Mickey’s POV

For the first time in ages I was actually praying to get to leave the house. Okay, no that was a lie. I had recently been praying for the same exact thing when I was stuck inside after my concussion. But that was a week ago, so it could be considered ages in the eyes of some people. It was all relative. Like, I also believed my desire to get out was relatively much worse this time around. This was much more like a punishment. I didn’t even get peace and quiet, my head was going to explode.

My only possible escape came in the form of the doorbell ringing. I rushed to the door, awaiting my extraction, hoping nobody would notice and catch me. When I saw Alex waiting patiently on the other side, I knew freedom wasn’t far away.

“Please tell me you’re here to save me!” I exclaimed with much hope.

“No,” he shook his head and forced his way inside because I definitely wasn’t going to let him, “I’m here to celebrate your birthday.”

“Trust me, you don’t want to be here.” I desperately tried to stop him by getting in between him and the path he wanted to take almost like I was trying to hide something. Only, that didn’t work because the door opened right into the open plan dining and living room.

He gave me a look telling me he was about to prove me wrong. “Yes, I do. Because you’re my girlfriend and I– I shouldn’t really need another reason.”

“I would really like a different and better reason, because right now you’re not convincing me.” I crossed my arms and still fully intended on leaving the house within the next minute.

But nothing and nobody was on my side for this one. It really was like everything was planned and everybody coordinated to keep me stuck in the prison that was supposed to be my home. Right now, it was far from being a home to me. It didn’t feel safe, it didn’t make me feel comfortable, and I couldn’t be myself. I was wearing that goddamn dress with the goddamn yellow daisies on it. No matter how many times my mom made me wear it, I wasn’t going to like it.

“Mickey, come to the kitchen and help me out,” the devil herself called out. While our relationship was much better than back during the first day of school, I definitely didn’t like her right at that moment.

I huffed and glared at Alex. It wasn’t like he could do anything about my mom wanting me in the kitchen, but he sure as hell wasn’t my favourite person anymore either. He was advocating the enemies’ views and was even colluding with them. It was basically treason. He even escorted me to the kitchen like I was a prisoner of war.

“What?” I huffed loudly as I entered the kitchen seeing my mom with various plates on snacks for the ruckus in our living room.

My mom looked up with an annoyed look on her face, which melted away and was replaced with a smile when she saw Alex was here as well now. “Alex, how are you?”

“Good,” he replied back, making me feel sick. I hated them being so nice to each other more than when my mom hated him. “What about you?”

“I’m good, thanks, except for Mickey not cooperating.” My mom returned to her glare as she put away something in the fridge.

“I didn’t ask for all our family members to come over for my birthday!” I argued back, still hating the fact that there were 24 people in our living room, including kids. “You don’t get to be mad at me.”

“Yet I still am,” she retorted and picked up a bowl with food and forcing it into my hands. “Now, go bring this to the guest who came here for you.”

I rolled my eyes and muttered under my breath, “like hell they are here for me.”

As I left the kitchen I heard Alex say, “I’ll happily help out as well.”

He really was conspiring with the enemy against me. I just put the bowl of snacks on the coffee table which people were sitting at. Honestly, I didn’t understand why my parents would ask our entire family to come over in the middle of January. It was cold, there was no garden for people to stand around in. There were literally 30 people inside. It wasn’t too crowded, but it was a lot.

Alex also put down the two plates he was carrying, immediately sparking interest in the crowd. One of my uncles spoke up, voicing everybody’s curiosity, “ooh, we’ve never met you before.”

Alex looked at me, hoping I would introduce him. And I did. Not because he didn’t want to do it himself, but because I wanted to answer all questions before they were asked. I wanted to avoid comments and anything else they would say. “This is Alex. He is my boyfriend. I know, surprising. Yes, it’s real. I don’t remember how long we’ve been together. I met him at school.”

Everybody nodded and some even greeted him. It seemed like I had answered all questions that could either be asked out of interest or asked as small talk. However, my aunt Carol still had an oh-so important comment to make. She would have exploded if she couldn’t have made her remark.

“I told you you’d find the right boy!” she gushed, a big smile on her face.

“Really?” I shook my head at her, now really wanting nothing more than to just leave this house. “Are you kidding me?”

“I’m just saying–”

“I know exactly what you’re saying,” I scoffed. My annoyance had turned into anger, and it was just a second away from turning into rage.

I hated looking like the weak one. I absolutely hated not being able to stand my ground. I would always fight back. But I knew doing that this time would get me nowhere. It would make things worse. Much worse. All the judgement would tenfold. Instead of defending myself, I would only be proving them right. It was a sticky situation, I needed to get out of it.

I did the one thing I could only do. I went upstairs. Not like a pissed off teenager running up the stairs and slamming her door. I went up calmly and collected, but still with enough determination that showed that I was done with their shit. Afterall, I was twenty now. Once I actually got up the stairs, it was a whole different story. I ran into my room, but didn’t get to shut my door just yet.

My eyes landed on my desk. It had been relatively clean before. My pens were in containers and cases, my sketchbooks all in two piles. Yes, my desk was full then, but it wasn’t cluttered. Now, however, it had all been ruined. My pens were all over my desk and the floor. The caps weren’t on most of them, some tips had obviously been pressed on way too hard, now ruined forever. Although those things were expensive, it wasn’t the worst part. My sketchbooks were open, but they hadn’t just been looked at. There were thick Sharpie lines scratched through my drawings, some just a large line spanning over multiple pages, and others completely scribbled over. My heart fell and tears started prickling at my eyes.

“Yo, hey…” Alex put a hand on my shoulder, apparently having followed me up to my room.

It made me snap my gaze away from my desk. I harshly shrugged off his hand and started looking for a way out. My own bedroom wasn’t a safe space anymore with these people in my house. I rushed to my window to make my escape. I hadn’t climbed out of it in ages, my parents trusted me enough to keep it unlocked. But when I tried to push it up, it wouldn’t budge.

I jiggled the lock a bit, seeing if it maybe jammed, but the window still wouldn’t open. “Are you. Fucking. Kidding. Me!” I groaned in between attempts.

“Mickey!” my mom yelled, coming into my room. “What do you think you’re going?”

I stopped trying to open the window and looked at her. “I need to get out of here.” It was only then that I realised that my hands had started shaking

“Mickey,” she sighed and shook her head at me. “Just come back downstairs.”

I shook my head, feeling my heartbeat increasing. “No, I can’t stand them.”

“I know, but it’s just one day,” she tried to explain calmly, her anger disappearing.

I stood my ground, the shaking now crawling up my arms and my nails finding their way between my teeth. “No. No, I’m not going to listen to them judging me. I’m not going to listen to fucking Carol try to convince me to be straight ‘because that’s the way it’s supposed to be’.”

“I know, you don’t have to, you just have to be there.”

“Somebody ruined all my work!” I went back to my desk, catching Alex look lost in the corner of my room. The black Sharpie made me feel physically sick. I swiped everything from my desk with my arm, making it all hit the floor with a loud clattering sound.

“Okay. We’ll figure this out, you just need to calm down.” My mom slowly tried to approach me.

But I couldn’t calm down, I was over that threshold. “You know I can’t deal with them! But you still had to invite them all over! And now I look like the rude one!”

She tried to explain her reasoning to me, “I thought we were past–”

“Well, we fucking aren’t are we!” I yelled as my head started spinning. The shaking in my hands and arms weren’t just felt by me anymore, you could physically see it as well.

“Mickey, please sit down,” my mom begged, already knowing what was happening. This had only happened during one period of my life before, but that had been ages ago.

I knew she was right, I had to sit down before I fell over myself. She rushed up to me and let me hold on to her and she helped me lower down on the floor. My back was against the end of my bed and my mom was squatted down across from me, holding one of my hands.

“Alex, close the door, will you?” She instructed while still staying kind to him.

I looked up at him, once again reminded he was here. “Y-you should go.” He had seen me in many different states. I had cried in front of him before, I had laughed in front of him, I had become shy, I had been cocky. But he had never seen me like this, I didn’t want him to see me like this. This wasn’t who I was or who I wanted to be. I had left this behind five years ago.

But he just shook his head and closed the door before sitting down next to me. He touched my shoulder in support, but I just shrugged it off again while I pulled my legs up and hid my head between my knees. My mom explained that I hated being touched so he wouldn’t take it personally. I reached out and held his hand, letting his fingers intertwine with mine.

The same dark feeling I had experienced many times five years ago were overwhelming me now. It was all because of the people downstairs and what they had to say about me. They were the cause of it those many years ago as well. It was a horrible feeling, but it was something I had to push through.

I must have started to calm down because my mom asked while stroking my hair, “did you take anything?”

I was able to reply, but still kept my head down. “Nothing except for the Advil this morning for my headache.”

“Okay,” she whispered and brushed away all the hair in my face as I finally dared to look up again. Drugs had been a big part of this when I was fifteen, so it only made sense she checked to make sure I wasn’t going down that path again.

She got up and grabbed the makeup wipes from my desk before crouching down in front of my and carefully wiping the smudged makeup around my eyes. Alex finally dared to get closer to me. He pressed a kiss to my temple and didn’t seem to be weirded out despite not know what the fuck had just gone down.

Everything that had happened surrounding my feelings for my extended family was more than my hatred for them. It was deeper than that.

“Are you guys okay to stay up here?” My mom asked us after she was done wiping away all my makeup, directing the question to both me and Alex. When I nodded, she stood up and grabbed a few of my sketchbooks. “Okay, then I’m going to hunt down who did this.”

I leaned into Alex and rested my head against his shoulder while we stayed in our positions. There was nothing but silence until my mom left and Alex spoke up, “you don’t have to tell me what happened.”

I nodded and stayed quiet, staring out in front of me and scratching my nose.

“Don’t feel bad about it. You know I have anxiety attacks myself. It’s all okay,” Alex told me, referring back to when I was telling him to leave.

“It wasn’t really an anxiety attack or anything,” I confessed in a quiet voice, still trying to process it all myself. “Or maybe it was, I dunno. It used to happen a lot after my drug overdose. The overdose actually happened at a family event. I was high out of my mind and obviously not doing great, but nobody really seemed to really care. They just kept giving me their judgmental comments. How I shouldn’t dye my hair, how I shouldn’t have tattoos, how I shouldn’t be with girls, etcetera. I went to the bathroom to take some more, you know, to hopefully feel a little better. And I passed out. Somebody came into the bathroom when I was still partially conscious, but she just thought I was drunk or something and left me there. I don’t know how long I was in there, but it was only when my mom walked in that emergency services were called. While I was in rehab, family members would sometimes come to visit. I guess they hoped to be supportive, but it never turned out that way. I got the worst withdrawal symptoms whenever they came over. They even made me relapse a few times. I guess my brain still reacts in the same way when I’m around them now.”

Alex breathed out heavily and ran his fingers through my tangled hair. I was expecting him to say something supportive, but I wasn't expecting what he actually said. “I love you.”

I sat up and looked at him with wide eyes, wondering if I had heard him correctly or if I had misheard a word or two. But he confirmed it, “I do, I really do.”

I didn’t know how to react, but I knew I had to do something. I closed the space I had created mere seconds before and kissed him deeply. For some reason, I felt like I was supposed to be uncomfortable or even afraid, but I didn’t feel like that at all. I was actually happy, which was such a strange feeling.

When I pulled away from him, I opened my mouth. But I couldn’t tell him I loved him back. It nearly physically hurt trying to make the words come out.

“Don’t worry, I get it,” he gave me a lopsided smile and kissed me again softly.

Notes

Would you believe me if I said there are only eight-ish chapters left? This has been one long story, it's going to be sad to end it, especially since the website had been fucked up and I feel like most reader don't get to see the updates anymore.

Oh, yeah, and Alex said I love you to Mickey, which isn't a big deal at all.