Today, like always, I'll force myself to smile and act happy.
The room was empty.
It was a small townhouse out in the countryside, but it felt like the edge of the universe. There was plain wooden furniture and sparse decorations. A lone window faced the sunset as it streaked the sky with that suffocating orange color I'd recently began to hate.
I sat down on the bed, my hands hanging limply at my sides. I felt empty, too. I felt like there was a hole inside me. I'd felt this way for the past two years. I felt the same way this morning when I woke up. It's always there inside me, a nagging and irritable pain that refuses to go away. I know what is causing this pain.
I'm lonely.
I've been lonely for the past six years, actually, not just the two.
The loneliness intensified two years ago. That was when I left America to go to Europe as a foreign exchange student. It was something I'd wanted for a long time.
But my brother was in the hospital, and I wasn't sure that I wanted to leave him alone for a year or two. He had been diagnosed with a rare form of cancer when we were kids. He later had to be taken to the hospital. Six years ago, it got so bad that he was hospitalized. I visited him every single day I could (there are days when visitors aren't allowed, like holidays) and talked to him until some nurse told me that visitor hours were ending and I needed to go home, but could come back tomorrow. He was alive, but he never opened his eyes. He wasn't in a coma, but was really weak from all the treatments he'd gone under. Once in a while he'd open his eyes, and it looked like he knew who I was. He never spoke. At least, not to me. I'd gotten reports by the doctors that he muttered my name at odd hours, particularly while he was being treated in some way, like chemo. He never spoke when I was around, and I soon started to forget the sound of his voice.
I still have trouble remembering what his voice sounds like.
I shrug out of my jacket, a battered old brown thing that I'd gotten upon arriving in Europe. It had endured almost everything possible but was still in one piece. It was especially nice to have when trudging through the French countryside in the pouring rain.
I finished my studies a year ago.
My father, who had run out on me and my brother and our mom when I was little, showed up and offered to take me with him when he traveled Europe. I don't like my father, but I agreed to it anyway. So for the past year, I've been walking across most of Europe. Occasionally, we'll get on a train or take a bus, but that isn't often considering the economy. On top of that, we're using my dad's savings alone to travel. Money doesn't last forever, sadly. It'd be really convenient, but life doesn't work that way.
Life hardly ever works the way you want it to.
I didn't want to leave.
I didn't want my brother to be hospitalized. It was necessary, but I didn't want it. His life depended on it, but I still didn't want it.
I didn't want to be so far away from him.
I could've been in the same room, but it's not the same. I couldn't be sure that he was understanding me as I spoke to him. I… couldn't be sure he'd ever wake up again. He'd looked so pale, so skinny… so lifeless. I hated it, hated seeing him so defenseless like that. Still, I forced myself every single day to go to that hospital and sit with him, hoping that he'd wake up and see me.
I love my brother.
But… this kind of love isn't readily accepted in society.
"Empty streets
I follow every breath into the night
The wind so cold
The sun is frozen
The world has lost its light"
He was so close to me, but he might as well have been oceans apart. And for all I knew, he was.
I grabbed the beaten up old cell phone I've had since I was fourteen. I'm eighteen now. I dropped it in a river about a month ago. My dad says it's totally fried, but we can't get me a new one just yet. Randomly, it'll play one of the songs I'd downloaded onto it years ago. Today, I laugh at the irony of the chosen song.
"I carry your picture deep in me
Back to you over 1000 seas
Back to us
Don't you lose your trust and your belief
Just trust me"
I do have a picture. It's old and more tape than paper now, but I have it. I took it the day he was released. It was a crummy shot. The camera was tilted and too close so parts of our faces are cut off.
But it's there. That's got to count for something.
I haven't seen him in years. It's been two years since I last saw him. Six years since we actually spent time together. Five months since we talked… three weeks since I answered his last email. I ought to answer it, since he's more than likely sent me one.
I reach into my bag and pull out my as-equally-battered-as-everything-else-I-have-with-me laptop. There's a large crack in the screen from where my dad accidentally stepped on it. Several of the keys are missing so I have to push the actual button and remember what letter I'm typing. I can't right-click anymore, either.
In short, everything I have is either broken or breaking. I need new things.
But I can't have them, because my father insists on traveling across Europe on foot. Things get broken when traveling, especially as rough as we do. Money is also an issue. Any money we have left is used for travel expenses like food. My father is charming enough to convince people to let us stay with them for a night or two. He's also a bit of a jack-of-all-trades so that comes in handy occasionally.
More than anything, though, I want to be back home.
"I know somewhere
We'll find a little place for you and me
It all turned out a different way
Can't feel the pulse in our veins
So weak today
We'll let our heart beat guide us though the dark
Just trust me"
The battery is close to dead, so I search my bag for the cord so I can plug it in. I already checked and the room does have an electrical outlet. Some places we stayed previously didn't have outlets. That annoyed me. In America, there's almost always an electrical outlet nearby, even in parking lots. I guess that's for those weird electric cars, though. Not that it mattered, I still used it to charge my phone before it became a piece of crap.
"Hey, call your brother and tell him we're going to move here permanently and that he should come live with us," my dad barges in and tosses his cell phone (which is in perfect condition) at me.
The whirlwind that is my father breezes out, leaving me holding his phone stupidly. Almost blindly, I dial the number for my brother's cell phone and sent him a text. Five minutes later, there's no response. He usually replies to a text within thirty seconds. He must not recognize the number. I decide to call; he always answers calls.
After a little bit, he picks up.
I take a deep breath. I hope my voice doesn't give out suddenly.
"…Al?" I ask timidly. It's been so long since we last spoke; my stomach feels like it's being stuffed in a blender. "Are… you there?"
"Y-yeah…" he replies after a short pause.
It's like someone reached inside me and pulled out all my bones. I now know what it feels like to be a jellyfish. I can't stop the tears as they run from my eyes. I don't want to.
"Dad… uh, well… you see… it's like this…" I stumble over the words like I've just learned to talk. I can't seem to get them out. My joy is choking me. "We're arranging things to move here permanently."
Another short pause. "Oh…"
"Did you tell him yet?" my dad asks, poking his head into the room. I try not to grimace and roll my eyes. It doesn't work very well.
"I'm getting to it, geez!" I snap. I think I know where I get my impatience now.
"Is everything alright?" he asks. He's always so polite... he's the good one. I'm the trouble maker.
"Come with us," I blurt. There, I said it. That wasn't so bad, right? It doesn't explain why I still feel absurdly nervous.
There's a longer pause. I wonder if he's thinking or if he just left. I know he's not in the best condition… last I heard he was still underweight. And there's the six years of school he has to make up… I curse the thing that created cancer. The silence drags on and on interminably. If there's anything I know, it's that he loves me too. Maybe not the way I love him, but there is a certain amount of affection.
"We have to go 1000 oceans wide
1000 dark years when time has died
1000 stars are passing by
We have to go 1000 oceans wide
1000 times against an endless tide
We'll be free to live our life"
"Please, Al. I…" I pause. Someone could overhear. I don't like being sentimental in front of other people. Only my brother is permitted to see me like that. I run through the townhouse, slamming doors behind me and clutching the phone to me like it's my heart about to fall out of my chest. "I need you here with me, Al. I love you, so please come."
I've said it. There's no going back now. Once spoken, you cannot take the words back. That is one curse out of many that plagues us humans.
Another is not being able to control who you fall in love with.
I can't stand it any longer. "Al? Are you there?" I know I sound worried, but I can't seem to help myself.
"When do I leave? I'll need time to pack…" he replied.
I start laughing. He laughs too, a sound I enjoy hearing very much after six years of silence.
"We have to go 1000 oceans wide
1000 dark years when time has died
1000 stars are passing by
We have to go 1000 oceans wide
1000 times against an endless tide
We'll be free to live our life"
This is how it should be. No hospitals, no sick people… just us. I don't care if it's wrong. I don't think it's wrong… I'm happy, right? That's all that should matter. It doesn't matter who or what you love, as long as you're happy. It shouldn't matter. I just wish the world would see things the way I do… no evil, no wrongs… maybe some complications, but nothing wrong. But the world doesn't work that way, so I'll have to pretend again.
"We have to go 1000 oceans wide Please don't drift away from me
One 1000 dark years when time has died
1000 stars are passing by
We have to go 1000 oceans wide
1000 times against an endless tide
Then we'll be free
Please don't drift away from me
1000 Oceans wide"
My brother is the most important person to me. He is the one I love the most.