message from Ivan, half dreading what the freak would say.
"Till are you doing anything for your birthday? :)"
Ivan had singlehandedly stunned Till. Till had kind of forgotten about his birthday and didn't really plan to do anything for it. After all, it was just like any other day. Just dedicated to Till. It wasn't worth anything, anyways.
"Um no I wasn't planning on it why?"
He replies after a careful thought process of how Ivan could respond. If he offered to hang out, Till would simply decline with the excuse "I'm busy". Although, he wasn't sure that Ivan didn't know that he quit his job a few weeks previously. Word spreads fast, after all.
"Oh. Are you sure? I really wanna hang out with you. :3"
Till groans. Ivan was always so damn pushy. He was going to turn 16 on the 21st of June and he really couldn't care less.
An annoyed hand runs through Till's hair and he internally cringes at the greasy feel. Sweet 16 was a big thing for others, but Till couldn't help but feel it would be worthless.
And on the topic of turning 16, Till's expression shifts into a conflicted frown. Statistically, many started cutting at 12-14. He was already out of range, but actually turning 16 would kind of mark that he likely wouldn't do anything.
Maybe Till couldn't start because he was too "lazy" or maybe he just wasn't meant to. But, oh how he yearned to just take a blade, a piece of glass, a kitchen knife, a box cutter, any-
"Hello? Don't leave me on read." Ivan follows up and Till's eyes fall down on his screen at the movement.
"Oh Sorry i got distracted ig" Till sighs. Whenever he thought about doing.. that, he got carried away in a self deprecating river of plans and ideas.
"It's fine. Can we please hang out?? I haven't seen you all summer.."
"Uh sure ig I'm not sure if my mother wants to do something tho"
"YAY!! XD"
Till rolls his eyes at the way Ivan types. So many emotions and so many punctuations. It was like he was actually excited to see Till or something. Till turns off his phone and sets it back down somewhere to the right of his pillow.
With downcast eyes he rolls over to his back and stares at the top bunk blankly. His mind and feelings feel extremely empty, like there was just nothing where his heart belonged.
He puts his forearms parallel to his head, inner wrists facing outwards. Maybe he could play some sad music and turn ghost mode on airbuds. Till dismisses that plan, he needed much more than an hour to get out his feels for the day.
So he slides down his sleeves, exposing his pale unmarked skin to the musty air of his absurdly messy room. God he felt like a hoarder.
Bringing his right hand over to lightly trail his nails over his left wrist was relaxing. It brought those sad tingles throughout his body, steming from his inner wrist.
Till runs his nails gently, just barely grazing his naked skin. His arms were so untouched. So perfect. So thin. Till raises his right wrist above his face to examine it.
It seems he has clearly lost weight since the school year ended. Where his wrist meet his had was so thin, it was quite literally outlined by the two weak arm bones within his disgusting skin. Till raises his left hand to check just how small it was.
His thumb overlapped with his index ever so slightly, his ring finger, and his middle finger greatly. When Till wrapped his pinky and thumb around his wrist he has to strain a little to make the tips touch.
For whatever reason, this left Till disappointed. Perhaps disappointed in the fact he want so sickly. It was disturbing to others, but Till saw beauty in the sick. Scars and bones, perfect on anyone else.
A hand slides up to his collarbones and he feels around, sounding his fingers into the divits created on the upper side of the protruding bone. ''I could pour some amount of water in here if I wanted to.'' Till thought randomly.
Tills stomach grumbles and he groans at the thought of standing up and eating. Mostly the standing up part. It hurt a lot to stand, and sure it was caused by the same problem Till was currently avoiding, but that didn't make him any more motivated to actually eat something substantial.
He slides to the edge of he bed to look down at the ground. He had an old monster can that had been sitting there for who knows how many days and a bunch of clothes and other assorted things.
Picking up the can cautiously, Till takes a few little sniffs before deciding the monster want completely poison. Till pushes himself up slightly to drink it, he did not want to recreate the accident that made his pillow and sheets smell so dingy.
The metal rim presses into Till's lip uncomfortable as he takes a sip of his left over goodies. The foul liquid hits the back of his throat in all the wrong ways and immediately stirs a gag.
Till coughs and grimaces at the disgusting drink. He didn't even know that energy drinks could do that. Could they? It might have grown something..
He immediately shakes the thought away, not wanting to throw up either. Till reaches out from his bed and puts the can in his sorry of overflowing trash can. He originally had it beneath his desk, when his room was clean and organized. Now it sat conveniently close to Till's bed.
And once again woken up by a loud sound, Till flinches awake. Much to his confusion, the room was dark and his phone didn't go off.
"TILLY! I'M HOME!"
Till's eyebrows raise at the sound of his mother calling him. With a groan and arching stretch Till musters up the physical need to get out of bed and greet his mother.
He grabs his phone and stands up rather quickly. Another groan comes out at the returning throbbing pulse he could feel in the blood of his brain or something.
"God.." , Till mutters under his breath, reeling at the way his head, eyes, and body felt. He felt oncoming doom at the thought of opening the door to bright artificial light.
Slowly and sluggishly, Till makes it to the door and slowly opens it with a wince.
Io smiles at her son and brings a hand up to her mouth to cover a small laugh. "Oh my, do you need a hair brush?"
This snaps Till out of his complete daze and he moves his hands quickly to try and brush through his hair and sooth it down. "Come on.. I just woke up.."
In response, Io scrunches her brows and crosses her arms. "You shouldn't take a nap so late. It'll mess with your sleep schedule."
Till gives a little dismissive wave and walks forward down the small hallway. His mom's apartment was small, but it was certainly more of a home then his father's house.
Io's eyes follow him. "Tilly, didn't you wear that a few days ago?" She points a gesture at Till's clothing. He did in fact wear it a few days ago. Just in-between the current day and when he first put it in, he had the somewhat decency to put a hoodie over it.
"Uh.. nah, I just have similar pj's."
Io nods at this and walks into the kitchen. The small kitchen was separated from the dining/living room by a little kitchen counter island. Till sits down at the island and smiles at Io
"What do you want for dinner? Io inquiries with a kind smile gracing her lips.
Till shrugs then, "Mac and Cheese? Microwave is fine." Io laughs softly at her son's request, but nods ultimately.
That was one of the pros of being the only child under a single mother. You typically got what you wanted as long as it wasn't crazy.
His mother got to work quickly and kept up conversation whilst preparing the low maintenance meal. "So.. your birthday is in a couple of days. And wishes? Plans?"
Till takes a glance at his phone. He had a few unread messages from Ivan and sighs a little endearingly. "Yeah. I'm hanging out with Ivan, actually. We can celebrate the day after, if you want?"
They were both familiar with Ivan. Despite him only coming over to Io's apartment a handful of times, Io had been told stories about Till's friend. And she knew, just based off what she heard from her sun that Ivan must certainly had some sort of infatuation with her little boy.
Io nods. "Sure. Are you planning on sleeping over at Ivan's?" Till shrugs.
"Maybe. We'll see how it goes."