Stuck In A Loop
"C… Ch... Che… Che…" Octavio's staggered voice sounded stifled and muffled; like she was hearing him from beneath a blanket of water. Ajay pushed the heavy weight of sleep from her body as she forced her eyes open. She felt something warm drip down onto her face followed by a soft breeze. "Che…" Octavio's voice was weak and still staggered but it wasn't muffled anymore. The crack of lightning nearby lit her room for a few seconds and as it did Ajay took in Octavio's grief stricken face. His eyes were red and swollen. His face glisten from what she assumed were a mix of rain water and tears.
Her heart ached as she listened to his sobs between the pouring rain outside of her open bedroom window. It wasn't a surprise that he was in her room and she was usually happy to see him but on this particular night she was worried. He was usually more playful when he came over and he always made his appearance known as soon as he entered but not this time. This time something was different.
"Silva?" She whispered his name but she was unsure if he had even heard her over his own sobbing and the rain outside. She tried to sit up but the weight of his body kept her pinned against her mattress. She gently reached up towards his face with her left hand but froze in place when he let out a small whimper. It was a weird scene for her to observe. In all of the years that they had been friends she had never once seen Octavio Silva cry. Not once. Not ever. In fact, she had never even seen him sad.
More water dripped from Octavio's face and other parts of his rain soaked clothing. She blinked water out of her eyes. "Navidad…" Octavio paused and took in a sharp breath as though he had been mortally wounded. Ajay waited for him to say more but Octavio said nothing else. His silence was soon drowned out by the rumbling of thunder in the distance. Her heart sank as she thought about Octavio's rabbit Navidad. She didn't bother to ask what had happened because she knew it didn't matter. Octavio didn't need to say anything else for her to know that Navidad gone.
"Silva…" She whispered his name again but this time she was a bit louder and she knew for sure that he could hear her over the rain. No sooner than he heard his name Octavio collapsed, face first, next her and sobbed into her pillow. Ajay pulled the blankets from her body and gently replaced them to cover up both herself and Octavio. She laid there next to him and listened to him cry into her pillow.
She felt awkward just lying there next to him in silence but she didn't know what to say. She knew that nothing she would say could take away any of his pain. She had never really seen him or anyone else close to her cry. Her parents never cried; crying was for the weak. Ajay was weak, at least that was what she had been told by mother repeatedly on a daily basis.
Ajay closed her eyes and swallowed hard to choke back her own empathic tears. She opened her eyes when Octavio pressed his wet, cold body against hers. A chill spread across her body and caused her to shiver but the feeling was quickly replaced by warmth that crept from her toes all the way up to her cheeks. She was relieved that the room was dark because her face was bright red.
Her mind wandered to places that it shouldn't have during this type of situation. Ajay quickly pulled herself back to reality as soon as Octavio rest his head against her chest. Her heart raced and pounded against her chest cavity. She was worried that her heart might exploded if she didn't get her shit together quickly, but it was proving difficult with this boy splayed across her body. She thought for sure that Octavio could hear her pounding heart but if he did, he didn't make it known to her.
Ajay pleaded with her brain to slow the pace of her rapidly beating heart but her attempts were thwarted because her brain seemed to slip back into unwholesome thoughts about her best friend. She really didn't know why she was thinking about him like this and why she was thinking him like this now, especially now when he needed her the most. She wanted to be there for him and she most certainly did not want to ruin their friendship over thoughts of being more than just friends. "Calm down and get yuh shit togetha. Yuh only 13 years old. Yuh have plenty of time and plenty of boys."
Her fingers traced the frame of his face and delicately pulled away hair that was plastered to his cool skin. Ajay played with his jet black, green tipped hair as Octavio's body trembled against hers. She couldn't distinguish if his trembling was related to his body temperature or if it was from his, almost uncontrollable, sobbing.
She mindlessly worried that he might catch a cold and get sick; it was the only thing that she could do to push the embarrassing thoughts of him from her double-crossing brain. She took in a deep breath and inhaled his intoxicating scent; which obviously didn't help her concentrate at all. She then exhaled slowly and coerced her body to relax underneath him; fitting into his body like a perfect little puzzle piece.
When Octavio finally stopped trembling Ajay let out a small sigh of relief. She wasn't equipped for these situations; there was definitely nowhere to place band aids or stitches on emotional wounds. She placed her other hand on his back and rubbed along his damp shirt in a frivolous attempt to comfort him. She wanted to urge him to take off his clothes but she didn't trust herself and she, also, didn't want him to move. He was so warm against her and he felt so… "Che…" Her name escaped his lips and her thoughts began to fade.
"Silva?" She was finally able to say his name without whispering it. She only hoped that she didn't sound too worried. His breath was heavy against her chest as if he was trying to hold back his pain and tears. "Navidad was my stunt partner." Octavio paused before he continued, "I don't have anyone to do stunts with now." Ajay thought carefully about what she wanted to say to him. She knew that he was in pain and he was shielding it by talking about losing his partner to stunts but she knew the truth.
Navidad was more than just a stunt partner. She knew that Navidad was given to Octavio after much begging on Octavio's behalf and much guilt from Octavio's father. Octavio wanted a puppy for Christmas and never got one. Instead, three days after Christmas, Octavio's received a rabbit. Octavio named the rabbit Navidad; Christmas in Spanish, which Octavio explained to her. Ajay knew that Navidad was the only thoughtful gift that Octavio had ever received from his father, even if it wasn't the puppy that Octavio had asked for.
"Me." Her voice was soft, caring, and almost a whisper again. Ajay's single word vibrated against Octavio's ear as he laid against her chest. He cracked a small smile, which he knew that she couldn't see. "Come on chica. You hate that stuff." His voice was weak and didn't sound at all like him; not arrogant or confident. She hated being called chica, but this one time she would let it slide. She cleared her throat before speaking again. "I don' mind dat stuff." She wasn't completely honestly because there part of it that she didn't like but the parts of it that she did like involved him. She liked him. She really liked him.
Octavio rubbed his cheek against her chest as he closed his eyes. "Don't lie." Ajay shook her head, "Don' be stupid. I'm not lyin'." She blurted her anger soaked words out of her mouth before she could stop herself. Octavio let out a small laugh because he thought that she was cute when she was angry. "Okay. Okay Che. Calm down."
Whatever anger that Ajay had been harboring was swept away with Octavio's laughter. She felt a little more at ease that Octavio was at least able to laugh at her. "Do you promise Che?" Ajay nodded before she realized that he probably couldn't see her. "Yah. I promise I will be yuh stunt partner forvea'."
"Che?" Octavio wrapped his arms around her upper body, somehow managing to wedge them underneath her to pull himself firmly into her. Ajay froze for a moment, grabbing a handful of his hair between her fingers and them promptly releasing it once she realized what she was doing. "Silva?" It was silent except for the rain outside of her window. "Silva…" She began to worry that he was crying again. If he was crying again then she be forced to lay there in silence with him on top of her.
"Will you leave with me Che?" Ajay's heart began to race again as her brain jumped to far too many conclusions at once. "Leave wit' yuh? Right now?" She did her best not to squirm underneath him. She couldn't imagine leaving the only home that she knew but she also couldn't imagine living her life without him. She didn't know why he was bringing this up right now. He always seemed to make things difficult.
Octavio listened to Ajay's heart beat rapidly against her chest. A small smile formed upon his lips as the beating played a small tune inside of his head. The fast paced rhythm reminded him of how his heart pounded during an adrenaline rush, he felt amazing whenever it happened. It made him wonder if she felt the same way when adrenaline coursed through her veins. "Che." He said her name breathlessly through a yawn. "I'm not staying here forever. This place is soooo boring. When I leave I want you to come with me."
Ajay grabbed at Octavio's hair as her body grew tense. "Dis be our home Silva. We can't just leave." Ajay had had similar conversations with Octavio throughout the years but it seemed like the subject had become more frequent and more pressing as they grew older. It wasn't her favorite subject to revisit. She hated talking about it.
She couldn't quite figure out why Octavio wanted to leave so badly. He was pretty well off when it came to money and although he didn't see eye-to-eye with his father it wasn't like they hated one another. It made her wonder if he was hiding something from her. She tried to shrug it off but she couldn't because, in turn, she was always hiding some deep-rooted family secret from him. So it was only logical for her to feel that he might be withholding something from her.
After her tedious thought she finally released his hair, "What about our injections Silva? We will die if we don' get dem." Octavio let another yawn escape his tired body. "You live such a charmed life Che. Open your eyes for once." Ajay was stunned and began to grow upset about what he had said to her. Of course they had poked fun at one another over the years but he had never spoken to her like that before.
"Open yuh eyes?" Something about that statement sounded really familiar. She felt dizzy the more she thought about it. She tried to shake the words but a heavy feeling began to weigh her down both mentally and physically. She wanted to open her eyes. She needed to open her eyes but she just couldn't seem lift the veil that covered them. She was ultimately stuck in a proverbial loop that happened to be called her life.
"Silva! Yuh don' know-" Octavio cut her off before she could finish her sentence. "I didn't mean it like that. I just mean that you shouldn't believe everything that our parents tell you. I know that you aren't blind Che, you have seen things. A lot of things." Octavio paused and enjoyed the feeling of her fingers as they stroked his damp, messy hair. "Besides, you can leave this place whenever you want. Home isn't just a place. Home can be whatever you want it to be."
Ajay fought back tears of frustration and thought carefully about what Octavio was saying to her. Ever since she could remember she had been taking monthly trips to Silva Pharmaceuticals for injections, tests, and treatments. Her mother told her that when she was just a baby that Ajay fell ill with an aggressive virus that almost killed her. Surprisingly Octavio had caught it too.
That's how she met Octavio Silva. During her childhood she spent most of her weekends in the lab at Silva Pharmaceuticals. Octavio underwent the same treatment, injections, and testing. Incidentally they were side by side for every treatment, injection, and test; which led to their unwavering friendship. If Ajay had it her way, she would spend every waking minute of every single day with this boy but her mother wouldn't allow it.
She could vividly remember laying on a table in the lab while Octavio lay on a separate table only inches from her. The treatments that was administered to them, more often than not, put their bodies through tremendous strain and physical pain and exhaustion. She was stoic, as she always had been in public, throughout the entire process but some days were far worse than others.
She never let her weakness show but if Octavio hadn't been there with her she knew that she wouldn't have been able to handle any of the lab mess and sickness on her own. On the worst of the worst days the only thing that got her through was having her best friend by her side. As she lay on the table and endured whatever was thrown at her she clasped hands with Octavio and he never let go of her. Not. Once.
Ajay really hadn't thought about the early labs days in a very long time; it felt like such a blur. Gone were the every weekend excursions to Silva Pharmaceuticals. Now she stayed there one weekend a month or sometimes one weekend every other month. Secretly she wished that she could be at the lab every weekend again. Her life had become trading one type of pain for another. She often wondered when all of the pain would end or if it would ever end at all; she was slowly becoming numb and desensitized to everything.
Rifling through past memories did bring up more questions than answers. The virus that infested their bodies was never identified and if it had been, she was never told the name or what type of virus it was. Did Octavio know something about it? She also wondered why she and Octavio were the only ones that caught the virus; that was never explained to her either. She cringed when she thought more about the time she spent in the lab. Both she and Octavio were sedated for days at a time while tests and treatments were supposedly being conducted. "What da fuck happened in dat lab…"
She felt a wave of sickness pour over her body, "Silva?" She couldn't hold her curiosity back any longer. She needed to know what he knew, even if the secrets were ones that could hurt her. "Silva. What do yuh know?" She waited, for what felt like an entity, for him to answer but he didn't say a word. "Silva?" Her voice increased in volume as she spoke but she refrained from yelling. She couldn't risk waking up her parents and getting caught with Octavio in her bed. Even though her father and Octavio's father were best friends, Ajay's mother didn't seem to care for Octavio and Ajay didn't want to give her mother another reason to hate him.
"What do yuh know?" Still he was silent amongst her pleas. Ajay tried to move but her body was forced down by the weight of his body and that is when she realized that Octavio was asleep. She sighed, "Dis boy…" She knew that he was probably exhausted from the emotional pain of losing Navidad. She also knew that she was the one person that could will him to sleep; at least that's what he had admitted to her in the past.
Ajay bit her lower lip and tried to think about what it meant to open her eyes. Her head began to pound as she put more thought into it. She desperately wanted answers to her questions but not at the expense of waking up her emotionally drained best friend. She relaxed against the mattress once more and closed her eyes. She would just have to enjoy the moment and ask her questions in the morning.