So today is someday in some month but that information is nothing but insignificant. So here I am sitting in our room in my unmade bed that most likely will not be made until the wee hours of tomorrow afternoon because I hate making my bed and I am just beyond giving a fuck so it will stay unmade and I will sleep on a scratchy mattress pad thing and bitch and moan about it all day tomorrow...and all has been one of those days, not like I haven't been having on of those days for the past a few months, but still today for some reason just aches a little more than yesterdays did. I am trying not to do anything stupid, I am trying to stay clean, I am trying to not cry, to not feel lost and useless, but that is something I am having the hardest time not doing.
I looked around me today and so many people have found themselves, who they are, what they stand for. Their dreams are in order soon to become a reality, they know the way they want to look and they way they want to drink their drinks, then you have me.I know nothing... absolutely nothing. I have no idea how I want to drink my coffee, black or two sugars, hold it by the handle or hold it by cupping the top chancing dropping it onto my lap. I have no idea how I want to read a book, sitting at a desk or sitting in a overstuffed chair? I have always dressed the same way, The same as my brother, we have always dressed the same. I have always done what Connor has done. Connor has always been the one that has everything figured out. He is the one that made his (our) dreams come true and he is the one that everyone always looks to for the answers and me? Well I just follow Connor at his side, well nowadays it has been more behind him... at least that's what he told me tonight.
I was sitting on my bed just drawing absentmindedly in my journal, which Connor bought me for our 12th birthday, he said I looked like I need a place to draw ... besides the back of last weeks homework. He found it last night in some box that Ma sent him. There were only a few little drawings in there, and a few notes of things I needed to remember, and now I am just using it for maybe its intended purpose. I was staring out the window when I heard something whip past my ear and hit the wall behind me but I didn't look around to see what it was, I knew what it was. Connor, throwing his socks at me.
"What the fuck Murph?" He screamed. I still didn't look around. What I did was just sit there. It was like Connor wasn't even there. You have seen those movies where the slow motion kicks in and some moving music starts to play and you can see some person in the background screaming at the top of their lungs sometimes throwing stuff and then, usually the main character is walking away and all the talking is muted but you know they are screaming at someone to come back to them … well it was like that happened in my brain, but I couldn't fast forward to the next scene.
Connor had me by the arms now, shaking me, pushing me, talking but I don't know what he was saying. His voice was still muted in my head, replaced my moving and swelling music that was so beautiful it almost brought tears to my eyes. Maybe it did because then Connor's hands were cupping my face so gentle that I know it brought tears to my eyes and a ache in my heart. Finally I could feel the slow motion slowly slink off my body and the music was beginning to fade and I could hear Connor. His forehead was on mine and his hands still cupping my face, something wet was dripping down my nose and the world was back at normal speed.
"I love you Murph." Was the first thing I heard, whispered through the lump in Connor's throat. "I wish I knew how to fix this Murph." One of my hands found it way to the nape of Connor's neck, playing softly with the longer strands there as my other hand came up to cup Connor's face wiping at the tears on his cheeks. "This is nothing you can fix, brother. This one is for me to fix." and he was so relieved that I moved, spoke, he almost straddled my lap trying to get as close to me as he could, to touch as much of me as he could. But the relief was short lived with my words. "This is one we fix together Murphy. You are not going to fix this alone, you are not going to go at this alone Murph. I love you, I am not leaving you." He held my hand to his cheek tighter, and ever so slightly he turned his head to kiss my wrist, the bandage wrapped around it, the blood soaking through it, staining his lips just a little.
"I'm scared Murph." he whispered as he put his head on my shoulder, his hands dropping to my neck smoothing the hair at my neck. "What if next time …" he couldn't even finish and I felt him swallow at the lump in his throat. "Next time …. Next time I won't" I whispered back, but it was not true and he knew it. He knows just as well as I do this was not something I just could not do. This is something I have been doing since I was twelve for the past fifteen years, it was something I could not simply just stop doing. This time was just a little too deep and a little too much in the suicidal way. A little too straight and a little too precise. I was just a little too numb and that is something that does scare me, I have never been this numb before.
Connor knows this is not true, the "there not being a next time" but he still breathes a little easier now and his body begins to slump against mine, a little more relaxed. I reached down and pulled at the hem of his shirt then undressed we each other in silence as soon as my boots hit the floor Connor was straddling my lap again, clinging to me his back tensed again and the tears springing back to my eyes, just as quick I laid back with Connor still in my arms, on top of my chest stretched over me, covering every inch of me with his body. And we fell asleep. His tears drying in the hollow of my collar bone and mine drying down his neck.