Just look over your shoulder

Chapter 7 Frustration. That’s the only word to describe my current mood. I’ve been frustrated for days now. It’s been exactly 7 days since the thing happened and I almost wish I could rewind time at that point. The mood between me and Gerard can only be titled as plain awful. It’s not like we’re fighting, but he rejects me. And that’s even worse. It hurts. I let him alone pretty much all day on that very day, figuring he just needed some alone time. But when he didn’t cuddle up against me that night but kept his fair distance, that’s when I got really concerned. I tried to talk to him about it over breakfast the next day, but he would just change the topic and look down at his food or stare out the window or not react at all. I tried everything; I left him alone, I pleaded, I screamed at him, I tried to be nice, but nothing helped. On the first evening, after we did our chores and took some well-needed baths, I decided to approach him because I noticed the tiny longing looks he’d been given me over the day. But when I wrapped my arms around him from behind and kissed him on the shoulder, he shrugged out of my embrace and went into the forest until it was pitch dark outside. On the third day, he wasn’t there when I woke up fairly early in the morning. I thought about using his absence to touch myself alone properly for the first time, but while it did feel nice, it never felt as incredible as when he did it and, in the end, I gave up and waited for it to go away again, my frustration only raising. At some point during the week, in a moment of weakness, I asked him if he could kiss me again because I craved the feeling (though I didn’t say that), but he just shook his head and looked away guiltily without saying something. The worst thing is that I know what if feels like now. I’ve never been kissed or touched like that before, no one ever bothered and I certainly was not interested in such things for a long time. Now it’s different though. I’m feeling frustrated because he won’t talk to me in full sentences, won’t even look at me most of the day and when he does, he looks sad and guilty and longing. He won’t listen when I need to talk about my nightmares and I’m frustrated because he won’t show any kind of affection towards me or touch me. And I don’t even mean in a sexual way. It’s been so long since he last hugged me, or simply smiled at me. He avoids me as much as he can in any way possible. Deep down, I don’t care if he never kisses me again or touches me in forbidden places or tells me about the wonders of adulthood. All I want for us right now is to go back being kids again, who would chase each other all day and laugh about nonsense. All I want is to have my brother back. He pretty much turned into a stranger over the last week. On the late afternoon of the 7th day, I decided to give it one last try because I simply cannot take much more of this. I find him sitting down by the stairs with his arms curled around his legs, the wind messing up his hair, making him look absolutely unhappy and beautiful at the same time. Taking a deep breath, I walk down the stairs and stand grievously in front of him, not daring to sit down. I feel totally stupid. There’s nothing intimidating about me, nothing that shows magnitude. All I have to offer are wobbly in-turned knees, feathery hair, too long and skinny limbs and a croaky new voice I’m still not used to. He’s definitely noticed me by now, but he continues staring at the ground. “To be straight, I don’t regret what happened last week, you obviously do. But Gerard, I don’t know what to do anymore and if you continue being like this, I will-“ “You will what, Mikey! Scream at me some more? Cry? Beg for me to talk? Go and tell mother and father what an ass I am if they come back? Move out? Well, have fun with that because we’re stuck here and there’s no one here for you to cry your eyes out to or to complain about how mean I am being to you, so leave me the hell alone!” The only thing I can perceive are the tears that well up fast and hot in my eyes and him getting up to leave, but then I react and grab him tightly around the wrist. “No! I’m not letting you leave just like that again!” The words barely come out but when they do, they’re high-pitched with shock and tears and grief. “Let go of me!” he growls in a dangerous tone that scares me and tries to pull his wrist out of my grip. “No! Not until you tell me what’s going on-“ And then he slaps me straight across the cheek with a loud smack, leaving me to tumble backward with my palm pressed against the spot he just hit. I’m so perplexed that I can’t speak and my entire body starts to tremble in dread, making it hard for me to stand. Gerard never hit me. Never. I stare at him with shock and tears in my eyes and mouth slightly open and he looks equally shocked as to what he just did, looks apologetic even, but a second later he looks angry again and spits out, “All I did was trying to protect you! If they ever come back and find out what happened, they’ll separate us and throw us into prison! I tried to prevent that from happening all these years but all you ever do is ask ‘What’s wrong Gee? Why don’t you want to sleep in my bed anymore? Am I not good enough for you anymore, Gee?’ in your ever so sweet voice but the answer is No! No to everything! Do you finally get that now, Mikey?” After that, I truly feel like throwing up, his words and the way he quotes me so odious. Doesn’t he see how utterly much he’s hurting me right now? “Shame on you, Gerard,” I say bitterly and humiliated, my breath caught painfully in my throat and choking me. There’s nothing left for me to do but to swallow my pride and ignore the shattering pain in my heart. But still... “I don’t understand,” because I truly don’t. Who is he talking about? Why is he suddenly talking about prison and people finding out? About what? “We are brothers, Mikey!” he screams at me from the top of his lungs and moves his arms around wildly. I’m shaking my head confused because, well, I know that. “Brothers don’t do that, okay? Brothers aren’t so close to each other! They aren’t supposed to be attracted to each other and they certainly don’t have sex together! It’s wrong! It’s forbidden!” “But you-“ “You forced me!” he spats out bitterly, but I know he’s not believing his own words. He knows just as much as I do that I didn’t force him. I didn’t force him to touch me, like me the way he does or to kiss me or to fall asleep on my chest. Those were all his own decisions. “Throw around these horrible things all you want, but at least stop lying to yourself, Gerard.” I’m about to leave, grab my things and go wherever, but then he says, “You can’t have me,”simple and plain, and that hurts a million times more than him hitting me. I turn around from where I just walked past him, hand still on my cheek and tears mingled with snot and reddened skin, “Who says that, you? Who told you all these things?” Then he turns his head away with a betrayed look on his face and tears of his own running down his cheeks and says, suddenly very quietly, “Brian did.” That takes a moment for my brain to register because I never thought of Brian as someone like that, but I don’t think Gerard is lying, either. Instead, I clench my jaw and say, pain and disappointment audible in my voice, “And you believe that?” He must so, because he doesn’t say anything in defense. It startles me that he thinks that way, him above all people. All the conversations about equality and love thrown away like they never mattered. A final nod and a “Good to know,” is all I have left to say before turning around and leaving for good. I don’t know where I’m going, but something will come of it. - I’ve been walking for at least two hours, judging by the way the sun stands now. I don’t know where I’m going, but it’s not like it matters. I just needed to get away from home. I thought about going back to the cave but quickly discarded the idea because that place would be too painful with all the memories we’ve created there. Deep in the jungle, it’s cold and unfamiliar. All I have with me is the light blue blouse on my body and nothing else. No food, no water, nothing from home. Maybe it’s for the best that way. After another hour of walking around aimlessly, I’ve reached the other end of the island. I think I’ve been here only once before, with Gerard, years ago when we explored our new environment. I didn’t like it here then and I don’t like it now. The beach here is of rocks and not of the white sand I’m used to. It smells like rotten fish and not like the clean ocean-air that I love so much. It looks cold, dreary and unfamiliar. I’ve crossed a couple of weird looking animals, some sort of monkeys and reptiles on my way here that I’ve never seen and I wonder if they’re dangerous. I’m scared and lonely and my heart aches. But I wanted this, right? I wanted, no, needed to get away from there. Trying not to think about Gerard and all the cruel things he said and, well, did, I take a breath and go back into the forest. I’m starting to get thirsty and I should probably find a water source before it gets dark. I do, indeed, find a small pond about 500 meters away from the beach and even found two fairly big rocks sitting next to each other that serve poorly as shelter. It’s evening when I threw a few brackens unlovingly over the stones as some sort of roof and made a tiny fire to warm up to, but the fire is as useless as the hungry growling from my stomach. I couldn’t find anything to eat earlier, not even berries or bananas. Gerard is the one who knows how to fish without a spear. I mean, I know how to fish, but I don’t have any equipment with me and without it, I’m useless. And I’m still cold. I can’t even feel the heat from the flames. My body feels numb and motionless, much like my soul. I feel like there’s a huge wave of emotion coming up and I know I’m not prepared for either one of them. It starts with realization. As I sit there, with my forearms braced on my bend knees and a dead straw of grass between my fingers to stop me from ripping my hair out or something, a thought that is as painful as a fist to my gut floats my mind. It comes so fast and unexpected; I was thinking about something entirely else but then, one, clear and simple sentence takes over my brain. I am in love with Gerard. And then, that one sentence takes on different shapes: I’m in love with my best friend. I’m in love with a boy. I’m in love with an adult. (almost) I’m in love with my soulmate. I’m in love with my brother. Then, the one last, precarious straw that I so desperately tried to hold on to to keep me sane snaps, and I almost hear my heart shattering into pieces inside my chest while tears start to fall from my eyes like heavy raindrops. The blade of grass falls to the ground and my mud and grime-dirty hands shoot to my face where I begin to sob uncontrollably. I know I once said that I was never told what love feels like so I wouldn't know if I was in love with him or anyone at all, but oh was I wrong all this time. I know so well that it feels like. I fell in love with Gerard without even realizing it. I always knew we were pretty close, closer than most siblings I used to know, but that it would turn into love one day, pure, adult love... I would not have thought that. And of course, I always loved him, but in the normal way, you love your family. This though is something completely different. This is huge and scares the last remains of my soul out of my body. I know that this is different because I felt it a long time coming. At least looking back now, I know that it was always there, crawling under the surface and waiting for me to discover it. And it would be great and wonderful if it wasn’t for this situation. It’s not even for the butterflies I feel in my stomach or the touches or the kisses, but for the glances he would give me when he’s worried about me, it’s for the way he always knows how to cheer me up or hold me in the right moments when I need him the most. It’s for the many nights he sat sleep drunken by my bed to make sure that I was okay after waking up from a nightmare. It’s for the way he says my name and makes me feel like I’m never alone. It’s for moments when he feels unwatched while drawing and he’d look deep in thoughts, his teeth worrying his lower lip without even noticing. It’s for the way his hair smells and the warmness of his hands and those huge eyes that always watch me so intently with protection and adoration. It’s for when he looks so indescribably beautiful when he would wear my white dress, or when he curls his hair behind his ears or when smiles and those dimples form under his eyes. It’s for the way his voice sounds and how he would sometimes chew with a slightly open mouth while being deep in thoughts or how awkward his pinkie fingers look when he spreads his fingers while talking wildly and excited about a new idea he got. It’s for how he said that he would never stop protecting me, no matter how much I disliked that. I love him because he is my brother, but a higher force decided that this term wouldn’t be enough to explain everything that I’m feeling towards him. It’s for the way he loves me back but never dared to admit it. I know he does, because I always felt it, in one way or another. It has to be love what I’m feeling right now because, despite all the horrible things he said and did, I miss him so much that it’s hard to breathe and think. The next feeling that makes itself home inside my body is grief. Pure, bitter and honest grief. My cheek still throbs where he hit me, but I know he didn’t mean to and he’s probably hating himself right now for doing it. That, or he’s glad I’m finally out of the house and doesn’t have to see my face anymore. I’m wondering if he’s looking for me? It’s hard to tell and I decide that he probably isn’t. But it’s a nice thought. His words hurt me so much. I feel so humiliated for the way he mimicked me earlier, the way he made me sound like the neediest and forlorn person on the planet. “..What’s wrong Gee? Why don’t you want to sleep in my bed anymore? Am I not good enough for you anymore, Gee? In your ever so sweet voice..” All I ever tried was to be sincere and honest with him and show him how much I cared for him. I honestly thought he appreciated that more. How can I ever face him again without feeling absolutely ludicrous? He made me look like a little, desperate child again and again and with every sentence, he spat in my face, it hurt more than I ever thought words could hurt. “..there’s no one here for you to cry your eyes out to..” “..but the answer is No! No to everything!” “You forced me!” “You can’t have me.” All of this echoes over and over in my head in his voice, taking me right back to that horrible conversation and after another hour of bawling my eyes and heart out, I’m so exhausted that I feel like I could pass out from my headache so I decide to call it a night and crawl in the small space between the rocks, trying to tuck all of my too long limbs under my body. I don’t like it here. God knows what animals sneak around at night in the jungle. It smells unfamiliar, I’m cold and hungry and I ache all over. I am so, so sad and alone. I feel small and wrong in my own body. I feel like we became stranger in a matter of seconds when we fought. Everything I believed to know about him until that point vanished in a flick. I’m not even sure if that was considered fighting. In my eyes, that was something more. Something more painful and agonizing. My stupid weakness brought him into a situation where he got badly hurt and caused him a kind of pain I could probably never understand. And not just today, no. It was probably building up inside of him for months, if not years. Every move I made, every word I said. He said that he tried to prevent terrible things from happening, things that didn’t make sense to me, but he must have had his reasons. That in return makes me incredibly mad because If he would have said something and made me understand what was going on inside his head, maybe things wouldn’t have gotten so horribly out of control. But still...I can’t help but wonder what Gerard is doing at this moment. Is he already asleep? Is he out looking for me? Does he even miss me? Was running away really the right thing to do at that moment? It certainly seemed like the right thing to do, given the circumstances. But then again, what if he wanted to say something else but just didn’t know how? I guess I’ll never know because it’s too late now. The damage is done and is done greatly, on both sides. We’ve never been separated for more than a couple of hours, except for when we were at school and that one Summer when I was at camp and while I had fun, I remember how much I just wanted to go home to be with him again. Every night, I made believe that he would somehow magically stand in front of my uncomfortable camp-bed because he sneaked away from home and crawled under the covers with me. It wasn’t much, but my childlike thinking helped me back then. It doesn’t now, however. I seriously feel like passing out, but how can you fall asleep when your brain is shouting at you nonstop? The fire is out completely now and as I watch the last remains of the embers expire with red and tired eyes, I make a promise to myself that I’ll go back first thing tomorrow and see if he’s still mad at me. But will he forgive me for running away or for hurting him? Will I be able to forgive him for everything he did today? I don’t have an answer to either, but living under the same roof with Gerard while he probably hates me to hell is still better than living here, all on my own with no promise of, well, of anything at all, actually. But after telling myself that I’ll be going home and be able to see his face again, there’s a tiny spark of hope bubbling up inside my chest that finally lets me drift off into a light and restless sleep for a few hours. - However, when I wake up very early in the morning with a cooled down body and pain all over, especially my face, I change my mind without second thought. I woke up every 10 minutes from hunger and pain and strange sounds from the jungle that scared me. It was a mistake not to eat lunch yesterday when I was still at home and in the end, I’m only even more tired and exhausted than before. It’s anger that comes next. And when it does, it comes in full force. Gerard, the person whom I came to realize that I love most in this world, hit me in the face and didn’t even make a move to apologize. By hitting me, he humiliated me, broke my trust in him and most of all, hurt me. Both physically and mentally. I know it bruised. I wouldn’t even need my cranky old hand-mirror to know that there’s an ugly bruise stretching over my cheek. I can feel it whenever I accidentally brush over it. If you hit someone, you’re scum in their eyes. At least that’s what our grandma always told us. It means you don’t respect the person in front of you. Deep, deep down somewhere in my heart, I know that he didn’t mean to hit me, it was probably just a rash reaction (though that’s no excuse), but my heart broke too much yesterday and now my brain takes over and induces everything he did and said on a completely new level. He acted violently towards me in more ways than just one; The looks he gave me, expressions I’ve never seen on him before and that scared me to death. He took it so far that he made me feel feared of him. The way my body reacted when he screamed out that first painful and hurtful paragraph where he made fun of me, was something that I never experienced before in my life and hopefully never, ever will again. I felt like my heart stopped beating, I felt like chocking because my body was trembling so heavily and uncontrollable. Even my teeth clattered. My voice sounded chopped and thin and foreign to me. I was barely aware of the tears running from my eyes or my hand that was yet clasped around his wrist. It felt like I was out of my body in some frightening way. And when he slapped me, that’s when I got really scared. Who slaps someone, and for that matter, their little brother, with such hate in their eyes? Will I ever be able to come near him again without feeling the urge to curl into a ball to protect myself? I’m angry that he hid, or at least felt like he had to hide the things Brian said to him, whatever they were. Doesn’t he know he can trust me? Didn’t I always show him that I trust him in all aspects of life? I mean, for all that is Holy, I trusted him so much that I let him touch me in my most vulnerable area to bring me into a state of sheer joy. Isn’t that the biggest proof of trust someone could come along with? Did he just take that for granted? The thought makes me sick to my stomach. Of course, I miss him, sickening so, even, but I wouldn’t be here if he hadn’t acted so extraneous and fierce towards me. Half of the morning passed, and I still haven’t calmed down. I tried to distract myself by finding something to eat, but I came up with nothing, my hunger increasing minutely. The only thing I fed my stomach since yesterday was the poor breakfast in the morning before the fight and then two hands full of disgusting tasting pond water. Dehydrating doesn’t sound so much fun though, so I squeeze my eyes together and swallow a few more mouths full of water before going back to my pathetic rock-shelter. There’s no use in making a fire now that I have nothing to cook and I gave up on warming up at that point. So here I am again, with nothing to do but to listen to every gruesome thing my brain shouts at me. Between all the chaotic and tangled thoughts, I find something that catches my interest. Something I haven’t yet given a proper thought to. Something that always tried to sneak away whenever it crossed my mind, hidden behind other thoughts and emotions. Just one, single word. A name. Brian. What on earth did Brian tell Gerard that made him act so damn brutal?! “If they ever come back and find out what happened, they’ll separate us and throw us into prison! I tried to prevent that from happening all these years..” “Brother’s don’t do that, okay? Brother’s aren’t so close to each other! They aren’t supposed to be attracted to each other and they certainly don’t have sex together! It’s wrong! It’s forbidden!” “You can’t have me.” -“Who says that, you? Who told you all these things?” “Brian did.” After I repeat those words over and over in my head, I come to the preliminary acceptance that all of this is entirely Brian’s fault. Whatever he told Gerard, besides what he revealed to me in tiny bits the other day, must have gotten to Gerard in a very serious way. I’m taking a deep breath to contain my anger and to try to bring some sort of structure into all of this. So, what I know, is that he told Gerard that if someone ever came back to rescue us and found out what we did, they would throw us into prison because we are brothers and brothers don’t have sex with each other. Am I getting this right? I must be because if that’s what he told him, I sure as hell would have acted the same way as Gerard did. And what we did wasn’t even considered sex yet, I think. A preliminary stage, if anything. Bit by bit, memories find their way to my brain and it becomes painfully clear what Gerard must have gone through the last years and especially the last few months. When I woke up that first night in the cave because he was stroking me when he thought I was sleeping, the way he froze and the look on his face when he found that I was awake. The morning after when he struggled with a morning erection, as I know now, and tried desperately to hide it from me. Every moment after when he was scared to let me come too close when I begged him to never leave me alone when I felt so anxious back when I was so scared of losing him. I can hear his words still so clearly; “What I did in the cave, I did that to protect you..” “I promise I will explain it to you one day, and that day will come, but for now I can’t tell you.” That situation not too long ago when he had me pressed against the tree trunk... “You,- you wouldn’t know..” “Sometimes you look so..it’s so difficult sometimes not to-..“ And finally, that eventful day barely over a week ago. “Mikey we- we can’t do this..” -“Why not?” “We shouldn’t be doing this.” None of this was ever Gerard’s decisions, but he felt like he had to do as he was told because someone, someone who I thought I could trust and always looked up to, abused his trust and fed him lies and threatened him with the most absurd things. It’s so horrible to think about it. Gerard was only twelve back then, just an innocent child when someone came and enlightened him into the secrets of love and desire and forbade him in the same moment to do any of those wondrous things with the person he loved. I don’t even know if he felt like that towards me then, but judging one of his statements he made, he didn’t. That only came later. How terrifying must it have been for him to grow up and realize that all the bad things he was told to keep back did in fact occur? I remember now how he looked over his shoulder anxiously several times after we actually got this far and let happen what had happened. He must have been totally frightened that someone saw it happen and immediately take us away from each other like Brian promised they would if they ever found out. Now I feel devastatingly sorry for forcing all of this on him. Of course, I had no idea, but knowing what pain it caused him is just dreadful. And while all of this is awful even to think about, it does have a positive side to it. I know now that none of this was ever one-sided on my end. To know that all those tiny, shy glances and secret touches he’d often give me were real and honest, to know that none of it was ever forced or fake or that he felt like he had to be close to me because I told him to do so, is so relieving, that I could cry again. His love for me must be really big if he was ready to give up all of his feelings and secret desires just so I would be okay in the end, or both of us, for that matter. That thought sews a few of the many broken pieces of my heart together again. It surprises me that I don’t feel any sorts of betrayal towards him. I would have thought that I would feel betrayed for the simple fact that he believed all the things Brian told him, but I know my brother. I know him better than anyone else in this world and I know that he felt like he didn’t have a choice. I would risk my life to assume that deep down, he knew that what he was told was wrong. After all, he was the one who told me that everyone should be able to love whoever they wanted to love. I know he strongly believes in equality for everyone and that people who say otherwise were full of crap. When I was maybe five or six, Gerard told me that I could do whatever I wanted to do in life for as long as it would make me happy and didn’t hurt anyone. I mean, how must he have felt when suddenly someone came and told him that everything he ever believed in was wrong? Love, in any way, is one of the few things in life you cannot prevent from happening and I know, just know from the bottom of my heart, that Gerard lives after that. Kids have such fragile minds and they should be protected from getting hurt in every way possible. Brian hurt my brother. And for that, I will hate him until the end of my life. I’m grateful that he saved us and enabled for me and Gerard to be together after we lost everyone else and I’m grateful that he taught us how to survive out here and, yes, we had fun times together that I will surely never forget, but now that I know that there was always that unfamiliar fear creeping in the back of Gerard’s mind, I can’t help the hate and disgust that gathers up inside my stomach. I can’t even begin to understand the guilt he must be feeling after all of this. I won’t take back that he hurt me, because he did plenty, but it wasn’t his fault. How did he even live like this for so many years without going completely crazy? All his feelings, the good ones and the bad ones must have gathered up for so long now and while it’s sad and wrong that they finally came out this way, I’m glad they did because now we can talk about it. Now that I understand. I just hope there will ever be the chance to do so. Now that I experienced everything from realization to grief, anger, and betrayal, more or less, it’s nostalgia that floods my body and soul from head to toe, and it’s absolutely awful. There is simply no other way to explain it. While I was struggling with my thoughts, the day stretched over my head and now that I thought every thought one could possibly think, my headache from yesterday returns and wrecks my head greatly. It looks like it is the middle of the afternoon and my poor stomach whines for food. I also tried to avoid drinking that disgusting water since early this morning, and now I’m paying the price for it because my mind starts to swim. I can’t stay here for a second longer. I need food and water and clean clothes. I need a warm body to curl up against to warm me up before I catch pneumonia. I need to get away from here and apologize to Gerard. With that goal in mind, I stand up on shaky legs to make my way back home, where I belong.

Notes