Give 'Em Hell, Kid
*****
He left me, alone again.
Alone wouldn't be the right word, lonely would be better, but I keep hearing his voice in my head and I think I'm going mad...
You need me,
I heard him say.
I raised the glass to my lips; but before tasting the drink my tongue tasted the tears that had just rolled down my cheeks.
Well, that is now ruined, I thought angrily, putting the glass down.
I didn't bother wiping the tears away- I was tired of holding everything in. I was sick of putting up a front, pretending to be stronger than I actually was. Congrats to me, I fooled everybody...
Except me,
whispered his voice again.
I rolled the glass in my hand, watching the little waves in the liquid fight each other.
No, not really, I decided. I don't need you.
Silent tears still ran their course through their tracks, as though refuting my choices.
My mind argued back and forth, as I placidly watched the fracas going on in front of me...
That day, after his guests had left, he finally took me to meet his father.
"I didn't want to show you last night," he explained, as we walked down a dark corridor, "because number one, I was horny."
He grinned at me, cockily. I narrowed my eyes dangerously, but he looked at me and started laughing.
I reached out and slapped him hard across the face. He stopped laughing, but the smile didn't leave.
I love it when you're cranky, said his smile.
"Reason two," he continued quietly, "was that you'd probably be sick to your stomach."
We stopped in front of a pair of heavy-looking double doors. I looked at him again questioningly.
"My father is very sick. He's bed bound."
There was no emotion in his voice as he said this.
He pushed open the doors. I was blinded for a moment - then as my eyes adjusted, I saw that we were in a huge bedroom, with a full panel of floor length windows. The afternoon sunlight that streamed into the room bounced off the walls and intensified the whiteness of the room.
In the center was a hospital bed, surrounded with various machinery and monitors, and in that bed lay a figure, hidden beneath heavy covers.
This brightly lit room was the eeriest place I'd ever been to. I noticed him looking at me from aside. I walked forward slowly, as though I was expecting to find a monster there instead of a man. He walked along with me, much more relaxed, and pulled down the covers.
"Hello dad, how are you doing?" said Liam loudly.
I almost screamed. Almost.
Due to the recent events in my life I think my internal shock meter had recalibrated itself to a new high, and all that came out was a surprised gasp.
Liam's father was bandaged heavily- the places where he wasn't, was covered by what looked like gel stickers, and I could see the yellow ooze and the raw flesh underneath. His whole body seemed to be in different stages of healing - some of of it was heavily scarred, and other places looked like the skin was just sheared off yesterday. He had leads across his body, and an IV tube ran into his arm, and I could even see the vein bulging right under his thin, pale, skin from the flow of the fluid. My eyes followed up to his face- and got stuck on his throat.
"That's a tracheostomy tube," said Liam. "It helps him breathe. Dad, how are you feeling?"
I tore my sight away from that...thing in his neck and looked at his fathers face. Whether from age, or disease, or from this accident- his face looked so damaged; but but as Liam spoke, his eyes fluttered open, and I saw that he had the same eyes as him. I fixed on that, but even looking at those grey eyes unnerved me.
"What...happened? How did he get like this?" I asked quietly.
"There was a fire. In this house actually, a few months ago. Some faulty circuitry...It was difficult to put out, but somehow he made it," said Liam, as he swept an eye over the screens.
"Isn't it better for him to be in a hospital?"
"Well, yes, but we can afford this. We have a live-in nurse, and Karl comes now and then to see him."
Karl was another one of his cousins. He was a doctor. I had just met him that afternoon when he and his wife came by for lunch.
Liam turned to me. "He's too heavily sedated now. Anyways he won't be able to say much, the scars and the bandaging prevent him from talking properly."
I looked at his father one more time. For some inexplicable reason I felt ashamed.
As though feeling my discomfort, Liam reached a hand across my shoulder and pulled me close.
"We're going now," he said loudly. "I'll come by later, dad."
We walked wordlessly to the door. Once we shut the doors behind us, he stopped, and faced me, holding my forearms in his. He leaned in, and set his head down against my neck.
Neither of us liked admitting our insecurities, I mused. This is a terrible relationship.
But nestling in each other's warmth, I could feel him shaking, very softly...
It was for a moment, almost. But it was enough for me to pick up.
He raised his head up, to look at me, as if asking, what do you think of me now?
As answer, I closed the distance between us, leaving only fabric in between our skins.
In the darkness we wrapped ourselves protectively around each other, as if afraid to show anyone our weakness.
But he's sharing with me, I thought.
I rested my head against his chest, listening to his heartbeat; that was my favorite thing to do. He ran his hand up and down my hair, wrapping it around and around his fingers; that was his favorite thing to do...
"He really wanted me to join the military, you know? He was in it, when he was my age... I wanted to be like him... I feel I'm nothing like him. And seeing him in this state-" I heard his heart thump louder- "I feel as though I utterly failed him. Failed myself. I don't think he wants anything other than my happiness. And I smashed that dream of his. The way things are... The situation I've made... He's better dead than suffering..."
"No," I said softly. "You're fine, you did nothing wrong. He's your father, I don't think he has a problem with anything you do, you- you don't do anything wrong, you-"
It was as though the words were getting stuck in my throat.
"-you are a good person... You take care of your family, you deal with all these problems. You do it so well, nobody would guess..."
"No one should be guessing," he replied. "No body needs to know. This is mine; I can carry my own burden. Yet..."
I looked up into his eyes, and they seemed to sparkle.
"Is it too weak of me, to admit that I need you?" he asked, his voice cracking. He bent down to hide his face in my neck again.
It wasn't sweat that trickled down my neck.
I turned to face him again, my eyes meeting his.
"And I told you already," I said, my voice breaking as well, "whatever is yours is also mine now."
I felt as though the universe centered on us. It was a heavy feeling, as though I was being pulled down into the earth by the force of it.
He was silent, as we cradled back and forth.
After I came back home, I went directly into the kitchen. That's where most of us gathered during the day. I passed Cynthia, who was reading a magazine in the living room.
Marie and Ri were cooking, and a few of the other girls were at the table, studying and talking. They turned to look at me as I entered, as though they were expecting to hear bad news.
"Hi people, what's up?" I asked nonchalantly.
"How was your..." Marie looked awkwardly around for words, probably trying to say something other than 'booty-call'. I spied Cynthia leaning against the doorway.
"He called you over for sex, right?" said Ri easily. Marie looked so offended on my behalf, I started laughing. Ri caught her expression.
"What? What? I call it like it is, that's what it was, wasn't it?" asserted Ri.
"If it makes you feel any better, Marie, I knew about it," I reassured.
"So did you, then?" burst out Cynthia.
"Yes." I said simply.
The room ruptured in a mixture of emotions- some were just laughing at the awkwardness of it; Marie shrugged, but I noticed she still looked bothered; Ri was bothered, but she had actually let it go. Cynthia was grinning from ear to ear.
"And? How was it?" she asked cheekily.
"It was okay, I really don't know how to describe it. Would you like to try? So we could compare notes?" I asked slyly.
She laughed in response. "Well, congrats, I guess."
It was the most awkward thing in the world, to be sitting in the midst of this, knowing that things were definitely not as you said it was.
Oh, lying you mean?
said the voice in my head.
You don't do it much I see.
Shut it, I said.
I kept on the facade throughout the rest of the day, until I finally got to my room. Kat meowed angrily when she saw me, as though rebuking me for being away.
"Oh Kat, I'm sorry," I said wearily, as I picked her up to nose-kiss. I lay down, and she ambled up my body to curl up on my stomach, her favorite sleeping place.
I lay in bed, and thought hard.
As I suspected, Liam went missing the next week. His phone was off- Benjy was gone as well, to poor Beth's annoyance. I waited a week more, then I called the one person who might have an idea. Obviously the talk didn't go as planned.
"So look, you have to come over one night. Please," begged Rachel. "Bring your friends. I promise it won't be anything crazy. I'll introduce you to our gang, we'll drink and watch something, that's it."
Since I desperately needed a distraction, and because Cynthia was standing right beside me, I had to accept.
The next weekend we visited Rachel. She lived in an apartment in the city center, in what Cyn kept saying was the 'artsy' part of town where everything was cool but not too mainstream to be deemed normal cool.
"You don't get it," she said to me, finally, as we stood in front of Rachel's door.
I shrugged, and smiled. "That's why I keep you around, to educate the philistine in me," I answered back lovingly.
A short, dark haired girl opened the door. Physically she could've been describe as 'lithe', but her facial features made her look her much older.
