Find You in the Dark

tried to picture a little Clay all alone in a big house with no one who gave a damn about him. What a sad and lonely life. Clay turned around to look at me and I could see tiny pieces of his perfectly erected wall start to crumble.
    “When I was ten years old I started to have...issues. I became wild and angry. I would fly into these rages and destroy my bedroom, break windows, threaten my parents.” His words instantly brought to mind his behavior last night. What he was describing was exactly what I had witnessed right here in his bedroom.
    “I would go through periods where everything was fine. I was the picture perfect son, getting straight A's. I would be on fire playing for the lacrosse team, everything was awesome. Then it would change and I would get angry, depressed.” I shivered, imagining what he described. I had witnessed these erratic mood swings myself. One day Clay would be my best friend, the next he would ignore me completely. Then there was the craziness of last night.
    “I would lock myself in my room for days. And I would...hurt myself.” His words made my stomach clench. “Hurt yourself? Like how?” I waited in dread for his answer, not sure I really wanted to hear it, but I couldn't stop him now that he was actually opening up.
    “When I was thirteen I discovered that when I cut myself, or burn myself with a lighter...I felt, I don't know...better somehow. That it stopped the craziness in my head and helped me focus. It became sort of like an addiction. I needed the pain to feel something close to normal, as weird as that sounds.” Clay slowly peeled his shirt over his head and he stood there, bare chested in front of his window. He took my breath away at the sheer beauty of what was before me. But then, upon closer inspection I could see something else.
    I stood up and walked over to him. I could see white scars crisscrossing his chest and down his arms. How had I not noticed these before? I reached out and lightly touched my finger tip to a particularly large scar that ran from one side of his chest to the other. “How did you do this?” I whispered, touching the raised skin.
    Clay shivered under my touch but didn't move away. He closed his eyes as I continued to explore the map of scars on his body with my eyes and fingers. “That one was made with a piece of glass. I was high on cocaine and needed the pain to feel grounded. The cutting wasn't my only addiction. I already told you about that.”
    I dropped my hand and took a step backwards. Dear God, how could he destroy himself like that? I just couldn't wrap my mind around someone driven to hurt themselves in that way. It was completely outside my realm of experience.
    Clay put his shirt back on and turned away from me again. “By the time I was fourteen I was pretty heavy into drugs and drinking. There wasn't a day that went by that I wasn't loaded...and cutting. I was so deep into my self- destruction that nothing else mattered. My parents were never around. My so- called friends were only there for the drugs I could score with my parents' money. I really didn't have anyone that gave a shit about the fact that I was slowly killing myself. And I hated myself, Maggie. I mean really hated myself. I thought about suicide every day. I wanted to die, but was too much of a pussy to outright do it.”
    The agonizing pain in his voice was unbearable. Without thinking, I wrapped my arms around him and leaned my cheek against his back, feeling the steady rise and fall of his chest as he breathed. “You weren't a pussy for not killing yourself. I think it's much braver to keep on living, in spite of all that stuff.” I said sincerely.
    Clay covered my hands with his and held on. He stood rigidly against me. “So how did you end up here, with Ruby?” I asked after he paused. Clay leaned his forehead against the glass of the window. “It all came to a head about six months ago. I had been partying pretty heavily. I was hanging out with my group of druggie friends and was so strung out on heroin and liquor that I never knew what the hell I was doing. I knew my parents were having a dinner party with some of my dad's constituents, but I just didn't give a shit. By that point, my parents had kicked me out of the main house. They were sick of seeing me drunk and high all the time, so I was living in the apartment over the garage.”
    “Your parents knew you were having problems? And they never tried to get you help?” I interrupted,