Half of Nothing, Chapter 2: Beds and Longing

CHAPTER TWO:
Beds and Longing

“Time for bed, Leon,” my mother spoke quietly, giving me a look. I used to argue about bedtime because I was too old for it, but now I didn’t mind. I used to be afraid to sleep because I had nightmares--Kyran used to be there to stop them but he clearly wasn’t now. Now I ached for the nightmares because it had become about my brother, my twin, and I desperately longed to see his face again, not just in a picture. God knew I had plenty of them around my room. At first I had denied his death--I hadn’t put any pictures up or looked at them. I had been angry. Mom had told me it was a stage in the grieving process.

So now I climbed the stairs quietly. My brother and I used to race up them. I was alone now and it was just too quiet. There should have been the sounds of laughter, the sounds of our feet moving in unison. It was wrong that it was silent except for the sound of myself moving up the stairs. It shouldn’t have been like this. It was so wrong.

I sat on my bed without turning the light on. I didn’t wish to look at the other bed in the room. Mom and Dad had wanted to take it out or at least clean the sheets but I wouldn’t let them. The bed still wasn’t made from that last night. It was just as he had left them and it was going to stay like that. The pillow still smelled like him--faintly. Soon the scent would disappear and I would lose a little more of him, his existence less there and I would be more alone.

The thought made a sob well in my chest. My mind still couldn’t wrap around the fact that he was gone, that he wasn’t coming back. This was the worst kind of gone there could have possibly been. To think, I had been angry about him wanting to suddenly move three states away for college--this was far worse. This was complete gone. I couldn’t feel him anymore, the place in my heart where I used to feel him now dark and cold, heavy with sorrow and confusion. What was I supposed to do without him now?

We were twins! We were supposed to always be together. We’d had seventeen years together but I wasn’t ready. I wanted so much more, and I would never be ready for this. But it was already too late. He was gone and there was nothing I could do.

I’d tried to save him--I had. I could still feel his slick blood on my hands. I still had the shirt I was wearing that day, and all the bloodstains that went with it. Mom had wanted to throw it out immediately but I refused. Some part of me was attached to it. That was my brother’s blood--Kyran’s. I couldn’t just throw it out. It was still a part of him.

Maybe it was wrong for me to keep the shirt, and not allow anyone to disturb his bed, but that was just how I felt. I couldn’t help it. Maybe I was going crazy--maybe that would be a relief because then I wouldn’t feel the loss like this.

Mrs. Shire had planted the idea into my parents’ minds that maybe I was becoming suicidal. It was probably the comment about the plane and parachute that had done it, but that simply wasn’t what I meant. I meant I would gladly face any fear out there because it wasn’t worse than this. It had taken me seeing my brother dying to realize my greatest fear--losing him. And it had come to pass and now I was alone. So very alone.

I didn’t know what to do. Kyran had always been there, a reassuring hum in the back of my mind, his presence there for me no matter what so I was never truly alone. Now I was alone in a crowd of people--and I actually knew what that meant. It didn’t matter who was there, be it Mom, Dad, Mrs. Shire, friends…they weren’t him. They weren’t my brother and he was the only person I wanted to see.

Pictures weren’t doing it for me.

Home videos were few--we had some but not many, and not since a few years ago. They simply didn’t cut it. They weren’t like his voice now.

And I couldn’t even look in the mirror and see him. Fraternal twins didn’t look the same and we had long ago noticed the differences between us. My eyes weren’t even his--they had always been darker but since that day, it was so much worse. They might as well have been coal black for all the good they did.

His image was fading in my mind. Was that supposed to be happening so soon? Was I forgetting him?

No! I didn’t want to forget. I couldn’t. I couldn’t lose him like that. It wasn’t right.

I scrubbed at the my eyes furiously. I needed to stop crying. Crying wasn’t going to help anyone. It wasn’t stopping the pain, it wasn’t bringing Kyran back. It was useless.

But it helped…a little.

Who was I kidding? Nothing helped. I felt empty and drained, as though I had died along with my brother. Maybe I had. I knew for a fact that part of me had breathed its last breath with Kyran.

I burrowed under my comforter and tried to imagine that everything was okay. But it wasn’t. It never would be again. Kyran was gone and there was no getting around that.

I closed my eyes and hoped I dreamed of my brother.