Come, Angels of Unknown

The emptiness one can feel is simply mortifying if the best term you can use to describe it is ‘white’. I’d learned that the hard way, since sitting in a white hall for a few excruciatingly slowly passing hours wasn’t helping much.

I could faintly hear beeping from the rooms around me, its echoes in the hallway being excruciatingly painful for my skull. Otherwise the entire hallway was completely silent and the whole atmosphere lacked substance, it felt like I was silently choking but nobody was able to save me because I was too tired to ask for help.

It felt as if the silence was screaming itself, stopping everything else from producing noises because it was aware of the fact that the only thing that could break it was sound.
As a relatively quiet person, I usually enjoyed silence; but at that moment it felt like the worst punishment I could be treated with.

And the sole thought of my brother being plugged into a machine that kept his heart beating was worse to me than any method of torture someone could put me through. Basically, if anyone told me two months ago that two agonizing things would happen to me within the time period of four days and practically lead me to a complete emotional breakdown I would’ve laughed in their face and advised them that they needed some coffee.

Probably the worst part of it all was the fact that it was all my fault.
I was the one who had made both of the things happen. One more than the other, logically- of course I hadn’t made Mikey ram his car into a vending machine [the sole thought of it made my breath hitch inside my throat and the nauseous feeling build up at the top of my stomach], but I’d been the one who had made him get into the car in the first place. Me and my stupid mouth.

And the thing with Frank… that was completely my fault. That had been totally under my control and I could’ve influenced it entirely and handled it differently.
But I hadn’t.

They didn’t let me see Mikey, he’d already fallen into a coma before I’d arrived. Time, they said, he needed time.
No, it wasn’t time he needed. It was a better person than me beside him.

I spent hours and hours slowly dying there, not wanting to move, but still wanting to run away at the same time. I would’ve, honestly, I would’ve gotten up and made my legs carry me across town and into my apartment where I would’ve collapsed onto the couch and stared into the wall until something in my head eventually cracked I finally went insane.
But my legs felt chained to the ground and held back by invisible locks that only fate could break; while my back felt too heavy to move, afraid I might faint and never wake up again.

To be completely honest, there was a part of me that wanted exactly that, and I would’ve fulfilled its wish if it hadn’t been the fact I had to stay put and strong. I had to endure this, for Mikey and for everyone who found Mikey even remotely relevant in their life.
I didn’t know where all this care for other people suddenly came from, but there was only one possible answer.

The only person to make me forget about myself in a long time was Frank, and he had obviously taught me how to put other people more in focus; which only made the burden laid across my shoulders heavier since it left me feeling even guiltier.

I somehow didn’t want to admit it to myself, but I missed him. I missed the way his voice sounded when he was being shy, the feeling of his fingers gingerly curling around my wrists when I’d kiss him the softest I could and his shallow breathing against my neck when he felt the need to be close to me.
Even some mundane things, like the way he’d sometimes laugh in huffs of breath and how he always had the need to touch me even though I didn’t do or say anything particularly meaningful. I brought myself to the point where I realized that I couldn’t even pinpoint what it was about him that I missed, because the whole of him was what I was longing for.

And even in that kind of moment, while I was sitting outside my brother’s hospital room inside of which his limp, cold body was fighting for its own life, the only thing I could think about was how idiotic I was for pushing Frank away, when he was the only one who could help me climb out of the misery I’d put myself into.

*

It wasn’t until late evening that someone gently shook my shoulder. At first I thought it might’ve been someone I knew that came to the hospital and recognized me, but that turned out wrong upon turning around when I found myself looking at the face of a stranger.
The woman was short, thin and middle-aged, wearing a concerned frown on her face. Judging by the clothes she was wearing, she was obviously a nurse, and she was holding out a plastic bag with a cell phone in her right hand in front of my face.

“This rang,” she said in a low, calm voice which wasn’t as displeasing for my ears as the never-ending silence from before.

“Oh,” I grabbed the bag, trying to keep my fingers from shaking.

She frowned deeply. “Are you okay?” She looked at me with worry inside her eyes, which were a warm brown with a hint of gray to them, and seemed like they’d seen a lot of pain over the years.

I’d always imagined nurses to be the real heroes, the fragile women and men who never got enough credit for everything their job daily requested them to do.
She reminded me gravely of my grandmother; she’d been a nurse once, too.

“I’m fine,” I said with a fake smile, trying to open the bag which was currently lying inside my lap. I failed, naturally, my fingers unnaturally stiff and joints too heavy for me to keep them in the air for so long.

“You don’t look it,” she noticed, her face sympathetic. She sat down on the chair beside me, taking the bag off my thigh and into her hands. She gently separated the joined rims, reaching inside for the phone and handing it over to me. “Is that your loved one in there?”

I bit my lip hesitantly, awkwardly. “My little brother.”

Her face turned nostalgic. “I’d tell you I’m sorry, but there’s no need grieving for the ones death still hasn’t taken.”

I blinked a couple of times, trying to clear the blobs of black that blurred my vision.
Then I spoke, “I know that. I just… It’s my fault he’s in there. And that isn’t the only thing I’m guilty of.”

She let out a breath, staring into the floor while gently scratching the back of her neck. “There are only two things you can do, then. You can wallow, or you can try to make things right. You probably won’t be able to fix everything, but you’ll find peace in the thought that you tried. And sometimes that’s enough.”

I swallowed a lump, clutching at the phone inside my left hand like it would explode if I didn’t. I wanted to say something else, something remotely clever and important, but I couldn’t. There was something holding me back and she must’ve seen it, because she smiled warmly at my face expression.

“You’re way too young to feel this way, you know?”

I turned to look at her since I felt like she wanted me to. Her face showed only understanding and empathy, her eyes peering into mine with much more knowledge and experience than I thought was possible to own.

“I see it in your eyes. The pain, the agony you live with. You don’t even reckon how strong that makes you. Because some people let it go without even wanting to fight it. They surrender the war before the battle has even started. And you, you amazing creature, you’re giving all you’ve got to drive all those thoughts away and save yourself and everyone around you. He,” her eyes sadly flickered towards the window of Mikey’s room and his sleeping form on the bed, “must be honored to have you beside him.”

I sucked in a deep, shaky breath, gathering myself enough to speak. “I’m not that amazing as your words make me sound.”

“You will be if you don’t give up,” she said, standing up, “and don’t think he’s the only one who needs you.”
With that she walked away, her footsteps echoing through the hallway and tangling my thoughts even thicker than they had been before.

*

The person who had called was none other than a contact saved as ‘Gerard’s shitstore’ in Mikey’s phone, meaning that it was obviously Katie calling from the record store’s telephone.

I wondered why she’d called, but then I remembered that I hadn’t shown up for work that day and my phone was dead, buried somewhere beneath the cushions on the couch. I wondered if I should’ve called, just to tell her what had happened so she could sleep peacefully.

Just as I was about to dial the number, the caller ID that read ‘Katie C.’ flashed on the screen, making me reluctantly press the green button.

“Hello?” I said, trying to gather myself enough to talk normally.

“Hey, Mikey, I’m just calling to see if…” Katie’s tone appeared worried, confused even; something I hadn’t heard before.

“Katie, it’s me,” I huffed.

“Gerard! You better have a good- wait. Why are you answering Mikey’s phone?” Now she sounded scared, and I was already starting to receive a headache when I realized I’d have to explain it to her.

“I’m in the ICU. Mikey had a car accident,” I bit my lip violently; “he’s in a coma.”

Silence ensued, the only thing audible being her shallow breathing and the background noise from her TV. “Where are you?”

“St. David’s,” I mumbled, weak.

“Hold on, I’ll be right there.”

I immediately started to rebel. “No, no, you don’t have to.”

“Gerard,” she sighed. “You can’t be there on your own. Maybe I’m not the… shit, I’ll tell Frank to go instead, okay?”

I felt my stomach turning again. “Frank and I… there’s no ‘Frank and I’ anymore.”

“I’ll be right there.” She hung up before I could add anything else. I sometimes really hated impulsive people.
I sighed exasperatedly, gathering my own clusterfuck of a mind under a giant net while closing my eyes and hoping I could disappear for a while.

*

“You need to eat, okay? And I’m not trusting you on your own, not in this kind of situation,” Katie repeated for the billionth time, clutching the wheel between her fingers.

“Okay,” I said absently, staring out into the night illuminated by traffic lights and hoping I could go back to the hospital as soon as she was done with me. Her face had been carrying this sympathetic hint on it ever since I’d told her about what happened to Mikey and about me and Frank, which annoyed me just as much as it made me feel even more miserable than I already did.
She sighed weakly, probably confused, afraid and every other emotion that came in a package deal with that. I didn’t blame her.

After about fifteen minutes of silence, we pulled up outside a building about ten stories tall, her pulling me out of the car immediately and leading the way into what I assumed would be her apartment.

“Sean’s working the graveyard shift,” she explained upon unlocking the door and pulling me inside, sitting me at her kitchen table in a matter of seconds. She fixed me a bowl of cereal and left the room with one simple order that said ‘eat’.

I decided to obey, not knowing what else to do, so I fixed my eyes on the wall in front of me and chewed on the cereal, not feeling the taste in my mouth as I was eating. I felt lifeless, numb; even though I still didn’t know if I liked it better than the pain.

“You done? Not hungry anymore?” She came into the room, placing her hands on my shoulders. I nodded weakly and let her take the bowl away. She came up to me when she washed it, grabbing my hand in hers and leading me towards the living room. “Find something to watch,” she suggested, handing me over the remote, “I’ll be back soon.”

I nodded meekly, barely acknowledging her goodbyes as I was flipping through the channels and finding something that would make a good background noise for taking a trip inside my own head. Surprisingly, some idiotic vampire show was playing on TV so I concluded it suited the opportunity; I turned to the nearest wall and challenged it for a staring contest I knew I’d lose eventually. Exhaustion couldn’t harm walls.

I didn’t know how long I’d just gawked blankly in front of myself, but I was awoken from my trance by a gentle knock at the already opened living room door.
I turned my head in the direction of the sound, only to find a familiar face that didn’t belong to Katie leaning against the door frame.

“What are you doing here?” I drew my eyebrows together, panic and guilt mixed with joy of seeing him already starting to boil inside the pit of my stomach.

Frank uttered to talk, but he was cut off by a noise from the room across the hallway behind him.
“I called him,” Katie’s voice sounded from the kitchen. “You two need to talk.”

Notes

I somehow think the quality went downhill from the part with the call and until the end... well, let's just say you'll be the judge of that.

Shoutout to Lily and Sara for being awesome. [P.S. Lily, I sent you a request from my other Facebook because I deactivated the Milo.] [Yes, deactivated the Milo.] [Shut up.]

Life update: School trips suck, homophobic people suck, people who think rape only happens to women suck, I suck, I suck at Math, Math sucks, Gym sucks, my mindset sucks, life sucks, everything sucks and coffee is great.

'Till next time.