My whole body is tingling. Is it supposed to feel like this? The opening up thing? The mind searching thing?
It's not like I haven't rehearsed this speech before. It's always on replay in my head, her face, my regrets. So why now, am I suddenly finding it so difficult to cough it all up?
Lucas nods as if he's granting me permission. Fuck. I haven't even thought about how I'm coming across right now. He probably thinks I'm about to come out as Ted Bundy.
I press my nail underneath the cuticle of my thumb, a small stream of red beginning to fill up the space. Lucas leans himself up, facing me at eye level, picking up my thumb like an injured bird and wiping it with his shirt.
"Let's go outside."
His touch pollutes my head as he sways his arms beneath my shoulders, gently lifting me as if I were his damsel.
He nudges the door open with his elbow, ensuring I don't lose any limbs to his sliding balcony door.
It's dark out. The stars grab each portion of sky they are given, glowing between the clouds. He places me down, laying me carefully on an overly posh deckchair as he settles himself on a shitty wooden stool. I gaze at him, then at the stool he sits on.
It looks as if a child had made it. A very artistically challenged child, mind you. The animals drawn on this stool are nothing short of fucked. It seems like something Helen Keller might paint from the memory of her past life as a taxidermist.
I rotate my shoulder, attempting to fix the ache I had created trying to make myself lighter to hold somehow. As I'm studying the stool, Lucas clears his throat.
"You just gonna keep looking in between my legs then?" He scoffs, a grin disclosing itself from his lips.
Shit. I zoned out. I was so busy looking at Pet Cemetery's bench I hadn't even acknowledged where my eyes had ended up resting.
I remove my stare from the malnourished elephant as I wince my eyes to the left. A leg. To my right? Another. Directly above? Something far, far greater in scale.
"SHIT!" I yelp. "I swear I wasn't looking where you think! It was the trunk!"
He smirks, pinching his chin.
"NO, I MEAN ON THE ELEPHANT! ON THE STOOL!"
He tilts his neck backwards, laughing hysterically before leaning his forearm on his knee, inching himself forward.
"I'm messing with you, Seazon. Sorry, it was uncalled for. Teasing you, especially since I dragged you out into the cold like this. I just…"
The stool creaks slightly as he turns to look at the view.
"When my mum was first diagnosed, we used to sit out here a lot. I made this stool when I was younger. It only ever lived in the cupboard, but I thought — if I brought it out here, it might help her remember some things.
I like to think she saw me as her little boy again. The one that sat on this stool all those years ago. I like to think it comforted her in some way."
He's not looking at me, but I can't stop myself from staring at him. His profile. His eyes as he speaks. There's so much more to him but I just can't fully find it. That was something my sister was always good at. Figuring people out. Finding out their desires, their truths, with a single conversation.
"I saw you were struggling back there and — I don't know, it's just… when my mum couldn't quite figure her words out, when they would get jumbled inside her head, I'd bring her out here and we'd pick a star and name it. We ended up with our whole family as stars eventually. Whichever star was brightest that night would be the person we would talk about."
"Would you like to name a star for your family? The brightest one. Then perhaps tonight, tomorrow, whenever it shines again, we could talk about that person."
I feel my face getting hot, but this time it's not from nerves. I really think I might be about to cry. Do I even know how to anymore?
I lift my hand up, pretending to move my hair so he doesn't see my face the way it is. Separating two fingers, gazing at the stars between them.
There are so many. Some brighter than others. But there's one that I'm especially drawn to. One that looks almost purple in colour. I sniffle, pointing upwards.
"That one."
"That's my little sister."
"My mum had her when I was just 3 years old, so I can't say I remember much from when she was a baby. But I do remember feeling like I wanted to keep her safe from the very beginning. I always wanted to be the perfect brother for her, even when the rest of our family was far from it.
I wish I could say I knew my dad, but I'd be lying. He died right after my sister was born. It was some sort of car accident overseas. He was a veteran in a war at that time. I wish I could say he died in some noble, self-sacrifice, cinematic kind of way, but I can't.
He was just walking. Walking himself across a crossing as some teenagers close by were starting up a stolen car in a hurry, accelerating from 0 to 50 in less than 5 seconds.
Just like that, my dad was gone. And after that day, so was my mum.
We didn't get any of the money that families normally get when their loved one passes, because he didn't die in battle. So we were left in poverty. Any speck of money I made from my part-time jobs got spent on some shitty drink.
My mum downed the wine. I drowned in the streets, eventually making my way into drug deals. Sickening work no 10-year-old should even be aware of.
I dealt the drunk, she downed the wine. I dealt the drugs, she downed the wine. I dealt the drugs, and then she died."
My chest hurts and these words are becoming inaudible. Yet somehow, Lucas's expression still tells me he's hearing everything — even all I'm failing to say.
After that, me and my sister got put into an orphanage. We were beaten every day for simply being remembered.
Each time our existence was acknowledged, we were silenced. Silencing the silent. Shutting up the already silent kids. After a year, I grabbed my sister, packed some half-eaten cereal bars, and left that place for the streets.
I promised her that day. I held her hands, looked at the fear in her eyes and told her: 'I'm going to protect you now.'
I went back to the old jobs. The drug deals. We only made it a few weeks before I got myself into some real shit. One of the men I delivered to claimed his product wasn't legitimate.
I was just a delivery boy. I didn't have any ties to the original supplier. I was used as the face of the drug. A scapegoat in case the deal got found out. A captain to go down with a ship.
I quit the business and we ran. But how far could two kids get on two small legs?
To no surprise, two days later, they caught up to us. I wish I could say they killed me right there and then. I wish I could say I was a noble sacrifice — the one my dad never was. But instead, as they grabbed my sister's legs, yanking her into their grasp as she wailed to be saved, all I could do was get stepped on. All I could do was get beaten. All I could do was let them destroy my leg and take her from me."
Before the car door slammed, before the static took away my sight, I heard the reason they wanted her. I heard the business they were involved with.
I caress the broken skin, the opening of my decades-old wound.
"This isn't a battle scar, Lucas. It's a reminder. It never used to be this bad. It could have healed if I let it. But I kept reopening it. Pulling it apart to remind me. To punish me. Because what happened to my sister was far worse than pain.
Do you know what they said they'd do to her? You can probably guess. My little sister. A young girl without a family who cared enough to save her.
She was just some girl. And that's all they saw her for."
"Just another prostitute."
That's why I do it. Sleep with perv after perv, guy after guy. Suffering internally, bleeding every morning. I deserve to feel everything she felt. Everything she could still be feeling.
Or maybe that's setting myself too high. Maybe it's not some moral expectation I have for myself. Maybe it's not a punishment, but just something that makes me feel closer to her.
Sort of like when you wonder if the person you love is looking at the stars at the same time as you. Except instead, I just wonder if the pain I give myself is taking away some of hers.
My stomach contracts, my throat opening as I clench my lips, biting my tongue, trying to stop the sick from escaping.
"Seazon!" Lucas pulls me up, cupping my face in his hands, then guiding my head to his palms.
"Here," he whispers. "Just be sick in my hands. It's okay."
It's okay.
How I've longed for that to be the case. For so, so long.
I retch, expecting a pile of puke to cluster in his makeshift bowl, but nothing comes out. Just that disgusting sound.
"You've barely eaten, Seazon. Let me make—"
"Let me go."
I snatch his hands, throwing them beside me as my eyes begin to blacken.
"Shit."
"Let this be the last time now."