Lie Like You Mean It

I retched again and again, Zero forcing me to do so.

“C’mon Nicolas, you have to get all of that shit out of your system.” His arm was wrapped securely around my waist, keeping me from flopping right into the toilet bowl. And again I wondered, why wasn’t his touch disgusting to me like Cody’s and that girl at the party. It not like he wasn’t a clean person, it’s just, he’s forced me into doing these ridiculous acts, like telling him he’s special and kissing me. It should disgust me. It should make me absolutely sick to my stomach to be anywhere near him. But it didn’t and I’d have liked to question it further if I wasn’t so scared of the answer so I wrote it off on account of sharing a house and room with him.

My face was bathed in sweat from the drug’s effects. Zero swore again and pulled my hair back so I could vomit into the toilet for what I thought was the fifteenth time.

“Is he gonna be okay?” Mina asked from the closed door. Of course we wouldn’t want my parents to come in and see me in this mess. I knew for a fact that Dad would assume I was drinking and not that I had been slipped some drug. Dad didn’t like alcohol, hated the drink, really. His dad was a heavy drinker and sometimes got abusive so Dad never went within five feet of the stuff.

“Mina? Are you in there?” Mom’s voice caused Zero to tense up behind me and pull his hand to my mouth to keep me from uttering any noises that would give us away.

“Yeah, just taking my makeup off.” Mina covered. Then she moved to the sink and proceeded to clatter around there for second until my mom walked away. Zero relaxed behind me and uncovered my mouth.

“One more time.” He whispered softly into my ear. He pulled my matted bangs away from my face and let me retch into the bowl again. When I was done he pulled me back onto his lap and let Mina dab at my face with a wet washcloth.

“Think we can put him to bed now?” Mina kept her voice low as if I had a hangover and was sensitive to loud noises. My mouth wouldn’t work so I couldn’t object and use of my limbs was pretty much restricted too.

“You can go to bed – I’ll take care of this.” Zero said, looking up at her. He gave us a crooked, unsure smile and continued out the bathroom door, careful not to open it more than was needed to slide her body through.

Zero looked back down at me, his face contorted into a sad expression. “I shouldn’t have left the room with you.” He whispered, picking me up in his arms and continuing to the bathroom door. I tried to give some garbled response to what he was saying. Something like, ‘as if you could’ve known’, but it didn’t work out.

But still, seeing a Zero without his usually angry or sarcastic expression on his face was weird for me. Why were all of his actions so soft and gentle when he was alone with me? Extreme bi-polar-ness? Perhaps. He poked his head out of the door, scanning the hallway for my parents and then slid out the door with me hanging limply from his arms.

Once we were in my bedroom, he laid me out on my bed, still in my jeans and a t-shirt. He sat down next to me and without looking at me he started speaking. “Can you… tell me again what you said when we were walking back?”

If I’d had the strength, I’d have arched an eyebrow at him. I thought that all I’d said was mindless babble.
His shoulders fell as I couldn’t get out any words. It was frustrating really and perhaps I should’ve been terrified with Zero in the room while I was less than defenseless. But I wasn’t. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t seem to scare myself with that thought. Simply enough, I just couldn’t.

“Sorry, I guess you’re not much in a mood to be talking, huh? Focus on remembering for me, okay? I want to hear it again.” Now that made me worried about what I had said. But I couldn’t remember, I really couldn’t. Then he sighed and stood up, turning towards me. “I’m assuming you don’t want me to change you.”

Then you assume right. I thought, glaring up at him. It was a weak one, but it gave him an answer.
He took me into his arms again, lifting me just enough to pull the bed sheets from under me. Why wasn’t I repulsed at being touched by him? What could possibly be wrong with me? But he seemed to be doing a lot of apologizing tonight, though. Did he apologize to anyone else? Well, besides his sister. But she was his sister – his twin. But, no, I’ve never seen him apologize to anyone, ever. No one but me.

He laid me back onto the bed and pulled the blankets over me. Which didn’t really help with my incessant sweating. But I assumed that just like having a fever, this can be sweated out.
Then I did something I knew I would regret. As he sat down on the edge of my bed again, he looked down at me.

I think a part of me wanted him to be just as confused as I was. So I took my hand and slowly and painstakingly brought it to his cheek. I brushed the hair that danced there away a bit and then let it fall through my fingers. His hair was coarse and thick, but it had a nice feel to it, really. But I really didn’t expect to be soft or anything. Nothing about him was soft. Nothing but the actions he used to regard me when we were alone.

But I hastily pulled back when he started leaning into the touch. Shouldn’t he hate that another guy is touching him like this? Although he used the same advances on me. I supposed dominance wasn’t an issue with him. He didn’t care if he was receiving the touch or giving it. For whatever reason, he wanted my touch. He flinched away from others, he fucking growled at other people when they drew close.
So why not me? He not only didn’t reject my touch, but he sought it, wanted it.

“Why…?” He trailed off, but I knew what he was asking.

“Confuse…” I whispered with every bit of conjured strength I had. I had been trying to say ‘trying to confuse you. I wanted to make you feel every bit confused

“And don’t you dare try and take those blankets off.” He said a little threateningly.
I finally let my eyes fall shut and crash into a sleep that I didn’t wake up from until two in the afternoon.

Mina covered for my long sleep by saying I’d eaten some terrible nachos that were served at the party and when Mom and Dad asked why they weren’t sick, Zero spoke up and said that he forced me to be a taste-tester.

But thanks to Zero, I wasn’t nearly as bad as last night. Because of all the retching and covering me up with heavy blankets during the night, I was much better. Back in our room, I was playing an RPG and Zero was watching from the head on my bed as I sat on the end. I had no idea what he thought he was doing by watching me, but I really didn’t want it to show that that bothered me.

“Hey, about last night-”

“Never happened.” I said automatically.

“Do you remember what you said to me?” He asked. “On the walk home?”

“No, I don’t remember anything before throwing up.”

“You said you didn’t understand why you hated Cody’s and that bitch at the party’s touch, but not mine. It was garbled, but I got the gist of it.” That made me freeze in place. I had said that? I told him (the one person I never wanted to know) that I wasn’t repulsed by his touch? How could I have let that slip? It was the one thing that I was determined to keep a secret and it had got out by my own mouth.

“And besides that – when you touched my cheek-”

“Shut up! Just shut up! I wanted you to be as fucking confused as I was!” I yelled, balling my hands up in the sheets to keep stray punches from colliding with his face. Not to save him – but to save myself. I knew that if I hit him, he’d hit me and that wouldn’t be good. Wait. Would he hit me?’

“Nicolas…” He whispered, not meeting my eyes anymore (well, one eye as the other was veiled beneath my hair). “Believe me, I’m confused too.” I paused, and stared at him. He was confused to? He didn’t understand? “I don’t know why I want to… do these… things, I just do. And don’t ask any questions about what I’m about to say. Just listen. You make me remember, alright?”

I arched an eyebrow at him, questioningly. But I wasn’t going to ask, I just accepted it. Not that I didn’t want to know, but sometimes things can’t be explained and that certainly didn’t sound like it was easy to tell me about. Was he trying to remember a person? An old girlfriend of boyfriend? So that was it… I was just a replacement for him.