Rusty Needle

She's touching me, she's touching me in all the wrong ways.

There's not a single hand touching my body, no feet grazing my own, no forehead pressed against my own. I'm not next to anyone, the closest thing to my skin being the blanket above me and the mattress beneath me.

Still, she's touching me.

She's penetrating me, so deep inside me that I'm unable to fall asleep, unable to keep still. 'Cause she's not touching me physically. She doesn't even know she's doing it.

Her hunched body with a hand pressed into her forehead is printed in the ceiling, is printed in my eyelids when I try to block it out, it won't leave, it won't leave me alone. She's in front of me, she's pressed away from me, she's behind the bars of the stairs, half-hidden but never more exposed.

The sheets have been kicked away from me, then draped over me again, then rolled around me, then me rolled around it.

I can't sleep but I can't wake.

All that is happening to me is moments intruding my mind, passing before me wherever I look, shades and objects performing plays of what once was, bad and good mixed up in ways it shouldn't, memories blending together, dreams pushing inside reality, it won't stop, I can't stop.

"You obviously don't have any problems talking about her when she's not present!"

"Sp-.."

"You know what mom, just forget it."

Eyes and movements, sentences voiced in different settings, hands grazing when words of resentment are present.

So quiet that I barely notice that her hand is no longer on my thigh, but never so quiet that I don't notice the hand slipping into my own, emitting a warmth that will probably never leave me.

--

She roughly releases her grip on me, and the lips almost touching my ear have been removed as far away from me as possible, as Spencer walks backwards toward the door.

"Your little joke on me a week ago doesn't seem so clever anymore, does it? Just don't think you'll ever get away with doing something like that again, okey?"

I can't play it chronologically, because nothing about her is in order, nothing about us are in order. She's sinking deeper and deeper into me, ruffling up my memories, overstepping old ones, using up space, space I never wanted her to have. Space that was always hers to take.

"I don't understand you."

And we don't, we don't understand each other, and we won't, we'll never understand the other. And it hurts, because all I want to is to understand. And what I want even more than to understand, is to feel her look upon me like I look at her, I'd throw away all understanding if she would look at me like I do, if she would smile at me like I've always wanted to smile at her, if she would tell me things I've only ever told her in my dreams. But then maybe I would understand her, maybe then I would be able to read her, see her, touch her like she touches me, because she would channel me, she would be like me.

And that's never going to happen.

It's never going to happen.

Those words repeated in my head over and over and over doesn't stop the sheets from crumbling in my hands, doesn't stop the ache of tears to come, doesn't stop the restlessness that's punishing my body, that's punishing its reactions with tiring it out, with tiring me out.

And when the door opens, I'm sure I see her, I'm sure the silhouette belongs to her even when the hair is short, even when the body is masculine, because I want it so much, I want it too much to be her. And when I mumble her name I know it's the wrong one, I know she's not there, she's nowhere near me. And when hands touch my forehead, I know it's not hers, I know they're nowhere near hers but I try to pretend, I try so hard to pretend because there's nothing more I want than for her hands to be on me. For any part of her to touch me.

It leaves, this person in the room leaves but the light from the hallway still punishes my eyes, punishes them for getting used to the darkness, the artificial darkness because we all know real darkness doesn't exist, it doesn't exist because mankind has taken it away from us, taken it away. I want to scream at someone to lock it, to lock the brightness out, but my voice has left me, it's left me alone to rot in these sheets, to rot in this tearstained pillow.

And when the brightness disappears, when it finally goes away for just a brief moment in time, it's only to be made worse when the persons blocking it produces more light, produces more pain.

"She's obviously having a fever."

And it's female, the voice is female, it's light and feminine and harsh and devoid of the melodies I'd want to press into my ear because it doesn't belong to her, nothing belongs to her when it's next to me. Because she's never next to me.

And it's getting hotter, it's getting way hotter in the room and it's not because of her, it's not because of her presence, it's got nothing to do with her presence because it's not welcomed, any heat from her would be welcomed but it's not her heat, it's not my heat for her, it's a different kind of heat, an unwelcomed heat that I'm sure I've felt before, that I'm sure I've witnessed before. Because the voices are loud in my ear, and I'm starting to make them out, I'm starting to wake up from this nightmare of reality, I'm starting to clear up because of the noise, because of someone calling my name.

"Ashley, Ash are you listening? You're having some kinda fever-nightmare, Ash please wake up."

And I reach out, and I clutch because even if it isn't her, it's still someone I love, it's still someone I want and cherish, it's still someone that should be there, because it's him. It's my brother, it's my rock, and I've never needed my rock more than right now.

And when he strokes my forehead I want to push him away but even more, I want to push him closer, so I only clutch, I don't push at all, I only hold, hold his arm, his hard and hairy arm and it's a comfort, it's a comfort in this fever that's taking over me, in this nightmare that won't leave me, that won't stop me from getting to sleep, that won't stop me from sleeping the pain away.

"I'm gonna go down and find something antipyretic, okey? Will you stay with her, Glen?"

And it doesn't get worse but it doesn't get better either, and the memories are getting fainter and I should be happy, but I'm not, I don't want the memories to fade, all I wished was for them to fade but now when it's happening, all I want is for them to come back.

"Don't go..."

"Shh, Ash, I won't go, I'll stay with you."

And even if it wasn't addressed to him directly, it was addressed to him subconsciously, because I never wanted him to go, I never wanted him to leave at all, I didn't want my brother to leave and become someone else, I didn't want it to change, I never wanted him to think of me as more, and then change.

"Glen, I think I'm gonna die."

And the fever won't go away, and I know I'm not dying, I know I'm not even close to because I've felt this before, I've felt this in early childhood and early teens, and I'm feeling it again, it's familiar but never welcomed.

"Here, give her this."

And he's feeding me something, something dry on my tongue, something I don't know if I'll be able to swallow but I'm desperate, desperate for it to stop this fever so I swallow, I swallow without water and I cough, because it's attached to my throat, it doesn't want to go down, and it's making me cry more, and clutch more, and I'm desperate for the water in front of me.

And it takes a while, it takes a while for it to work, the pill to work, and it feels like forever when it's nowhere near forever, and when it finally kicks in, when it's finally letting my sweaty body relax, I'm drowsy, so drowsy but never so much as to letting him go, letting my brother go.

--

"Glen?"

"Yeah, Ash."

"I'm sorry."

I'm still not feeling top notch, I'm still feeling the effects of a fever in my head, it's pounding and pressing and extracting my brain but I'm better. I'm so much better.

"What for, Ash?"

"For-... Everything, really."

He didn't leave my side, I know he never left my side because I'm still holding onto him, my hand is still clutching his shirt like it did last night. He's not sleeping too close to me, pieces of his body hanging outside of the bed, and I wonder if it's because he's afraid. If he's afraid that I'll think he's coming on to me.

He never answers me, only sighs briefly while continuing to look at the ceiling. I've been watching him since I woke up, trying to read him like I did before and he's still letting me see. And it relieves me that he hasn't fully pushed me away. That I can still be a part of him, that he's still letting me be just that.

A part of him.

"Can we just go back?"

"Go back to what, Ash?"

He knows what I'm talking about, but I think he needs to hear it, I think he needs confirmation that I'm not the only one missing it, missing the closeness and banter and sibling love we had for each other.

"Go back to what we were. I've missed you."

I've never been blunt. Always been analyzing, always been self-conscious, insecure. But having survived a fever, and still feeling its effects is making me more honest, making me not care too much about how things are said. Because I have missed him, and even when I thought there was an ocean between us, he was still there for me, he was still there when I needed him.

Unlike someone else.

"You said her name, Ash."

And I can't look at him. Because even though I don't remember, even though I have no idea what I've said, I know who he's talking about. It's in his tone, in his voice, in his words.

There are lots of sentences I could've said, lost of maneuvers to try and act like nothing, but I don't. I don't try to do something I know I should, because I'm too tired to come up with anything. I'm too tired to come up with a reason.

He sighs again when I don't answer, but he doesn't leave, he doesn't trump out the door in anger, in repulsion.

"I wish-... I wish it was different, I wish this-...this void between us never happened but-... I mean, I see things. I see things I don't wanna see, and-..."

He looks to the side, the opposite of the one I'm on, and although I know his eyes hits the window, he's not looking out of it, because his thoughts are locking inside this room. I know what he's talking about, but I still hope with everything within me that he's talking about something else. Anything else.

"Just-..Ash-.. I just-...can't approve, I can't. It's not right."

And his words hurts so bad, so bad that whatever caused me to not lie earlier has completely disappeared and I'm back to pretending, back to pretending that what pulsate within me doesn't exist at all. Even if we both know it does.

"What are you talking about?"

It's not obviously hostile, just a subtle hint of annoyance in the back of my voice because I don't want him to believe I'm asking him to elaborate. I want anything but for him to elaborate.

Because I couldn't handle actually hearing it. Hearing his revelation, his disapproval.

His discovery.