He opened his eyes and stared. More like he was looking through me, to a place only he knows. Slowly his eyes focused and he saw me. His dark eyes, his hair, his skin…He’s so beautiful it makes me want to weep. He smiles weakly. He looks surprised. Eventually, he sits up. Do I tell him it’s okay, when it’s really not okay? I don’t know what to do or say. When he does finally speak he says he’s sorry. Sorry for what he did or because he failed to kill himself? He says he’s sore from having his stomach pumped.
We fall into long uncomfortable lapses of silence. I listen to the relentless rain on the window, the low hum of talk in the hallways, the buzz of the hospital routine. The light in the hallway is yellow and heavy. This room is not much better. My nerves are stretched to the limit and I finally ask if I can help, if I can do anything for him. He looks at me with such despair that I almost regret my words. His eyes show me how he’s reliving the pain he’s holding. He starts to talk and he’s like a pitcher, tipped on its side, spilling its contents until it stops and just holds the rest.
About his mother and her men, her antics, her absolute disregard for anyone else’s feelings or life. How his father had abandoned the lot of them. He was a no good drunk anyway. Did you know he once grabbed my brother, when Robbie was about 7 years old, and he put him on the stump in the back yard and then he took an ax and almost cut Robbie’s head off? Aunt Gummie stopped him… It all comes out in one big whoosh like he’s waited forever to push this out. I do know the stories but I’ve never heard them from him. He’s been holding the trauma, of all he’s witnessed, like a kid holding a lollipop too long. The stick is worn, bent and almost broken…just like him. What happened to make him turn his back to the wind and let Death dance him to the very edge? He never told me.
He motioned for me to come closer. My legs shake a bit…from being tucked underneath me so long, from nerves at getting close to him. I sit on the edge of his bed and he puts his arms around my waist. I flash back to Phil, in art class. I’m recreating a moment once more…trying to hold someone together by keeping them close in my arms, soothing pain with wordless touch. Again I feel strong, I feel helpless, I feel sick. He pours his pain into me, into my arms, my body, my soul. I’ve become a vessel, of soft perfumed skin, filled with crystalline shimmering of tears, casting shards of broken light across my insides.
We stay that way a long time. Two teenagers, lost, confused hanging on to each other. He clings to me so he can find his way back, so the storm suddenly doesn’t just take him. I hold him so he just doesn’t drift away without warning. The storm rages, knocking him side to side, making him call my name from some distant place. I try to keep the pieces together without losing my own way, ever watching for the light that will bring us safely back to shore…I’d been here before…my mother had been lost in this storm and I had to watch them reel her back in…
Next -> Dancing with Madness
Tags: breakdown, dance, death, stomach pumped