Authors: Annmarie McQueen
“Always wondered what you did during the nights,” he muttered to himself as he passed into the room. It was dark and smelt musty, the only light coming from a table lamp. Hayden was lying sprawled on the bed,
iPod
in and holding a book above him. Sean stole a closer glance at the book cover, and if he were
still human would have face-palmed
. “Really?
That’s
what you read when I’m n
ot around? Soft porn
?”
He sighed, absently filtering through his brother’s shelf. Most of it was filled with psychology journals, astrology charts, works of famous literature. “Pretentious git,” Sean murmured under his breath. “These are probably all just for show, why else would you secretly read that trashy stuff at night?”
Hayden didn’t answer, but Sean didn’t expect him to.
With a groan, he threw himself onto the floor and sighed up at the ceiling. What was he supposed to do at night? He needed something to keep him
self
occupied so that he couldn’t stew in his depressing thoughts and plan revenge that at this rate would never happen.
He noticed
there was a photo tacked
on
to
the ceiling. It was of him and Hayden, both very young, playi
ng at the seaside. He frowned;
he couldn’t remember that ever happening. It must have been before his amnesia.
Sean could never remember exactly when he had lost his memories, but it was sometime around three or four years ago. The amnesia had made a permanent blot on his life that he couldn’t undo, no matter how much he had begged the psychiatrists to help him or how much he tried to remember on his own. The psychiatrists had never been very helpful and had just av
erted their eyes and mumbled
that it was impossible, that the amnesia was permanent and he’d just have to suck it up.
He hated it, really. Maybe it wa
s why he was so cynical
. Even now
,
he still felt like he didn’t know who he was, had never known, because it was true that memories did partly define a person. Hayden and mother had tried to fill in the gaps, giving him limited and unsatisfying information. You were always a hap
py child, his mother would say
. We loved you very much. We still love you. But those were just words, and he didn’t believe them. You had a pretty boring life, Hayden would shrug when Sean turned to h
im for answers instead. Nothing
out of the ordinary. We were all ordinary. We still are.
Sometimes they
told him
stories about the past
, but they were vague and didn’t help him a lot. Accor
ding to them he’d had a perfectly happy life before
. Surely that couldn’t be wholly true though.
No one was that ordinary and perfect.
What if everything they said was a lie? What if he wasn’t really related to
his
mother and Hayden? If he had been so damn unbelievably happy before, then why didn’t he have a father? They told
him
that he did hav
e a father once, but that he’d left them. He’d
asked why, countless times, determined to find out, but every time they both went cold and refused to answer. It doesn’t matter anymore, they’d say. What you don’t know can’t hurt you.
But it did. Everything he didn’t know made dents in his chest until he felt like he was just a piece of paper that someone had used to test out
a hole-puncher on
.
Flimsy, fragile, he hated the feeling. He’d felt like that almost constantly after
he was first
released from the hospital. Alone. He
didn’t know anyone, had no choice but to
believe them if they claimed that he’d known them before.
He had moved to a new school, to start all over again.
A
short while later he had met Ali
. She
made it slightly better, the dents
in his chest
that is
, because
she was part of his new life so there was no reason to doubt her.
He never thought he would feel that
alone again. But lying here
beside his brother, like this, invisible and unable to be heard, came pretty damn close.
“You’re just as much of a jerk as he is, you know,” Sean mumbled quietly, th
e insult directed at Hayden
. “You’ve hid
den
half of my life from me. Then when I’m in trouble and I need your help, you don’t
do anything
. You just leave me alone like this, and go on thinking that nothing’s wrong.” He knew the accusations weren’t exactly fair, but the silence was stifling. He’d rather listen to his own voice than bear it any longer. “
You know,
the first memory I have of you
is waking up in a hospital bed and seeing you in the chair next to me with frazzled hair and tired eyes. I was actually scared of you to start with. I didn’t know where I was, who you were, or even who I was. I couldn’t remember my own bloody name. Funny thought, isn’t it? I could have been called Henry for all I know.
I guess I trusted you the most because you were the first person I woke up to. Mum came a while after and I do trust her too…but, maybe that’s why I’ve never been that close to her. I can’t remember what she was like, if she was nice or strict, if she made me go to bed at seven every night or not. I can’t remember
you either. I can’t remember
if we got along or not before, Hayden, or if we hated each other’s guts. I don’t think we did though. Sure, you are a jerk and so am I, but you’re pretty reliable most of the time. Well, except this time.”
He
waited
.
Nothing.
Then
he
let out a sigh, tilted his head to the side. Still nothing.
By the time Sean wandered
back to his own room, he figured
it was probably nearly morning
. Drew’s form lay prone in the bed, but when Sean look
ed more closely he noticed
small trembles and heaves through the cover. Drew’s face was knitted into a deep frown, and quiet gasps that sounded suspiciously l
ike whimpers came every now and then
. It was a
pitiful
sight. Sean couldn’t help but wonder about the nightmare, and to his horror felt a little bit of sympathy for the boy. He scowled – why should he feel sorry for him? He was the enemy, the destroyer. Still, at that moment he looked nothing like a destroyer. He looked small and frightened and innocent. Sean wanted to laugh at the irony. There was nothing innocent about him. Turning his head resolutely away from the quivering body, he sat down on the other side of the room and even though he knew that sleep in his state was unattainable, tried to doze off and waited impatiently for the sun to rise.
A particularly loud gasp dragged Sean out of his thoughts an hour later,
signalling
that Drew was awake. The ex-I
mprint sat bolt upright in the bed, eyes wide and breathing ragged. There was no recognition in his eyes. Sean walked to the side of the bed curiously.
“Sean?” Drew questioned hesitantly.
“What do you want?” he bit back in his usual scathing tone, pushing away any sympathy he felt.
Recognition slowly flooded back into the dark eyes, and with them relief. “Oh, it’s you,” he said.
“Yeah, it’s me.”
“What time is it?” Drew asked, his body visibly relaxing.
“I
don’t know
. Maybe seven thirty.
It’s still dark outside.”
“Perfect.” Sean kept silent, choosing to glare instead. Drew rolled his eyes. “Good morning to you too, you seem as cheery as always.”
“Hm.”
Drew, with a wince, forced his legs over the side of the bed and stood up, flicking on a light. “Urgh, this hurts. Pain certainly isn’t one of the perks of being human.” Sean continued to stay quiet as the other drew back the curtains to reveal a still-starlit sky and glowing streetlamps, seeming blissfully
un
aware of the death glares he was receiving. “Do you honestly think I’m intimidated by someone who can’t even touch me?” he asked with an exasperated sigh.
“You prick.”
“Now that’s a lovely sentiment to wake up to after my first proper sleep in four years.” When Sean didn’t a
nswer, Drew continued airily: “t
his isn’t going to get you anywhere, you know. It’s really pathetic.”
“You’re calling
me
pathetic?” Sean sneered. “After I’ve just had to sit here for the past hour listening to you whimper like a puppy in your sleep?” Drew froze suddenly, face carefully concealed from view. Sean grinned, glad to have elicited a response. “What was the nightmare about, anyway? Or are you really just that
weak
?”
“You’d be better off not knowing,” Drew muttered, finally turning back around to face him. His face was set into a stony mask. Sean was momentarily taken aback, but refused to show his surprise.
“Why not?”
But Drew never answered him. Before he knew it the cocky smirk
was firmly back in place
and he was gathering clothes up from the dresser. “Anyway I’ve got stuff to do today, that doesn’t include standing around entertaining you, so I’m going to go take a shower,” he announced.
“S-shower?” Sean was slightly mortified by this thought, all previous suspicions quickly forgotten. “You’re going to shower, like,
naked
?”
“Of course not, I always shower in my boxers,” Drew replied sarcastically.
“But-
”
“We’re both guys here, you know. I’ll assume so anyway. So what’s the problem?”
You’re going to take my dignity and trample all over it, that’s the problem, Sean wanted to say. It was both humiliating and
degrading, but then again so was having everyone think he didn’t wash
. He’d have to push the embarrassment aside. “Fine,” he muttered in defeat. “Just don’t you dare do anything else.”
“Well,” Drew
winked suggestively
. “If you’re so worried about it, you could always come and observe.”
Sean didn’t try to hide his disgust. “Perverted bastard,” he mumbled, just loud enough for Drew to hear, as he turned around to face the window. He heard another amused laugh behind him, and then the bathroom door click
ed
shut.
Sean
let his shoulders slump when
the sound of rushing water soon reached his ears.
He couldn’t get physically tired anymore, but he could feel mentally tired. Like he did right now. It was really the same tiredness that had been weighing him down for days, like an anchor, to this horrible reality. Did it have to be Drew, of all people? Did it really have to be someone so unbelievably aggravating and insufferable?
He hadn’t noticed, but it was slowly beginning to lighten a bit outside. The streetlamps still c
ast orange glows on the pavements,
and the window reflected the rest of the room back at him. He tried in vain to catch his reflection in the glass. He should have known though, things that weren’t solid didn’t have reflections. Things that didn’t exist didn’t have reflections either.
Sean was feeling that urge again to try and shatter the glass, to feel his hand connect with it and send silvery cobwebbed cracks through the window. He didn’t bother trying
, knowing it was a waste of time
and he’d have plenty more of these episodes before long anyway, but it was strange how he missed the most unlikely things about being alive.
His thoughts drifted, almost inevitably, to Drew again. Once he got past the initial anger, he co
uldn’t help but feel confused. Surely
there was more to the boy than what he saw on the surface, didn’t the nightmare prove that?
There had to be, he tried to convince himself. He couldn’t just be the idiotic, cocky jerk he appeared to be. There had to be another reason for what he did, some higher motive that would make everything worth it. He was curious about the nightmare, maybe even a little sympathetic, but he wouldn’t acknowledge that second emotion. He shouldn’t care. He didn’t. Why would he? He couldn’t have nightmares anymore. They went by the name reality instead now.
The water finally shut off. He hadn’t noticed, but twenty minutes had already passed. He’d have to get used to entertaining himself with mental arguments like this from now on. And learn patience as well. He
would have
way too much time to himself but he couldn’t complain, not when before he’d always wanted to be alone.
The door
opened
and Drew walked out
towelling
his
hair in a set of fresh clothes.
“Nice shower,” he said.
“
You were in there long enough.”