Just look over your shoulder

Chapter 8 I’m approximately halfway home when my head starts to swim heavily from dizziness and I miss a step, causing me to trip and fall over in a blurry haze. On the long and exhausting walk home from the other side of the island, I stopped counting the painful cuts on my feet put there by the wild nature of this jungle I’m not so much used to. The pain of that, the lack of food and water and sleep must be what caused my brain to almost shut down. I know I didn’t pass out, but I feel like it was a really close thing. I know that I’m still all the way there when I feel the sudden and agonizing pain that shoots through my right foot and ankle, causing me to cry out in pain. When I pull myself together and try to focus on what happened, I see that I jammed my foot in between a split root of a tree that emerges from the ground, it seems like. I must have bent my foot too far and I pray that the bone-shattering pain isn’t the sign that it’s broken. Wouldn’t that just be my luck on top of everything else? It must be, though. Because with every poor attempt at getting my foot out of there, the pain increases to a point where I’m about to lose my mind, so eventually, after a good half hour of trying and crying out in pain with every weak pull, I give up and slump back against the trunk of the tree that caused me to break my foot. My entire face burns from the dirt that has been accumulating there since I left home and mingled with tears that left my eyes for too long now, and from the several cuts inflicted from falling over and crashing into several random bushes and branches in the good hour and a half I’ve been walking now. It’s hard to focus and watch where you’re going when your brain is constantly clouded with dizziness and a black fog. None of this would have happened if I just drank enough water from the pond or, well, if I wouldn’t have run away in the first place. Another hour and the evening is making itself noticeable in the sky, and that’s when I get really scared. There’s no way for me to move in that state which means I have to spend the night here, in the middle of nowhere, without any sorts of shelter and in so much pain that I threw up twice already. Nothing but stomach acid came out which is just another proof of how long I’ve gone without anything to eat now. That can’t be a good sign. I feel so inhuman in my own body; every inch of my skin hurts, my foot is still painfully twisted between that damned root and started to swell and turn blue and purple, I long for a bath because I’m covered in dirt and grime from head to toe and I’m so incredibly weak that I can’t think straight anymore. This is not going to be the end for me, is it? Wouldn’t that be just funny? Two kids survived a shipwreck, magically found an island in the middle of the ocean and made themselves at home there for over half a decade. Then one of them dies because they got mad and run away, tripped over and broke their foot and will now find the end of their days lonely and alone in the depths of a jungle and will probably get killed by wild animals. The worst of it all is, that I never got a chance to apologize to Gerard. I might be overdramatic here, but I can’t help it. Thinking about him lets fresh tears well up in my eyes and I don’t even bother to brush them away. It’s not like it matters anymore. Another two hours later, and I’m sure that’s it. The pain increased to a point where I zoned out a couple of times now and I feel like my body is drying out from the inside which is one of the worst feelings I’ve ever experienced and hopefully never, ever will again if I come out of here living. As the twilight breaks in and dives everything around me in sinister darkness, something catches my eyes. I engage my eyes and brain to focus one last time and after a moment of weird haze, I find a little, yellow monkey sitting by my broken foot, happily chewing on something and looking up at me through big, black eyes. My first thought is that I imagined him. We don’t have these kinds of monkey on this island. Or do we and I’ve just never seen one? Maybe they only live on the far end where we never bother to go? That must be it. When he makes a shrill sound and runs to a bush a few feet away from me, that is when I’m sure that I didn’t make him up. My eyes follow him to the little bush where he made himself at home and that’s when I recognize what he’s eating so happily: Mint! How come I didn’t see that until now? “Hey..would you mind passing me some of these?” I haven’t spoken for too long now and since my mouth is all dry, it’s hard to form words. The yellow monkey turns his head and looks at me while chewing wildly on the leave in his tiny fingers. Of course, he doesn’t make a move to actually give me a handful of leaves, but it almost doesn’t matter, because now that I know that there’s something to eat, even if it’s just a gap filler, it is something and I feel new motivation bubbling up inside of me. Very, very slowly, I reach out and weakly rip some of the leaves from their branch. The monkey watches me intently the entire time and doesn’t make a move to run away. When I slump back against the tree and I put some of the leaves in my mouth, I could nearly cry from joy. The minty flavor revives my brain cells and the tiny dew drops, that gathered in the grooves of the leaves, slightly help to re-saliva my mouth. It does nothing to still my hunger, but it gives me a fillip to stay awake and to keep fighting against the darkness that makes itself home inside my head for a little while longer. The monkey makes another high-pitched sound and jumps on the trunk of the tree I’m leaning against. “You’re leaving already?” I ask in a husky voice and when I tilt my head to look up, I see him hanging there upside down on the trunk, watching me with those dark eyes. A smile creeps onto my face and the pain seems forgotten for a precious moment when he crawls down and starts to mess up my hair. At first, I’m startled as to what he’s doing, but when I feel his tiny fingers carding through my hair, I relax and let him do whatever he’s doing since it doesn’t hurt. After a while, he stops and crawls down my head and shoulder and sits down on my forearm that I can barely hold up because I’m weak, but for him, it’s worth using all the strength I have left inside of me. His claws hurt a little bit on my sensitive skin, but I’ve felt worse pain. “Aren’t you beautiful,” I say in a quiet voice so I won’t startle him. And he really is. It’s almost dark by now, but I can still make out his tiny, almost human-like hands and fingers that grab my arm tightly, his dark nose and even darker dots of eyes. His fur is grey and yellow and his tail is long and flexible. “What are you doing here all by yourself?” I ask him and watch as he flexes his head from side to side nimbly. “I got into a fight with my brother and run away from home, you know? We hurt each other pretty badly, but I miss him a lot.” I don’t know why I keep talking at this point, it’s not like he understands a single word, but it distracts me and that’s enough for me to keep going. “If I told you a secret, would you keep it?” He sits up straight and starts poking at his slightly round belly and I can’t help but stifle a small laugh. After watching him for a moment, I eventually sigh and say, almost in a whisper so no one will be able to hear the secret slipping from my lips, “I think that’s how nature wanted us to be all along, you know? Together. Me and my brother, I mean.” My own words bring a sad smile on my face and remind me how badly I want and need to be with him. The monkey stops poking at its belly and looks back at me, curling his tail around my arm. “Do you have a name? Would it be okay if I called you Peppermint?” he did, after all, save my life in a way. Or at least extend it for a little while longer and in my opinion, that deserves a cool name. He makes another sound and jumps from my arm and that’s when I notice that he’s only got three feet. The left one on his backside is only a stump where his little leg ends. It doesn’t seem to bother him at all though, because he runs around happily and ably. “Well, for one so small you are pretty strong, huh?” I say and watch in awe as he jumps on another tree across from me. Then he shrieks again, startled from a sound that makes me jump as well, and before I can stop him, he disappears into the high crones of the trees above my head and into the darkness. I follow the direction he left to with my eyes for a few more seconds until I hear the sound again that startled us in the first place. It’s Gerard. It must be him, because who else would be walking around with an old lantern in his hand and my white dress in the dark of the night? And have I mentioned yet how much I love that dress on him? I know that I didn’t make him up either, because he calls my name from the top of his lungs and every single emotion I experienced from the second he started to reject me a week ago comes up and overwhelms me, causing the exhaustion the monkey eliminated for a moment to come back, stronger now than ever. If he didn’t notice me by now, he certainly has now because my sobs are loud and uncontrollable. I don’t find the strength to call out his name. It doesn’t matter though, because the light of the lantern stops to move from left to right in the dark, and then it comes closer and closer until he’s there and falls to his knees in front of me. I’m unable to move and it seems he’s going through the same moment of shock as me when he sees me in the dim light of the lantern. He looks equally wrecked as me, with dirt clinging to his clothes and skin, hair a mess, red around his nose and eyes from salty tears and the look of insomnia and exhaustion in his gaze. His hands shoot up to his face and clasp over his mouth, and new tears fall heavily from his eyes in pain and shock and guilt. “What did I do to you…” he starts to sob out, but I ignore it and clumsily throw my arms around his neck, screaming out in pain when another shot of hot pain fires through my ankle from the sudden movement. “Oh Mikey, I’m so-“ “Take me home, I want to go home now, Gee,” I try to gasp out, but it’s nearly drowned by the pain that takes over my voice. Another very unpleasant move and I have to let go from Gerard to grasp at my foot with gritted teeth and eyebrows drawn together in pain. It seems he only now realizes why I’m sitting in such a weird position on the ground and his eyes go wide when he sees my swollen ankle in between the tree root. He looks up at me quickly with a frightened expression on his face and asks, “For how long have you been here like this?” I want to answer, but my mouth won’t seem to function and all I can do in the end is to shake my head purposeless. Then my head suddenly feels like it weighs a ton and it falls to my side while a tiny sound of debilitation escapes my mouth. “No okay, don’t move Mikes, I’ll figure something out, yeah? Don’t go to sleep,” he sounds worried and panicked, just like I feel. There’s no sound for a long moment and I wonder if I passed out again because when I open my eyes next, he breaks the root apart with two thin but massive sticks. I watch him as he works but can’t help to contribute. Every few seconds he would look up and make sure that I’m still awake. “There was a monkey,” I say breathless, not really realizing that my mouth moves. He stops in his tracks and looks up at me funny. “What?” “He was yellow...stroked my hair,” and then my eyes fall shut again. “Damn it!” he curses and heaves a heavy breath and then I hear a loud cracking sound that must come from the root. I feel the pressure on my foot subsiding but another kind of pain shoots through my ankle as he lifts my leg. I whine out another moan of agony and he says, “I know, I know Mikes I’m sorry,” and then I feel him by my side again, wrapping one of his strong arms under my armpits and the other under my thighs. “Sweetie, can you wrap your arms around my neck? Can you do that for me? You can sleep soon, I promise.” His voice is sweet and familiar and loving, causing my belly to burn. I nod and weakly lift my arms to let them slump around his neck like he ordered me to do. He takes in a loud breath and everything around me starts to swim again when he stands up, holding the lantern in the hand he has under my thighs. My head immediately falls to the side and crashes against his collarbone and as much as I try to tighten my muscles so I’m not so heavy for him, it’s not working. My legs dangle together in the air from the way they are hanging from his arms and with each step he takes, they crash together, causing me to groan in pain. He shushes me well-meaningly and apologizes whenever he needs a small break, but at some point, I only zone in and out, not perceiving what’s happening anymore. That is until he says something that catches my interest in the haze of darkness. “Look ahead, can you see them?” he asks and when I lumberingly open my eyes, I see tiny dots of light in the dark of the night. “Lucioles,” I whisper out the only French word we both know and he nods with a small smile on his face that I can barely make out but God, I missed that smile. When we finally reach the beach after what feels like an eternity, we’re both so strained that we’re close to passing out on the spot. I can’t believe he carried me all the long way without saying a word. I mean, I know I’m not that heavy, but I’m large and unhandy. He looks so tired when he carefully lays me down on our bed, but instead of going to sleep, he gets up and comes back a minute later with a wet cloth and a cup of water. He puts me into a half-sitting position and makes me drink the entire cup before refilling it and making me drink that one as well. It hurts to swallow and my stomach protests at first, but it gets easier after the first couple of gulps. Then he carefully removes the dirty blouse over my head (that is everything but light blue at this point) and lays me back down again. When I shiver, he feels my forehead and brings all our blankets but doesn’t put them on me just yet. Instead, he swipes the wet cloth carefully over my chest, my arms, my hands and eventually my face. He stops then, with his palm on my cheek on the spot where he hit me and the bruise probably still blooms angrily. It must be because new tears float his eyes and he looks down at me sadly. He tries so hard not to let the tears fall that his chin starts to quiver. “Your beautiful face…” he chokes out in a whisper, but I’m not ready to hear long preachings about how he’s sorry and wishes he could take it back. I do want to hear it, but just not right now. I weakly lift my hand to cup his own cheek and copy his sad smile and when one of his tears falls down and lands on my shoulder, I feel his thumb stroke over my eyebrow. He squeezes his eyes shut tightly for a moment and I let my hand fall back on my side and when he opens his eyes again, he continues to swipe over my face carefully and hisses to himself every time he accidentally catches a cut on either my face or later on my feet. “Can you sing?” I ask, barely able to keep my eyes open at that point. I barely heard his voice in the last week and when I have, it was either angry or loud or scared. I long for it to sound normal and carefree again. “Okay,” he says without questioning and carefully starts to inspect my broken foot. “Any wishes?” “The Wolf Song,” I say through gritted teeth and try not to cry out again when he carefully turns my foot this way and that. It’s a German song about a hungry wolf that wants to steal the mother’s child. Our grandma used to sing it to us when we were over for the weekend and later, she taught us the words in that foreign language. She knew German because she liked to travel and got stuck in that country for a few years in her youth. Whenever I hear it now, it reminds me of her, and Gerard and I as kids cuddled together in her big bed that smelled like her cologne. When Gerard starts to sing, a little shy and croaky at first but then sure and strong, my heart aches in both grief and joy. Wild heult der Wolf des Nachts im Wald, vor Hunger kann er nicht schlafen. Und seine Höhl´ ist bitterkalt, er giert nach fetten Schafen. Du Wolf, Du Wolf, komm nicht hierher. Mein Kind bekommst Du nie mehr... There are many more verses in this song, but I’m only able to hear the first one before finally passing out to his voice and the feeling of warm blankets being dragged over me and a warm hand brushing over my forehead. * When I wake up, the sun stands high in the sky already and a big variety of fruits, fish, and drinks stands next to the mattress on the floor. I’m disappointed to find that Gerard isn’t sleeping next to me, but maybe that was a bit too much to be expected. It doesn’t surprise me now that I had no trouble letting him close to me last night, when only a few hours before, I wasn’t so sure. The worries were blown away the second I saw him and I’m glad it came that way. I guess that’s how I saw it coming, or hoped so, at least. I depend on him and I don’t want to feel like that towards him, not ever. When I try to sit up without moving too much, my ankle makes itself noticeable and when I lift the covers, I find it resting on a bunch of bundled up clothes and wrapped in a thick bandage of leftover cotton that we stored in one of the boxes in our dressing room. My toes poke out and I notice something yellow lurking out from under the bandage when I take a closer look. “That’s arnica. Mother always used it when we had bruises. I went out to get it last night...” I didn’t notice Gerard standing in the doorway and when I look up, I see that he nervously twists his hands together. He looks awfully tired and I wonder if he got any sleep at all last night. “Thank you,” I say dumbly and look down on my foot again. There’s an awkward silence where neither of us knows what to say, so instead of saying something, I gesture for him to sit down and eat with me, which he does after a moment of uncertainty. Despite how very little I ate in the last few days, I can’t seem to get more than a few bites of grilled fish and two cups of tea down. It is a start though and my blood sugar seems to thank me greatly. Gerard only eats little himself in tiny, unsure bites and whenever our eyes meet for a quick second, he would look away immediately and fumble nervously at his button up. After another awkward 15 minutes of pretending the other isn’t in the room, I finally can’t take it anymore. “You hurt me.” When I say it, Gerard’s head snaps up and he looks at me with big and guilty eyes. He’s about to say something, but now it’s my time to speak. I shake my head and he closes his mouth again. “You hurt me,” I repeat, quietly and calm. “And I’m not even talking about my face, that scared me. But everything you said hurt me and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forget any of it. But...”, I say, but stop when I see that he starts crying and I know I’m crying too. I force myself to keep going with a shaky voice and start to get desperate when I say, “But I forgive you. I forgive you if you promise me here and now to never do that to me again, and if you ever break that promise, I will-“ But then he shakes his head violently and throws his arms around my neck, his head crushing against mine but I seriously don’t care about pain at this point anymore. So instead of complaining, I curl my arms around his back and press my face into his neck and we’re both sobbing into each other’s skin. “I promise you, Mikey, I swear I’ll never hurt you again! I’m so sorry- I. I’ll never forgive myself for any of this and I know you deserve so much better than me-“ “Shut up! Shut up, you idiot! Don’t ever say that!” Then there are no more words for a long while and the only sound in the quiet room are our heavy breaths and our mixed snuffles and tiny whines. After a moment, he sags against my shoulder and then I realize that he probably stayed up all night to make sure I was alright and didn’t die in my sleep or something. And he says I deserve better than him... “When was the last time you slept?” I ask and card my fingers through his hair, which seems to relax him a bit. “When you-“ he starts but doesn’t finish the sentence, and he doesn’t have to. He didn’t sleep since I ran away, just like me. “Come on,” I say quietly and pull him in a lying position with his head still on my shoulder. He doesn’t protest when I pull the many blankets he brought last night over our shoulders, and when I turn in on him a little more, he’s already passed out from exhaustion. I follow not much later. - The next time I wake up, it’s already getting dark again which means we slept almost the entire day. This time, Gerard is curled up low against my side and I’m painfully relieved. My head is still throbbing as well as my ankle, but I don’t feel dizzy anymore and I’m rested for the first time in days. Carefully, so I won’t wake him, I get up into a sitting position with Gerard’s head in my lap. Then I reach over to where the food is and stuff my mouth with Gerard’s home-made specialty: Banana mango pancakes. While I’m eating, I watch Gerard sleep. I normally don’t do that, mostly because I don’t like being watched while sleeping myself, but this time I can’t help it. He looks small and fragile. His head is positioned on both of my upper thighs, facing my feet, and one of his hands rests lightly on my left thigh next to his eyes and nose. His hair is messy and unkempt, probably also unwashed for several days just like my own. His face is scrunched up, almost as if in pain. His knees are curled up next to my own knees and his ankles are crossed, his toes curled. He must have thrown the blankets away in his sleep, probably because it’s so warm in here. He’s still wearing the button-up and also the brown leather loincloth I didn’t notice this morning. The birthmark high on his cheek looks redder than usual, maybe because he’s so pale or maybe because the lighting in here is bad. Despite all the dirt sticking to his hair and body and clothes, and despite the unrelaxed look on his face, he looks absolutely gorgeous in my eyes. He’ll be my own personal doom eventually. He’s a beautiful disaster. “You’re still here,” is what he says when he wakes up and turns his head, looking up at me with sleepy eyes. When I nod and curl a strand out of his eyes, his mouth curls into a slight smile and one of his arms wraps around my belly. Now he’s lying in the opposite direction as before with his face facing my belly and his knees bend somewhere up his body. When he nuzzles his nose deeper against my belly, that is only covered with the thin blanket I wrapped around myself earlier, I have to suppress a cackle. “Are you sniffing me?” “Mmm, maybe. You always smell so nice.” I snort at his words. “How can I possible smell nice right now?!” I can smell my own body, which is something I’m now very self-conscious about, now that he put it out. I know I smell unwashed and probably like leftovers of undefinable grime he didn’t catch with the cloth yesterday. “Dunno, you just do,” he says, but it comes out muffled against the cotton of the blanket. “What do I smell like, then?” I want to know. “Like..sweat. A little raw maybe, but also..you know how really warm sand smells like? Like that, too. And soft.” “You like that I smell like sweat?” There’s a moment of silence and I might feel a grin on his face, but I can’t know for sure with his face hidden like that. Then he makes a snarling sound and says, “Yes,” and nothing more. The self-consciousness I might have felt a minute ago is now gone and replaced with amusement. Gerard is ridiculous. “You’re a weirdo,” I state and now it’s his turn to snort. There’s a moment of comfortable silence and he might even have gone back to sleep, but there’s something I need to know, something that has been nagging on my mind for too long now and I need answers and most of all, a proper clarification. “Gee? Tell me about Brian.” - Crying while speaking is not the best combination. Less than half an hour into the story and Gerard is a weeping mess in my lap and every single one of my assumptions got confirmed. And there is more. “It was maybe only 30 days after we got here,” he began. “I was twelve at the time and you were just about to turn ten. At first, I didn’t understand what he was trying to tell me. Most of the things didn’t make sense to me. I mean, I was only a child..” That was the first time I heard a soft sniffle coming from him and I stroked his hair to let him know I was there. “He said that at some point, my instincts would kick in and I’d be all over you in a matter of time because you were the only person there with me besides him, and he knew how close we were. I didn’t understand what he meant with ‘instincts’, and when I asked him, he laughed grotesque at me and said that I’ll figure it out sooner or later, so I left it at that.” “The next time he took me on a walk was only a few days later. This time, he was really nice, not like the last time, and sat down with me to explain puberty to me, what would happen with the body and all that gist. It made me feel excited and anxious at the same time because he spoke of it as something very terrifying and big and I wasn’t sure if I was ready for that to happen to me in less than a year…and…well, the next time was also the last time, he died the next day.” At that, my gut wrenched. I didn’t like remembering that day and Gerard didn’t either. It was just another black day in our lives. And his next sentence made me want to throw up. “He asked me if I knew what abusing was,” he said, very quietly and anxious and I reached down to tangle our hands together, which made him relax a little. “I told him that I had a fair idea because one of mother’s friends was an abuse victim and I heard family members talking and I remembered a few things. I didn’t understand why that was important to him, but then he said ‘Pal, if you ever get too close to your brother, then that’s abusing.’ That also didn’t make sense to me because we were close all the time and no one ever said anything, but then he told me that this was about other things…sex things.” I heard him heave a heavy, painful sigh and then continued, his hand getting sweaty in mine. “I asked him if it was wrong if I wanted to kiss you at some point or even go further than that, I mean, I didn’t even understand what sex or masturbation or serious kissing meant at that point. I only had a few pictures in my head from what he told me the first few times. Anyways… when I asked him, he looked at me, so engrossed and disgusted, that it scared me for a moment. It was just natural to me that these things could happen, you know? Well, after that, he told me that these things were called ‘incest’ and that they were wrong and forbidden and people who did it deserved to die in a fire.” As he said that, my body went numb and my heart stopped beating for a long moment. And this is where he is in the story now. As I said, only half an hour, maybe even less, in, and every terrible thought got confirmed. Brian really did tell him these things and it’s even worse than I thought. “You don’t have to keep going...I understand it,” I say sadly now and with tears of my own in my eyes. I don’t want him to re-live all these horrifying things and I feel bad for forcing this on him. But he shakes his head and sniffles, “No, it’s okay. I’m sick of keeping secrets from you.” So, with another heavy sigh, I let him continue. “I told him that no one deserved to die, except maybe the worst murderer or war leader, but he said that this was on the same level as murdering someone. I told him that I would never abuse you or do anything against your will, but I could feel that he didn’t believe a word of what I was saying. I really meant it, though. I would never do anything without your permission. ..Or did I ever-?” But I stop him before he gets any further. This is getting ridiculous. He looks up at me now though, for the first time since he started talking, and I can see the deep worry in his eyes so I try to relax my face as much as possible, not letting my anger show. “Oh, Gee…no. Never, okay? You never forced me to do anything. Not once, okay? Don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise.” His expression softens a bit by my words and he leans his head down again, but in the other direction so his face is turned towards my knees. “He asked me if I could imagine doing these things with you, but I couldn’t give him a proper answer, just because I sincerely didn’t know. It never crossed my mind until that point. It was all foreign to me, you know?” I agree with him because I do know. I didn’t understand any of this until a week ago and it still confuses me. And I’m fourteen and a half now, he was only twelve. How can someone expect a kid to know what any of this means or what they might be wanting to do or desire in the future? “Apparently my silence was the wrong answer because then he started to shout at me. Didn’t you hear it?” he asks and turns his head a little to look at me from the corner of his eyes. “I guess I didn’t.” I don’t have any memories of this and he looks relieved when I say it. “Good, because it was very ugly. He grabbed around my wrist and shook me a little and told me, well, screamed at me that if he ever had to see any of this while he was still here or if anyone ever came back and found out, they would separate us forever, throw us into prison, if we were lucky, or killed us right on the spot if we weren’t. That scared me so much that I believed him. I mean, what was I supposed to do, Mikey? I couldn’t live with myself if someone-“ “Shh, Gee, it’s okay, you can stop now. I’m not mad at you for believing what he said, I would have acted the same way to protect you, you know that it’s okay.” “But you said-“ “That was because I didn’t know. How could I? You never said anything and I was mad and thought that was you talking. I know better now, okay? I knew it the moment I turned my back on you.” Well, that isn’t entirely true. I mean, I knew that he was probably just mad and threw these things against my head in anger a few days ago when things got out of hand, but after calming down and really thinking about it, I got it. I tell him that much and he seems to accept it. “’Prevent from getting attracted to your brother in any way. That way, you do humanity a great favor.’ That was the last thing he said before going back. After that, he acted like nothing happened, as if we had a happy talk about the weather or God knows what. The next day he was gone. If it was because of me or not...that I’ll never know.” After that, he goes completely silent and the only way I know he’s still with me are the hot tears that leak through the blanket on my skin. I don’t know what to do or say to make any of this okay or better. All I know is that I need him closer, put him under a blanket and protect him from the world and anyone who could hurt him in any way. I’m so done with the human race at that moment. “Will you hug me?” I ask him carefully, and before I even finished the sentence, he has his arms around me and his face in my neck. “I never meant to bring you down,” he sniffles against me after he’d seen how upset I am myself after all of this. I quickly shushed him and stroke over his back in a way that is hopefully comforting and reassuring. “Don’t worry about me right now, okay? But please do me a favor and don’t force this on you. Even if it was because of what you talked about the day before, what I don’t believe, it was his decision to go and if it was like that, it was a really selfish decision. We could have died the day after without him and our death would have been on him. This is not your fault, Gerard. And no one will ever have to find out, because we won’t go with them if someone ever shows up. We’re here, okay? Just us. Just you and me.” He doesn’t respond to that in words, but I can almost feel how he gets lighter like a burden is taken off of him. It’s so horrible to think that he had to live with that on his chest all these years. No wonder he’d gone mad. He sobs again bitterly then, cries all of his pain and hurt and betrayal and fear and relieve into my neck and I let him, glad that he can finally let it out and make himself free from all of this. It hurts so much to see and hear him like that and yes, I’m sure. For that, I will hate Brian until I leave this world someday, hopefully far in the future. How could he even dare to do this to him! It’s horrendous. “It’s okay,” I whisper into his hair, trying to soothe him. After another few minutes, he seems to calm down and I’m so relieved that I feel light myself. I couldn’t stand seeing him like that for much longer, I’m sure. In a slow and careful move, I lift his head from my shoulder and brush a light but sure kiss against his lips. It’s barely even a touch, just a tiny lingering and he tastes like salt and sadness. When I pull back, he looks at me with new fear in his eyes and I brush the tears under his eyes away lightly with my thumbs. “It’s okay,” I say again, sincerely meaning it. “Promise?” he says, sounding so fragile and scared that it breaks my heart. “I promise.” He nods and takes a deep breath, finally looking slightly okay for the first time in days. “What happened after that?” I ask unsure, going back to the conversation one last time and hoping that the worst is over. He surprises me when he blushes and says, suddenly very shy, “You grew beautiful.” That, in return, makes me blush too and I look down to hide it. “I’m not beautiful,” I mumble, but his hands pull my head back up and I see that he’s shaking his head. “You have no idea..” he mutters and runs a hand through my hair and leans our foreheads together before sighing out, “You grew beautiful and everything I was told to believe was simply gone.” After heaving another sigh, he turns around and leans his back against my chest, asking me approximately a thousand times if that was okay or if it hurt to sit like that, but after I slapped him playfully on the shoulder, he accepted it and made himself even more comfortable. This position is actually quite nice and I carefully wrap my legs around his waist, making sure that my broken foot doesn’t move too much and lays in a good position. It kind of does hurt, but I keep that to myself and I’m glad that he can’t see my face from this position, because If he saw that I just caused myself pain, he’d pull away and I don’t want that. It will stop hurting if I keep it still. Whatever. When I also wrap my arms around him and pull him closer so I can rest my head against the side of his neck, he makes a content noise and continues talking. “I don’t even remember the exact day it happened, all I know is that I was already outside, I let you sleep in I think, and when I saw you the next time, you were just coming down the stairs with a huge smile on your face, for some reason. You wore your favorite dress, you know? The yellow one? Your legs looked so long and your skin was slightly tanned. You were braiding your hair back while walking because it had gotten a little too long, and you were looking at me and it just hit me. It was almost like I had never seen you before, not properly. You grew so handsome overnight that I didn’t know what to do with myself. Before you were my annoying, cute little brother, but that was something entirely different and it scared me to death.” Wow that’s… that’s a lot of information and I’m yet again glad he’s facing away from me because now I’m blushing for real. I always knew he found me cute and probably nice to look at or whatever, he did give me compliments every now and then, but that is almost shocking. Shockingly amazing and relieving. That as well wasn’t just one-sided, then. “Gee..” I mumble sheepishly into his shoulder with a tiny smile, not knowing what else to say. Should I say Thank You? I hear him giggle quietly and then he says, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to embarrass you, but it’s the truth and I meant it when I said no more secrets.” In response, I fumble around until I find his hands and entwine his fingers with mine. “Keep going,” I say, sticking my nose in the spot behind his ear. “Well, before I came to the realization that I was falling in love with my little nerd brother, I had to go through puberty, and we both know how much power that drains from you. Everything is awkward, your body does strange and, in some cases, embarrassing things, you don’t understand what’s going on anymore and all of a sudden, you realize that you become interested in, well, sexual things.” It’s almost like he’s explaining my life-story here. I’ve gone through every single phase of what he just listed down myself and I know how exhausting any of that can be at the end of the day. “I told you before how scared and ashamed I was the first time I woke up with an erection and how long it took me to figure out how to go through my day to day life with it happening randomly around you. And it wasn’t even about you for the first two to three years. That only came when you were 13, maybe even close to 14 already. That’s when it became a serious issue because you were growing up as well and I was scared that you’d understand the reasoning behind it all. So I separated myself as much as I possibly could and…we both know how that ended.” Of course, I know. The sudden shut-down of him sleeping in the same bed every night, the strange morning in the cave and the many mornings after, when I woke up alone in our bed. “Well, that was when I got worried for the first time. I realized that I wanted to kiss you and touch you and do and say all these things Brian warned me about. All of that became real suddenly and I simply didn’t know what to do.” His voice turns sad again after that, and I can only imagine the pain and resistance it must have caused him. I’m so sorry that he had to face all of this alone. I gently kiss his shoulder and let him continue. “When you started to reciprocate some of my touches in moments when I was weak and dumb, that’s when I became really, really terrified. You grew up pretty fast and became clever and I could tell that there was a huge conflict going on inside your head and I so badly wanted to tell you everything I knew, but I just couldn’t, and so I had to wait for you to figure it out yourself, which was not how I wanted things to go, not ever.” He must be referring to the day when I woke up startled and confused and he enlightened me into puberty and attraction and whatnot. I shift around a little and say, “I had a feeling that you wanted to touch me, but I thought you didn’t do it in order to protect me, which I now get, but again, if you’d have just said something, I could have acted differently, you know? Also, you’re not dumb, you twit.” He snorts a laugh and says, “Yeah well, I told you I didn’t know what to do...and you’re a twit yourself.” He lifts one of our entwined hands up to his mouth and presses a kiss to the ball of my thumb before continuing. “The week after, when I acted so repellent, that was because I felt like I reached a point where there was no turning back. It scared me how my body reacted when I saw you in this state, I mean, I didn’t even plan to kiss you or, in the end, touch you like that, it was like my body did it on its own and now that we had crossed this line, I was so sure something would happen. I kept hearing Brian’s voice in my head; I almost imagined him standing in front of me again and shouting at me, reminding me that this was it, people would come and tear us apart now that finally both of us knew what we needed and wanted.” After that, there’s a long pause. He just admitted to me that he does want me and knows that I feel the same way towards him. That’s just...that’s huge and should be a perfect moment between us, but someone took that privilege from us a long time ago, decided for us to feel regret for how we feel. What kind of world is that? “You know all of that is nonsense though, right?” I say and sigh at the same moment he does. “Some of it is, I even knew that when I was a kid, but in some ways he was-“ “If you say he was right I will punch you!” “No but think about it, we have the privilege to live here, all on our own with no one to judge for how we feel. But I don’t think he lied when he said that it’s a forbidden thing. Think about all the other poor souls who are in the same position and don’t have the freedom to experience it. I think the rest of the world is still so backward that it is a crime by the law, and that’s just sad.” That actually sounds about right and I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s the case. If the world can’t even accept people of the same gender loving each other, how will there ever be a chance of acceptance for siblings to fall in love with each other? “The important thing here is that it has to be a thing on both ends, but that should go without saying, you know? If it’s a one-sided thing and the other person would force you to do things, just like you said earlier, then that’s a crime, no doubt. But that goes for everyone and not just people who are in the same position as we are.” After I say that, Gerard turns his head a little in position so he can look at me and when I meet his eyes, there’s understanding and trust in them. “You clever man, Mikeyway,” he says and I immediately argue back. “You don’t need to be clever to know that, Gee. C’mon.” I feel kind of annoyed after that, but when he is unabashed by my childish outburst and just smiles at me, my anger subsides. “I think we’re somehow different in their eyes when really, we’re not. I mean, there’s a huge difference between simply being sexually attracted to someone or really feeling love towards one another,” he says as he turned his head back again. I’m getting angry at this once again. I just can’t comprehend how some people apparently think. “People have their own stupid, restricted minds and when something happens that they don’t immediately have an explanation for, they take the right to make decisions for everyone without the consideration of affected people.” There’s another pause after I say that and my anger is just about to explode again when Gerard says the one thing that explains everything. “I guess in order to understand something like that and accept it and make it okay for yourself, you have to see it happening with your own eyes once in your life to see that these things exist and work if you do it right.” “And you say I am clever..” I grin into his hair and for the first time ever, I feel the real and true love between us. The love that was always there and only turned into different shapes over the years and probably will change another few times in the future, but it will always be there. “Hmm.. those who might laugh at us or condemn us have no idea how it feels to have a world of your own inside your head, you know? But we know, and that’s enough.” “So what does that mean for us now?” I finally ask, both excited and anxious about his answer. This still could turn out the wrong way if we’re not careful. But then he turns around and unexpectedly kisses me on the lips, soft and sweet and gentle and this time, there’s no hint of tears or sadness on his lips. When he pulls back, he smiles lovingly at me and says, “It means we can stop pretending now.”

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