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Corey stared blankly at the wall. Blankly, the wall stared back. He didn’t know how much time had passed since he had woken up, perhaps a minute, perhaps an hour. All he knew was emptiness. He didn’t want to see anyone or be around anyone, so there he lay, staring at the wall.
His mind flickered back to what happened last night, although it wasn’t too memorable, seeing as it had become almost a part of the schedule at this point. Blood still crusted his thighs and smeared along his forearms, but he couldn’t be bothered to clean them. He didn’t care, and it’s not like anyone else was going to see them.
Time drifted along in a hazy blur, sitting in the dark, surrounded by his thoughts, not wanting to do anything but lay there. Eventually, a faint thudding sound echoed across the air, like a broken grandfather clock chiming out of time. Not thinking much of it, he pulled his focus back to the wall.
Knock.
Knock.
A sudden realisation hit Corey as he registered what the sound actually was. Somebody was knocking at the door of his house. Wishing to be left alone, he chose to ignore the sound once again, hoping that whoever was there would leave him be. But the knocking persisted.
It rang out again, becoming more and more powerful with each round. A slight anxiety rose in his chest, but he suppressed it. Whoever this was really wanted his attention.
Pushing himself up from his springy mattress, Corey sat on the edge of his bed, and met eyes with the calamity of his legs. Dried blood was crusted along each of the wounds, some of which were still wet with the liquid crimson. Hidden among the freshest damage, older, healed wounds were scattered about until his thighs were a beautiful disaster. Glancing back at the mattress, he realised that blood was staining that as well, and assumed that some of the injuries had re-opened in his sleep and seeped into the fabric. Whatever.
The knocking repeated again, which snapped him back to reality. Sighing, he pushed himself up from the bed, letting out a slight grunt of pain as the cuts stung from the movement. He couldn’t greet whoever was there like this, and turned to the bundles of clothes littering the floor. Finding a pair of tracksuit pants which didn’t smell too bad, he pulled them over his boxers then hauled a jumper over his head to conceal his arms. Not the best, but workable.
As the knocking rang out again, Corey stepped into the hallway.
“Coming!” He yelled to them, which silenced their relentless banging.
Stumbling past the living space and making for the entrance, he reached down on the handle and swung the door open. Standing on the opposite side of the door was Joey, looking agitated but slightly relieved to finally be answered. Corey held back a look of surprise at seeing his friend. Why would he want to visit?
“Hey,” He started cooly.
Joey looked up at him. “Just wake up or something?”
“Pretty much…” He changed the subject. “What are you doing here?”
Joey’s face hardened as he answered. “Just wanted to hang out. It’s been a while, you know?” There was something unbelievable about his response, as though there was a much larger reasoning which he didn’t want to admit.
Corey nodded slowly, holding onto the doorway so that it wouldn’t look like he was unbalanced on his legs. “Well, I’m kinda busy at the moment…”
Joey raised an eyebrow. “Right… Busy with what, exactly?”
Corey looked away. Hadn’t thought that through. Realising there was no way out of this, he sighed and moved away from the door, leaving a gap for Joey to walk through. He entered immediately, his eyes lighting a little. Corey closed the door once he entered before following him into the center of the living space. By living space, he meant a cheap sofa couch and a slightly broken TV, but it was enough for him. Joey looked around at the place, clearly taking in the mess of the area with skeptical eyes. There were packets of food and take-away boxes left around the area, but he didn’t mention anything.
“You mind if I get some food from your kitchen?” Joey turned and asked.
Corey shrugged, putting his hands in his pocket. “Sure. Whatever you can find. It’s at the end of the hallway. I’ll join you in a minute, just gotta grab something…”
With a slight nod, Joey made his way down the hallway towards the kitchen. Corey had turned back to the living area. He didn’t actually need to grab anything, just needed a moment to think about what the fuck was happening. Why had Joey just turned up out of nowhere? And what did he want? Surely not to just ‘hang out’ like he claimed.
He heard Joey quietly walk down the hallway. Corey was about to follow him, when a sudden thought made him pause. His bedroom was halfway down the hallway. He had left the door open to it, where you could clearly see his bed when you walked past. He hadn’t covered the blood stains with anything.
Spinning around in slight terror, he was about to call out to Joey, when he saw him standing in the middle of the hallway. His eyes were full of rising concern and fear as he stared at Corey from outside the entryway to his room. They both froze, locked inside each other’s chilling gaze.
“Corey,” Joey slowly spoke. “Why is there blood on your mattress?”
He couldn’t reply, just stared at the other with his eyes widened in shock and fear. He felt his body freeze up to the point he couldn’t breathe comfortably, and whatever explanation he could possibly come up with was trapped in his throat. Joey stood still, but as the initial surprise of the discovery wore off, his face stiffened into a tougher expression and he asked Corey again:
“What happened?” His voice was more demanding this time, but still had an underlying channel of fear running through it. He wasn’t even questioning the moral reasoning for it, Corey noticed. He could already tell that something unfortunate had gone down.
Corey could feel his heart thundering in his chest as the rest of his body refused to move from its cryonic state, like it was going to burst from his ribcage. All he could do was stare at his friend, dread rising in his stomach while wishing that the ground would swallow him whole right there.
“Answer me!” Joey cried, his voice rising in a desperate tone which was more likely from fear. “Did you cut yourself?”
Corey felt his body start to thaw as the shock finally began to wash away. Numbly, he nodded, eyes still locked with the other. No words found their way to his mouth, as though barbed wire was holding them back in his throat. At the response, Joey’s gaze softened a little as concern swept over him. He stepped closer to Corey, feeling a sudden empathy towards what he was clearly dealing with.
Finally, Corey broke his gaze with the drummer, turning his body to face away from him.
“It’s fine, though,” He murmured with a new found defensiveness. “You don’t have to worry.”
He didn’t want anyone to know about his… predicament. And he certainly didn’t want any pity. Why couldn’t he have just ignored the door…
Joey stopped where he was standing, face stiffening at the guardedness.
“No, it’s not fine,” He responded with a tougher tone. “You can’t do that to yourself. I know what it’s like, and I know how things have been lately, but you need to stop.” His voice caught on the last sentence, which he tried to cover with a cough.
“It was just a bad night, okay? It doesn’t matter.” Corey retorted, facing him again.
Joey’s eyes narrowed. “And how many rows of bad nights have you had now? What about last night, and the night before that, and the night before that? Were they all bad nights too?”
Corey stiffened at the frightening precision of his words, which Joey must have noticed, and pressed on.
“I know how these things work, Cor. And I know that if you don’t stop this and get some actual help, something worse is gonna happen. I don’t want to lose you!”
His voice caught on the last sentence, and something clicked in Corey’s mind which he hadn’t noticed yet. He took a cautionary step closer towards his bandmate.
“Is that why you came?” He asked. “To make sure I hadn’t… done it?”
A longing filled his heart as he saw the broken look wash across Joey’s face. The other looked away, but the emotion emitting off of him said enough in of itself. Any resentment he had felt for Joey dissipated as he realised just how much he cared about him.
He walked up to him and wrapped his arms around him in a comforting embrace. He felt Joey’s smaller body fall into his as they stood together.
“I’m sorry,” Corey finally managed to murmur. “But I promise I’ll try to change.”