“Bay View Apartments, how may I help you?”

As the resident starts rambling about their broken sink, I pay as much attention as I absolutely needed to while I doodle on a little pad of ‘Bay View Apts.’ paper (with a nice little Bay View pen).

‘Bay View’…what a crock of bull. The only view I’ve ever gotten from these piles of shit is the balcony across the way with people making drug deals. The only reason I live and work here is of sheer convenience, and no other option. Hey, the rent’s fourteen hundred a month, and I only pay seven after I split it with my roommate, Robert.

Luckily, I happen to make just over double my half in a month. Rob makes a bunch more, though not all comes from his nice and legal jobs. However, if he’s dragging in the money, then I’ve got nothing to complain about. And besides, we’re doing a lot better than even just a year ago.

See, I work fulltime here, while Rob works part time at two different places – one daytime job, one graveyard shift. Of course, me being the lucky guy I am, he still finds time to get drunk or even high, and come back with his sluts.

Maybe it annoys me so much because he’s my ex…though it’s probably just because we live in a one-room apartment.

“Yes, I understand. Yes, I know. I’m sorry. I’ll send someone as soon as possible. Yes, thank you.”

Once I hang up, I take a deep breath and flick my short, dirty blonde dyed braid over my shoulder, before scribbling down a reminder to tell someone about B24’s sink problem.

While this job is very easy, it’s also twice as boring. That’s where this nice Bay View stationary comes in handy.

Just as I’m starting to draw the little vase of fake flowers on my desk (for about the fourth time – I’m getting better at it), my cell phone buzzes shortly. Looking at it, I see I got a message from ‘Lucifer’. I snort in laughter. I haven’t called Rob that since high school.

Flipping the phone open, I read the message.

Hey sexy. What’re you up to?

Rolling my eyes, I type back, What? You sure you sent this to the right number?

Hey now. Cant i show a little lovin to an ol friend?

No. No you may not. What do you want?

Hah u kno me too well. I was just wondering if i could borrow some money…

I groan in frustration. Picking up the phone on my desk, I called Rob’s number.

“Hello?” he grunts.

“No.”

“Oh, come on! Just a little fifty bucks, I’ll—”

“Robert, I don’t have just a little fifty bucks. Where is it all going? You make more money than I do!”

“Well, I guess so, but—”

“You guess you make more money than me? It’s numbers, Robert. The answer is no.”

“But I’ll pay you right back!”

“I don’t have it,” I snap, hanging up.

Rob doesn’t ask for money often, but whenever he does, it’s always at some inconvenient time. He can always borrow money from his brother, anyway.

My hours are almost over now, and I spend it all feeling bad for not listening to Rob’s reason…maybe I should be a little nicer sometimes.

However, any semblance of those kinds of thoughts leave my mind immediately later that night when Rob comes stumbling through the door with some kid by his side.

“Lance,” he chuckles. “Sorry, this’ll only take a sec.”

Sighing in frustration, I try to ignore them as they go into our bedroom. I look down at the book I had been previously reading, trying to concentrate on the words, and failing horribly.

I just don’t know where everything went wrong…even through all of the tough times we suffered in high school, we worked together to get through it. We were all the other had…

After high school, we always remained in contact, but we drifted as lovers, and somehow fell into place as just friends. Well, I feel like his housewife half the time, but…I guess I do nothing to make him better, or us better. When he fell into a bad crowd, I scolded him, but never took any real action.

But, it’s not like he’s the only one that fell into a bad habit.

Going into the kitchen, I rummage through one of the drawers. Once I find what I’m looking for, I take it over to the couch, and lie down on it. Lifting up my shirt, I scratch a small and thin cut into it, right above my navel, with the little razor I’d taken from the drawer.

I fall asleep watching the blood form and clot and dry, and slowly, slowly become a scab.

--

When I wake up the next morning, I hear a bunch of clamoring going on in the kitchen. As I contemplate whether that was what woke me up or not, I begin to hear sizzling.

“Mm, Luci, what are you doing?” I mutter the question groggily, knowing that he’s the one making all the racket (his one night stands are always gone before morning).

I hear his laughter come from the kitchen. “‘Luci’? You haven’t called me that in forever.”

I chuckle a little, too, as I start to sit up, wincing at the slight sting I feel on my stomach. “Oh, my gosh. I didn’t even realize I was calling you that.”

“And to answer your question, Ezra, I’m making breakfast.”

“Holy shit, really?” I get up, excited, and make my way to the kitchen. “Jesus!” I look down at the counter where there are two plates laid out, already with toast, and at the pan in which Rob’s cooking a few eggs, sausage, and O’Brien’s.

Robby himself is bent over said pan, his straight, black, shoulder-length hair pulled back into a little ponytail, and only in his pajama pants.

“Wow, Robby,” I say, still pretty surprised. “What’s the occasion?”

“Well, I just…I saw that you fell asleep, with your razor in hand again…and I just wanted to do something to cheer you up a little,” he says quietly and a little sheepish.

“Oh, my goodness, Rob!” I look up at him from where I’d been staring at the food, and I throw my arms around his neck. “Thank you so much.”

He laughs lightly, and turns a little so he can wrap his arms around my waist. “No prob, babe. I’d been treating you pretty shitty lately.”

“That’s not true,” I sigh, letting him go so he doesn’t burn the food he put so much effort into in the first place. “I was just overreacting.”

We don’t say anything more about it, and I hop up to sit on the counter and watch him cook. Once he’s done and he prepares our plates, I cheerfully take mine over to our little couch, Rob right behind me.

When we sit down, I snuggle up against him as best I can. “Thank you so much,” I say before totally digging in.

He smiles. “It’s nothing, really.”

As we enjoy our first home cooked meal in ages, it feels a little bit like it used to between us.

--

The next day, after work, I’m able to enjoy a little time alone. I sit on the couch and just read. A few pages into reading from where I left off last time, however, I get a small paper cut as I turn the page.

Hissing, I suck on the small cut on my finger. I try to just go back to my reading, but by now I’m too distracted.

Sighing, I set my book down and shuffle into the kitchen. I rummage through the same drawer as yesterday, until I find the wonderful sight of that little razor.

I pull myself up onto the counter, and I tug my shirt up a little before I lean back slightly. I softly push the blade to my skin, and watch the blood dribble out of the thin cut. I drag the blade across my stomach over and over until I’ve created a small crosshatch pattern.

Suddenly I hear someone unlocking the front door and entering, which startles me and causes me to accidentally press the razor deeper than I’d have liked.

“Hey, Lance,” Rob says as he closes the door behind him. “What’re you doing?”

I groan slightly as the blood trickles down and stains the top of my jeans. “Nothing,” I sigh, tossing my razor back in its drawer. I go to get a paper towel and wet it in the sink before pressing it to my stomach.

“Jesus, Lance, you’re slashing up your stomach now?” Rob says as he comes into the kitchen. “What’s next, your face?”

“Shut the fuck up,” I snap, trying to clean the blood off of my pants. “Damn it.”

“It’s your own fault,” Rob shrugs, moving around me to get a water bottle from the refrigerator. He glances at me and sighs. “What am I gonna do with you?”

I scoff. “What’re you gonna do with me? What about you and your whoring? Fix your own problems before you start bitching about mine.”

“Uh-huh, because sex is going to kill me, unlike your perfectly safe self-mutilation,” he replies sarcastically.

“Oh, sex can’t kill you? Does AIDS kill you, Robert?” I spat, sliding the paper towel off of my stomach and pressing a dry one to it instead. “Does it?”

“I don’t have AIDS,” Rob droned, rolling his eyes. “You’re blowing this out of proportion.”

“How do you know? When was the last time you got tested for anything, if at all?”

“I don’t need to get tested because I know the people I’ve been with.”

“Oh, yeah, and like having drunken make-out sessions with someone is getting to know them,” now it’s my turn to roll my eyes. “Do you just believe them off the bat? ‘Oh, no STDs you say? Well, let’s get to it!’ Is that how you really think?”

“Shut the fuck up. You don’t know the people I’ve been with. You shut up until you know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

I can hardly stand being in the same room with that kind of attitude. I push past him to throw away the paper towel I’d just peeled off of my wounds. Pulling my shirt back down, I say, “If you really gave a shit about my self harm, then you would do something. You would actually get off your ass and try to stop it.”

Making my way to the front door, I grab my jacket.

“Like you can actually say that when you do nothing about my ’whoring’!”

Taking a deep breath to try and calm myself, I just open the door and leave.

Now, I guess it’s kind of melodramatic to just leave like that, but…I had to get away from him, and I didn’t want to pull something like locking myself in the bathroom.

The only place I can go from here is Rob’s brother Leo’s place. He’s one of the only other people I even know in this city. Once I get there and knock on the door, Leo answers it only after a short pause.

“Oh, hey, kid! How have you been?” He hugs me and I can feel a sharp sting on my abdomen, where I know the cuts are reopening.

Leo leads me inside, and I try to hide the blood blossoming onto my shirt, but he glances back as be beckons me into the kitchen, about to say something. He starts slightly at the growing red stain.

“Oh, no, are you okay? Oh, what a stupid question, here—” Leo searches through a cabinet before pulling out some gauze. “Come on, off with the shirt.”

“No, I can just – I can do it myself,” I reply, holding out my hand for the gauze.

“Mm-mm,” Leo shakes his head and smacks my hand away, before going to pull off my shirt himself.

“No—” I tug it back down. “Please, I just came here because I wanted to get out, I didn’t mean to—”

“Wait – did Robert do this to you?” Leo asks, raising an eyebrow.

“No, of course not!” I reply.

“Okay, well, you’ll have to tell me all about it after you let me tend to your wound.”

Taking a deep breath, I figure he’s not going to relent any way you figure it. I quickly pull off both my shirt and jacket.

Once my skin is revealed, Leo’s eyes run over the thick scars I had running all the way up my left arm and sprinkled across my chest and stomach. Blood is slowly inching down to the edge of my jeans.

Leo doesn’t gasp; he doesn’t drop his jaw or widen his eyes. He didn’t ask me what the hell is wrong with me, or how I could do such a thing. For all of that, I am grateful.

“C’mere,” he says quietly, taking me over to the sink. He wet a paper towel and slowly wiped it across the cuts. Once he’s finished with that and wrapping the gauze around it, I go to put my shirt back on when I realize it’s stained with blood.

“Oh, here, let me get you a shirt,” he says before disappearing into the hall. He comes back with a stark white dress shirt that I find is a little too big for me when I put it on.

“Where’s Fredrick?” I ask, referring to Leo’s boyfriend.

“Oh, he’s at work,” Leo responds. There’s an awkward silence between us before Leo speaks up again, “You wanna talk about it?” he asks a little tensely.

“I dunno…”

We move over to the couch and sit down.

“I just…I don’t know what happened,” I say quietly, looking down at my lap. “Ever since…since everything that went on in high school…everything’s been going downhill.” I ran my finger over a small scar on the side of my wrist. “This one came from a small accident where I scraped myself. But it triggered all the rest…the physical pain gave me something else to focus on. After a while, I became numb to it, and I just do it out of habit, or something. It’s still calming.”

I stop talking, and Leo scoots closer to me, and puts an arm around my shoulders. I put my head on his own shoulder and just…sit there, with the relaxation that can come with dumping your burden on someone else.

We then talk about different things that are going on in our lives, and swap stories about our recent frustrations. Later in the evening, Fredrick comes home, and I don’t really feel like telling him about everything, but I do tell him that Rob and I got into a fight.

That night I sleep in their guest bedroom, though I don’t actually fall asleep for a while.

--

The next day I have breakfast with the two of them before deciding to go back home. I thank them over and over before heading out.

The walk back home seems really short, with all of the thoughts that are going on in my mind. Once I get there, I unlock and open the door to find Lucifer sleeping on the couch. I smile – I can never really stay mad at him for long.

I make my way to our bathroom and glance at myself in the mirror. Leo had let me keep the shirt, which I’m very grateful for because, as of now, I actually have a real dress shirt! And I have to admit, even on my frail frame, it looks pretty cool.

Rustling around in my drawer, I search for one of my razors. I’m not really feeling sad, but it’s almost boredom that’s making me want to do it.

After poking around in there for a while, I can’t find it for some reason. I look in a few other spots – kitchen drawer, nightstand, even under my bed. I can’t find a single one. I even look through other drawers in the kitchen to find something better than a butter knife, but come up with nothing.

“Robert? Luci?” I kneel down next to him an shake him lightly awake, trying to keep panic out of my voice.

“Hm? What is it?” he mutters, rubbing an eye.

“Babe? Do you know where any of my razors went?”

“Why would I tell you that?” he responds, sitting up.

“No, I – I want to throw them away,” I lie desperately.

“Well, then, you’ll be happy because I threw them away for you.”

“What?!” I stand up, outraged. “Why would you do that? Those blades are my fucking life!”

“You were the one who said I should get off my ass and try to help you. And now I am.”

I’m about to continue bitching at him but he continues.

“But – I…you know what? You’re right…I have gotten rid of all my sex shit, and I’m just saving the money I got from it. I’m changing too, so…” he looks down and rubs the back of his neck. “Let’s change for each other.”

I’m shocked. Rob’s always done everything for himself. He likes money and sex, so he whores himself out. He feels bad when I hurt myself, so he just blindly tries to make it stop.

But I can see it, I can see right now in his eyes that he’s working for us again.