There's bricks sitting on his chest, he's sure of it. His heart is constricted. The tightness cuts his breath short and he feels like he's watching himself from the ceiling. He's watching helplessly as he lies on his bed and loses complete control of his body. This isn't the first time it happens and he knows it won't be the last. He knows that if he quits thinking about it, he'll be able to breathe again. That's always the hard part. It's easy to say that all he needs to do is erase from his memory that she's not okay. He wonders if what he's really supposed to do is pretend she was never really there. How is he going to do that, though? How is he supposed erase birthday parties, lessons, kisses and hugs from his memory? He wishes he could. As his heart threatens to explode, he wishes he could have a case of amnesia, the kind where one's entire mind is erased. But he could never break his father's heart again.
She wasn't okay. In fact, she had not been fine for years. She always told him one day she would be, that it didn't feel as bad as it looked. Stupidly, he believed her. And he sat there and closed his eyes when the needle went in her skin. He watched her throw up thousands and thousands of times. Each time she claimed she was only a little dizzy. His mind told him the opposite, it told him the truth. But of course he convinced himself that his mother would never lie to him. Whenever she said something would hurt a little, it'd hurt a little. Whenever she said it wouldn't hurt at all, he knew it would not hurt at all. God knew mothers were never wrong. She was intuitive. She knew when something was wrong with him even when no one could see it. And he was ashamed that he brushed it off when she said she was fine. Because mothers never lie.
And they are never wrong.
She wound up in the hospital several times. He was used to coming home from school and having his dad rush him to shower and eat; he could do his homework at the hospital. And he did. He wanted to avoid looking at her as much as possible. It freaked him out how nearly transparent she seemed. Her veins so close to her face, painting her a sickly shade of purple. She started losing hair sometime in the process. He was usually very observant, but there were things he preferred to turn a blind eye to, such as these. A few kids threw around the word that described her sickness as something awful, something that only happened to other people. Usually the conversation ended with how the person died. Of course he ignored it, because he'd seen people beat the odds from the years he spent watching his mom go through the whole thing. Yet, somewhere in his skull, a little voice pounded on the walls of his brain, whispering, "Brace yourself."
"She's not getting better."
That's how the talk started. She slept in her bed soundly. The doctors didn't let him climb in with her anymore. Again, the little voice in the back of his head told him his father was right, she was not going to get better, that he had to brace himself.
"Is she going to die?" he asked.
His father pulled him onto his lap and hugged him tight. He kissed his hair and rubbed his back. "I'm afraid so, kiddo."
The world fell apart. How were they going to live without her. He didn't cry. His chest only collapsed onto itself and he wiggled out of his dad's grasp. Honestly, he felt like a knife had been dug into his back. His heart sped up, the world seemed fuzzy. He didn't know it then, but that was his first panic attack.
The next few weeks turned into a giant time bomb. He kept crossing the days off the calendar, he calculated exactly when it would happen, he prayed to God that he was wrong and then sat on his bed for a long time, picking apart his eraser as he stared blankly at the wall. He ran his fingers through his hair. It was long then. Long enough to make him feel guilty he had it.
He wasn't allowed in their bathroom. Well, now it was his father's bathroom. She hadn't been there in weeks, she basically lived in the hospital. And ever since his father confessed to him that she was probably never going to be back there, he tried to remove every plural possessive noun that didn't involve him with "Dad's." He wondered if it'd hurt less when she was really gone if he braced himself this way. The tiny voice in his head said it was highly unlikely, but hey, at least he tried.
He took his dad's shaver, held it close to his hair. He watched his motions in the mirror, feeling that strange out of body feeling he'd never felt before. Like he was watching it all from a distance, a movie on a high definition screen. Really, if he could only reach forward and slap himself out of the daze.
"Stiles!"
He put the shaver back down and bit his lip. So that's why they asked everyone to please silence their cell phones in the theater. It dug you right out of the moment.
He remembers the entire process as if it was yesterday. It's still so vivid in his mind that he convinces himself she's still on her death bed. He knows it isn't true. He's completely aware that she's gone now. He's aware that he should have cried the day that she died instead of all those other times after. He should've just let it all out when he had the chance, and maybe right now he would not be struggling to breathe. That's how life seems to be now: One giant struggle to breathe and survive when she's not here. One giant struggle to take care that no one he cares about go through the same thing. One giant struggle to steer himself away from that type of pain. One giant struggle to not care for anyone but his dad, Scott, Lydia and himself. And even then, he'd die inside if they all left him.
He was present when his mom died. He watched. There wasn't anything special or traumatizing about the event. Her head sank a little into her pillow, her hand went limp in his and dropped. He thought of autumn leaves and how much she loved them. How they fell delicately and beautifully, and how she didn't. Nothing changed in the world after that. He still had to go to school, his dad got appointed sheriff. There was a constant need to move on that he couldn't stand and every night he had nightmares of needles going into her arm. Sometimes he woke up with his chest choking him, waking up to not find the billions and billions of needles that made him sick to his stomach.
And all he could think about was how he had to move on from this. When you're going through hell, keep going. It wasn't getting any better. He went into his father's bathroom again, his breath cut short, and grabbed the shaver again.
When you're going through hell, keep going.
The first strands of hair fell into the sink. Then the second batch, through and through. The voice kept echoing to move on.
Gone. He felt like the spitting image of her, with the same brown eyes he saw her looking at him with each time she lied. That was the first time he cried. He dropped the shaver into the sink and sat on the floor and lost it. His dad heard him and came in. There was a furious tone in his voice when he asked him what he was doing there. Then it softened, and he called him by his stupid nickname his mother had not given him. And hugged him tightly even though he wasn't the person he wanted to feel right now.
And now he sits there, his room looking the exact same it did that night, calming himself down from seeing her in his dreams. These are the times when he knows that he can't go on. These are the times where he just wants to give up. But he can't break his father's heart again. He just can't. Even if he's this hyperactive kid that is obviously only making things harder for him. But he can't leave him alone. He can't picture him coming home to an empty house, or going through his things and asking himself when he should throw them out. But he can't lose him, either. Death doesn't happen to you, it happens to those around you. And if he has to tell a few little lies to keep his father going, if he has to tell a few little lies to protect him, then so be it. Even if Stiles is struggling, struggling to keep himself afloat, to keep himself from taking that final breath and dying because he couldn't do that to him.
He closes his eyes, gathers all his strength to breathe and survives for another day.