That's A Lie

The next few days were nothing like those in fairytales. No happy endings, no stolen kisses. No lust-filled gazes. In fact, it was the exact opposite. They avoided each other more. They could barely look at each other, they clam up when spoken to. In hindsight, the kiss that Mikey thought was so perfect, was so planned, was an absolute disaster.

They broke the kiss, and Gerard looked away. Funny how at that moment, instead of feeling sated, Mikey felt extremely foolish. His bit on the inside of his cheek. Stupid, he thought to himself. Kissing your own brother. Stupid stupid stupid.

Gerard’s stare moved from his far wall to his knees. He gulped down a wave of disgust. At himself. Which sick brother would kiss his own flesh and blood and love it? Which incestuous pedophile would target their own sibling? What kind of a monster was he?

Gerard looked up and his face was instantly caught in the mirror’s reflection. He watched himself. In horror, he began to see not himself, but someone or something else entirely. His pale skin became an almost hard, alligator like hide. It wasn’t soft and smooth, instead it was sickly green, with short, blunt spikes protruding from his face. His hazel coloured eyes were a fire red, pupils tiny pinpricks. His lips, they became a stretched grim line. He became a monster.

He couldn’t look away; his eyes glued to those red irises. Images began flooding his mind’s eye. Him, homeless. Him, in jail. Him, losing Mikey. Dismayed, he tried to tear his eyes away. Just as he was about to turn, Mikey looked in the mirror and their gazes met.

Time, instead of stopping, went on faster. Everything around them was a blur of Technicolor but they stood still. Them, the bed, and the mirror. The blue paint around the started peeling, the walls, started disintegrating but they stayed the same. It seemed the whole world was ending, yet they were still staring.

The parts of the mirror not reflecting their faces started to melt. It became a silver swirl of glass. Then as though like a motion picture, faces started to appear. They started to move. Emira and Mikey at the altar. Her face, glowing; his smile, wide and genuine. Emira and Mikey next to each other on the park bench, holding hands, smiling at the two toddlers running around. Emira and Mikey on their porch, watching both their kids drive away, and waving and the tiny hands of their grandchildren stuck out the car window.

Then the snapshots changed. It became Gerard’s life. Him, fervently drawing in the dark, with only a candle to light up the cramped room. Him, curled up on the floor, hands covering his face, a piece of paper with the words ‘Termination Of Employment’ in bold. Him, spread out on the grimy bathroom floor, passed out with shards of glass from the whiskey bottle around him. His only companion.

Then everything went back to normal. The walls around them were not falling apart. The mirror was solid as ever and their eyes were not staring. Michael stood up and promptly walked out of the room, closing the door softly behind him leaving Gerard to stare blankly at the wooden carvings.

“Sweetie, your cereal’s getting soggy,” Donna nudged her boy out of his reverie before going back to washing her breakfast plates. Startled, it took Mikey a while before he continued eating his cereal, not really noticing what it was. The doorbell rang and as though in a trance, he walked over to his mother, kissed her cheek and grabbed his knapsack off the chair, heading to the door.

Emira was waiting for him at the front door, like always but her face was sullen as ever. They didn’t speak. In silence they walked the gravel path. Seconds passed. It soon turned to minutes. The silence was dragging.

“I kissed him,”

“Mikey I forgive you- wait you did what?” Emira stopped moving. Eyes wide, she gawked at her best friend in disbelief. Mikey stopped in his tracks too but he didn’t look up to catch the eyes of his friend.

“I kissed him. I leaned in and kissed him.”

“Who? Frank?!? He didn’t tell me!” Mikey looked up into the dark eyes of the Asian girl in front of him. At that moment, he didn’t care what she thought, he just needed the weight off his shoulders.

“Gerard. I kissed Gerard. My brother.” And with that, he started walking. Emira was left behind to ponder for a few seconds before realising the man she was talking to was far away, started to run.

The whole school day was too chaotic for them to talk in private. Not that Mikey made it any easier by avoiding her. By the time she made it to the front gate after the last bell, he was gone.

“Hi Mrs Way. Is Mikey in?” Emira asked fifteen minutes later, at the front door of the Way household.

“Yes he is, why are you here Emira?”

“Oh I just… needed to return his biology text book he left in school. I won’t take more than a second.” She smiled sweetly hoping Donna would not question or call her bluff.

“That’s curious. He told me he was studying Science when I knocked on his door five minutes ago,” Snap.

“Well, that is curious. Maybe he slipped up and was studying History instead because I have his Science book right here with me.”

“Maybe.” Donna said but she let Emira in anyway.

She made her way up the stairs two steps at a time. Facing his door, she didn’t bother to knock, instead just throwing it open revealing Mikey laying down on his bed staring emptily at his ceiling.

He didn’t look away, merely saying, “Science?”

“Oh shut up,” A dip at the edge of his bed told him Emira has settled herself in. The silence grew and stretched. Nobody said anything. Nobody moved. Mikey felt her eyes on him but he didn’t turn. “Are you gonna tell me what happened?”

“No.”

“Mikey, come on! You just told me you kissed your brother, and you expect me to leave it just like that?”

“Yes.”

“Stop being difficult.”

“I’m not being difficult. That’s it. I kissed him. End of story.”

“You know I know you’re lying. Tell me the truth. I won’t judge you. You know I won’t.” He turned to face her, to see the comfort in her eyes, the sincerity in her voice. Propping himself up on his shoulders, he braced himself to speak out the truth.

“I kissed him and he kissed me back. But I know we both hated it.” Emira was silent. She waited for him to go on.

“I know he hates me.”