Nothing in This World Can Be Endured Forever

Jörg wasn’t even at the house when Bill got out of school. Bill was thankful, but he ended up locked in the basement anyhow. Very important guests were to arrive for dinner that night and he was to stay quiet as if he didn’t exist. And Bill was glad to not exist for a night.

By the next morning, Bill had wished he were still in the basement not existing. Joey had sat in the empty seat beside him and throughout all first class kicked him under the table, whispered insults just quiet enough so the teacher wouldn’t hear. Anger welled up inside Bill. He hoped, just for one damn second, that the teachers would hear, would take notice so he could have one safe place, one place to get away.

“Are you paying attention to what I say?” Joey hissed at him. “You better be, otherwise it’s going to be worse than Hell, and last so much longer for you, Jew.”

Bill clenched his jaw.

“Do you understand?” Joey didn’t wait for him to even acknowledge the threat before he was delivering a kick to his shin. “Hmm?”

Bill closed his eyes and nodded as Joey kicked him repeatedly in the shin. One of the kicks missed and hit his ankle, causing an instinct reaction to gasp loudly and grab at the pained ankle.

Joey, along with half the class and the teacher gave him a confused look as he caressed the skin soothingly.

“Mr. Kaulitz? Is something wrong?”

Aware of the attention, Bill stumbled over his words. “I- uh, h-h-hit … an-ankle….”

“Okay, as I was saying…” Mr. Jung dismissed with a long look at Bill before he turned back to the board.

Joey nudged his foot against Bill’s ankle, watching his sharp intake of breath with knit eyebrows. Bill’s jaw clenched from the sudden intense pain. It hadn’t hurt him in a while, and now Joey found out another weakness.

The week progressed slowly. Between school and being told to not exist, Bill couldn’t help but notice that Jörg wasn’t home. It worried him because without Jörg there to make sure Bill did what he was supposed to, there was a greater chance that he would… Bill couldn’t think of what Jörg would do with him when he came back. The blond felt guilty for enjoying the slight freedom from the fear, knowing that once Jörg stepped foot inside the house, he would sense Bill’s ease and correct that with a few days of … there.

But Bill couldn’t help but wonder if Jörg’s absence had anything to do with the phone call with his… mother? He tried to remember he’d heard anything that made any sense, but when he thought about it, he couldn’t remember much besides:

”I know he’s my son…”

And:

” I can’t help that you got him and I got…”

So he had a brother? Is that where Jörg was now? He wondered if Jörg was doing the things he dreamed about from time to time. Was he playing catch in the yard? Getting ice cream after a long day at the zoo with a son he treated as if he was Kathleen’s, too?

Bill’s stomach lurched in envy. He wished Kathleen was his mom. He wanted to be a part of the family, not sitting on a ratty bed in the dark basement all day besides school hours. He wanted to sit at the table and eat. He wanted to have his own room on the second floor with his full-blooded siblings and have his own clothes and have a real bed with a frame and friends who wanted to be around him and talk to him and not to have pain and hunger and cold making his fingers stiff.

A tear squeezed out of the boy’s tightly shut eyes. He lay on his side, his hands shoved between his legs for the little warmth that might exist.

“Get your ass out of bed, Boy!”

Bill was in the half-asleep, half-awake state where his body lay paralyzed, wondering if he was really dreaming or it reality was barging in. His breathing was slow and even, but missed several beats when he was pulled up from the floor by gruff hands.

“—the hell are you—”

Blinking to clear the dried tears and sleep from his eyes, Bill instantly cast his gaze downward as Jörg ranted. His large hands gripped Bill’s shirt threateningly.

“—sleeping when work is to be done! You’re going to get it boy…”

Jörg dragged Bill out of the basement, swearing up a storm about his disobedience. Bill lost his footing several times on the stairs, his bare feet slipping painfully as his struggled to keep up. Jörg’s hand around his wrist was cutting off the circulation to the boy’s hand.

He was dragged into the kitchen, the grip on his wrist changed to his upper arm as Jörg pushed him toward the sink full of dishes left over from dinner. Bill closed his eyes and waited, tensing for the impending blows that were sure to come any moment.

“You.”

The blond flinched. He was fucked, to put it simply, and he knew it. Jörg couldn’t even form a sentence, and the boy knew… he remembered the last time and shifted his weight to his other ankle at the dull remembrance.

There were no words as Jörg shoved Bill into the counter and stood, arms crossed, watching him. Bill shook, afraid of moving wrong. He reached for the dishes, pulling plates from the sink and carefully setting them aside to plug the sink. His breathing stopped and his stomach clenched nervously.

“Honey.” Distraction. Nervous, pleading, distraction. “It’s not—“ Her voice wavered. “I told him to stay down there while company was—“

Bill couldn’t believe it. He froze half way through washing a fork. She was…

“—defending the boy?”

Bill didn’t sleep that night. Neither did Jörg, who had a plethora of things for him to do. He was locked in the downstairs bathroom with a bucket of bleach and wasn’t allowed out until every surface was clean. A few minutes into it, his eyes started to water, his hands were red and shook, his nose burned, as did his lungs, and a pounding headache overpowered his thoughts. After doing all bathrooms in the house, he was given a scrub brush, a bucket of cleaner and told to scrub the floors throughout the entire house.

Yawns forced themselves out every few minutes, and every time Bill would receive a stern kick in the ribs and grunt of disapproval. His arms grew tired fast from the continuous scrubbing, his knees went numb and the skin on his fingers split open painfully.

By the time Bill made it down the main hall of the house, his pants were wet from his knees down, the sun was already in the sky and he could faintly hear the Family getting up.

“Clean this mess up, boy, and get your ass to school.” Jörg spat, leaving Bill alone on the floor.

His body ached as he slowly stood, picked up the bucket and brush and slowly stored them in the laundry room. His wet pants rubbed painfully against his ankles when he walked, but there was nothing to be done about that with the little time he had.

Bill found it increasingly difficult to keep his eyes open, let alone hear what his teachers were trying to teach. Bill kept his head bowed toward his hand in his lap, trying to make it less noticeable that he was nodding off.

But of course, he thought bitterly as Joey nudged him. He flinched and looked up with a glare, too tired to care what the consequences would be.

“Hey,” Joey whispered, in a voice that made Bill’s eyebrows knit together in confusion. “Wake up. Mr. Jung keeps looking over at you.”

Bill glanced up toward the board to see Mr. Jung looking in his direction, then glancing back at what he’d written on the board. The blond looked back at Joey, confused.

“Don’t worry, Jew. It’s coming.” Joey promised with a smirk.

At lunch break, while the majority of the school flocked to the lunchroom to eat and socialize, Bill stayed in the classroom, usually sitting at his desk or checking out the books on the shelves at the back of the room. Today, he laid his head on his arms and watched the leaves whirl around outside the class room windows. His eyes would stay closed longer and longer each time he lazily blinked, till he was fast asleep.

Bill had made sure that he’d kept his sleeves clenched in his fists. His right wrist was bruised even worse from last night. Jörg would know by one look at him when he’d return home, the blond knew it.

Two days later, at lunch break, his eyes couldn’t hold themselves open any longer. He’d struggled all morning with trying to hide yawns while still listening to the teacher. Jörg would punish him for longer if his grades didn’t stay up. But school was the only place that he could relatively safely get a little sleep in to make it through the night.

He’d only just dozed off when a hand fell onto his shoulder. He tensed and flinched away, his eyes snapping open and automatically preparing himself to be wrenched out of bed. But he wasn’t in the basement. He was in school.

“Hey, hey,” a woman’s voice calmed. “Sorry to startle you…”

Bill didn’t look at her. He kept his head bowed towards his lap, his eyes trained on his hands that pulled his shirt further over them. He tried to control his breathing, keep it slow and steady so she wouldn’t pick up on its irregularity.

She was speaking, but he didn’t hear what she’d said. Jörg was… this was not good. He’d reacted bad, he shouldn’t have freaked out like that. He… Jörg was going to know. She would tell him. She’d tell Jörg and he’d get it.

His next class teacher. He knew her. Her voice was calm and smooth. “I come in here to eat and work on my lesson plans some days and…” she hesitated slightly before continuing. “The last few days you’ve been in here, sleeping…”

He tensed more. He was dead. He may as well walk out to the street now and get ran over.

“Why don’t you go to the lunchroom and eat with everyone else?”

At the mention of food, Bill stomach growled loudly and churned painfully. His eyes watered so he closed them tight and turned his head away, looking at the floor. The hunger rose to its height. He hadn’t eaten in… he couldn’t even remember the last time. The last few nights were consumed with work and no sleep. Food wasn’t even on his mind after a few minutes with a bucket of bleach.

“Bill?”

She knew his name.

He had to answer. A lie, anything to make her less likely to tell Jörg. “I don’t fit in.” His shoulders did a sort of poor attempt at a shrug, but one didn’t cooperate with the other, so it ended up looking like he was uncoordinated.

She left it at that, thankfully and returned to the teacher’s desk to finish her lunch. Bill closed his eyes, touching his chin to his chest and willing himself to at least relax until the bell rang.

The next two week went by without any incident. Jörg had long since ended Bill’s punishment and didn’t say anything when Bill snatched a sweatshirt that was discarded on the laundry room floor. Jörg had begun working long nights and would come home past dinner most nights. Kaden, his half-brother closest to him in age, would sneak him food whenever Jörg wasn’t home for dinner.

“You don’t deserve this.” Kaden would justify as he handed Bill the paper plate. The first night Kaden snuck down, Bill was afraid to eat because Jörg was sure to find out. He always did.

But Kaden came the next night and the night after that and the night after that. He would sit with Bill while he ate, then take the plate back upstairs, not saying a word.

Bill wasn’t sure what to think about this, but he didn’t let himself worry too much. He was getting food and that in itself was the best thing that had ever happened.

Bill’s ears perked as he heard Kaden’s light foot steps on the stairs. Bill was sitting on his bed, hunched over his math book. He was trying to understand the lesson in the dim light, but he couldn’t grasp the idea of how to do the equations.

Kaden entered the darkening room with a frown. “Are you trying to do your homework?”

Bill looked up at him and nodded. What else would he be doing?

“Oh, well…. Here.” He held the plate of food out for Bill, who gladly took the food and dig in quickly.

Kaden sat on the edge of Bill’s mattress and slid the book towards him. “You’re on fraction?” Bill hummed in response. “This stuff is simple.” Kaden said as he looked over Bill’s messy paper at his failed attempts. “Here, let me show you…”

Bill was hurt. He was confused and he didn’t know why things were the way they were and he wanted them to change.

“What’s it like?” Bill timidly asked Kaden as they sat on his bed that weekend. Kaden was hunched over his math book as Bill slowly picked at the food on the plate.

“What’s what like?” Kaden retorted, keeping his voice low so he wouldn’t be heard. His parents thought he was in the game room playing video games. And from the game playing loudly on demo in the other room, he could let it be convincing for a little bit.

“I don’t know… everything, I guess…” The pre-teen really wasn’t sure, but he was curious. There lives were so different, yet under the same roof. He didn’t understand it and that made Bill feel like he was incompetent.

Kaden shrugged, looking up at the blond. “I dunno. What’s it like for you?”

Bill shrugged, keeping his eyes on his plate, his stomach twisting nervously. “I can’t do anything right. I want to be normal, like you….”

They were silent for a long time. Bill tried to eat some of the cold food.

“He tells us to hate you.” Kaden suddenly spoke. “That you’re the Devil and we should fear you, or something.”

Bill frowned. “Maybe I am….”

“I don’t think you are. Neither does Ilan. He just ignores you so he doesn’t get into trouble too.” Kaden played with the hem of his shirt. “That’s what we all do. The twins don’t understand what Dad is doing and Bianca is never here, it seems.”

“I don’t either.” Bill blushed at his confession.

“Don’t what?”

“Understand. I know I’m the odd one out, but… why?”

Their eyes met and Bill saw a tear slip out of Kaden’s eye. “I don’t know, brother. I don’t know…”