Real Life Fiction

When we were younger, my brother and I were major bookworms. Our parents had to literally push us out of the house to make us play with the other neighborhood kids, because we'd rather be inside, curled up in the room we shared with our noses stuck in whatever book we were reading at the time. We were teased relentlessly for it, called every name you can think and a few more that have probably went out of fashion by now. Some of the boys in my grade even took to calling me a fag on a daily basis, which resulted in me breaking one boy's collarbone and getting expelled from school.

After that, Mom home schooled both of us, bringing Mikey and I closer and closer together.

I should have realized it was dangerous. I shouldn't have let him become so dependant on me but at a young age, you never know what the rest of your life is going to turn out like. You never expect that your little brother is going to develop an infatuation with you that would lead to his death. You definitely don't expect that you're going to come home and find his body lying on your bed, two bottles of vodka and a container of sleeping pills strewn on the floor.

Even since he was a little kid, Mikey had been quiet and restrained, refusing to talk to any of the children in his classes at school. For awhile, the teacher's were convinced that he had selective mutism but at home, he talked to me perfectly fine. Mikey just didn't like speaking to anyone but me and Mom.

I was fifteen and Mikey was twelve when we discovered the book that would change our lives.

Sometimes at night, I lie in bed and wonder what would have happened if we'd never went to that yard sale and picked up that single, brown hardcover with the words in large white letters. I wonder what would have happened if we'd read the summary, thought it boring and gave it to my mom to donate to a thrift store. I wonder and wonder, pondering what if's until my head pounds and eyes water.

Mostly though, I wonder if Mikey would have killed himself anyways if we'd never found it.

The Hotel New Hampshire was what it was called. It was a novel by John Irving, the same man who wrote The Cider House Rules. We read that one too. We read all of his works after The Hotel New Hampshire.

Most parents wouldn't let a child as young as Mikey read it but my mother didn't really mind. The book was full of cursing and sex, with incidents of rape and incest but Mom wasn't stupid. She knew that Mikey already knew what such things were and there was no point of keeping your child from swimming if they were already wet.

We both fell in love with it, Mikey first. When he was finished with it, he jumped off his bed, glasses slid low on his nose and literally threw the book at me, face lit up with a euphoric grin.

"This is the best book I've ever read," he said, looking like he was about to bubble over with excitement. "Honestly Gee, the best book ever." This hadn't been the first time he'd said this so I merely shrugged, picked it up and flipped to the first page, him cuddled into my side.

And it was my turn to discover the magic.

That one book became a piece of our lives. When we didn't have anything new to read, one or both of us would have the tattered hardcover, the spine almost falling apart by the time I turned twenty. Even when the pages finally started coming out every time it was picked up, me and Mikey collected them and stored them in a shoebox on our bookshelf. Even after we bought a new copy, the old one stayed.

There was one saying in the story that me and Mikey adopted as our own motto whenever things got tough. I wish I could have counted the number of times I uttered it, every time I noticed the light in Mikey's eyes flicker a little, every time his smile disappeared.

Keep passing the open windows. One of the characters in the story, Lilly, stopped passing them and committed suicide. Even though he seemed a little too attached to me, even though he could go into a depression if I said something that was even slightly negative towards him, I never thought Mikey would actually even consider suicide. I never thought he'd stop passing the windows.

The older we got, the closer Mikey and I got. Mom never put us back into public school and we both ended up graduating at sixteen instead of eighteen. When I was in my third year of collage, Mikey moved in with me in my apartment in New York, so that he could attend NYU. He came bearing the book.

I thought that being in the city would do him some good, that he'd be able to get out there and meet new people. Once he started experiencing city life, taking advantage of the new opportunities, I figured that he'd barely ever be home, that he might even find a lover.

I was too blind to notice at that point but Mikey had already found a lover. Me.

Looking back, I should have known. I should have realized why he always wanted, needed to be close to me, why he would flush when people would occasionally mistake us for a couple. But I was young and naive. I knew nothing.

Instead of him becoming more outgoing, he seemed to get more reserved, coming straight home after his classes for the day. He did show a new interest in cooking, buying some recipe books and cooking for me every night, whether I protested or not. But almost every night when we sat at the table, I could look up and see him staring at me, fork idly playing with whatever culinary creation he'd worked up.

"Keep passing the open windows," I reminded him and we'd both giggle before going back to our meal silently, the tension back within seconds.

It was that book's fault. To the day I die, which may be sooner rather than later, I will believe that it is the book that killed Mikey. My psychiatrist says that I'm using the book to avoid facing my own guilt but I know he's wrong. I just know.

The saga of my brother and I, Mikey and Gerard, is filled with what if's. What if we hadn't of liked to read so much? What if my brother had chose to attend another school and gone some place other than New York? What if I hadn't come home drunk that night to find Mikey sitting on the couch, glasses off, The Hotel New Hampshire sitting in his lap.

There's no point in wondering. What's done is done, Mikey's buried and I'm a fucking idiot.

"Gee, I need to talk to you," he said and I could see his lip curling as I stumbled and sat down beside him, vision a little blurry. My memories of that night should been hazy, considering my state of mind, but I can remember everything with crystal clarity. He set the book in my lap and flipped it to a page I knew all too well, after reading the book at least a dozen times.

"Yeah yeah Mike, I know Franny and John have sex," I slurred, slamming it shut and handing it back to him. "What's that have to do with anything?" He only chuckled and rested his chin on my shoulder, nuzzling his nose against my neck.

"Because that's what I need," he whispered and even through my vodka daze, I felt my blood freeze. I turned to look at him, mouth open and ready to utter words when his lips started smothering mine, showing that he was completely new to this kind of thing. I was so plastered that all I could do was sit there numbly, letting him attack my mouth until he bit down hard enough to bring blood. That woke me the fuck up.

"Jesus Mikey, what are you doing?" I practically howled, my entire body shivering. The look in his eyes was like nothing I'd ever seen before, a cross between mad lust and pleading, both of which were directed at me.

"Don't you see Gerard?" he said, sitting up on his knees and holding my face in his hands. "I need this! I need to be cured!" He gave me a shake for emphasis, groaning at my completely confused expression. "Franny and John had sex and their love disappeared! I need to be cured!" Now he was just full of pure fire, yanking on my arm like a child on their mother's skirt.

"I need to stop loving you," he groaned, voice now low but still holding on to that edge of excitement. "I need to brave, be a man but I can't do that if I stay enamoured of you my entire life." Before I could even edge a word in, he was straddling my lap and grinding his hips down, already aroused.

"Please Gerard," he whispered, taking shallow breathes, rubbing against me. "Do this for us."

I wanted Mikey to have a life. I wanted him to be able to marry, give our Mom some grandchildren to dote on. I didn't want him to be in love with me anymore. We were both holding the other back. I had to do it.

I made love to my brother to try to save us both. All I did was condemn Mikey to die.

***

Outwardly, Mikey seemed fine. We never brought up the events again, although they remained the elephant in the room until his death. He started going out more, sometimes not coming home until the wee hours of the morning. He found a part time job on campus working in the library and started saving up some money for laser eye surgery. He smiled.

"Still passing the open windows?" He'd nod and continue what he was doing, giving me no clues as to how he was really feeling, that every day the windows were looking more and more appealing to him. Mikey had turned into an actor, completely hiding his real emotions. He was like the kids who make faces at the blind man because he can't see.

I was twenty years old and Mikey was seventeen, beginning our fourth and second years of collage, respectively. We should have had our whole lives ahead of us, should have been acting like the kids we still were, should have been drinking and trying to land chicks.

Instead, I came home one night and was met with absolute silence. The television was blank, there was no faint bubbling from the stove top, there was nothing. There wasn't even a Post-It pinned to the mirror in the front hallway, which was what Mikey always did if he wasn't going to be home.

I tried not to let my nerves get the best of me but I couldn't help it. Something about the situation was unnerving and not just because of the quiet. Walking into the kitchen, the sink was still filled with our dirty breakfast dishes, which Mikey never left if he could help it. Everything was just adding up and making my stomach feel light as air.

"Mikey?" I called, sliding my jacket off and tossing it on one of the kitchen chairs. "Mikey, are you home?" I peeked into his empty room and continued down the hallway towards mine, still calling his name.

"Mikes..."

I stood in the doorway of my room for what seemed like hours, feeling bile rising in my throat at the sight before me. Dropping to my knees, I barely managed to get my trash can in front of me before I vomited, tears mixing in with the vile liquid. Even with my vision blurred, I'd already seen the image that will stay with me for the rest of my life.

Mikey was lying on my bed, skin a sickly color of ash gray, surrounded by the instruments of so many deaths; two empty vodka bottles and sleeping pills strewn everywhere. I knew he was dead without feeling for his nonexistent pulse, without seeing that his chest no longer rose. But I still crawled over to my bed and laid my head on his stomach, feeling it's coldness even through his shirt. I stayed there, crying and crying until my eyes were huge and sore and my throat ached. Only then did I sit up and look at my younger brother, feeling more tears well up.

He was beautiful in death, a peaceful angel. A small smile lay on his lips, taunting me. His eyes were thankfully closed; if they'd been open, I probably would have puked again. I brushed a few loose strands off his face, something Mom always used to do to him as a kid.

Beside his head on the pillow was The Hotel New Hampshire, the new copy, with a piece of paper sticking out of it. Mikey's writing was tiny, feminine almost and to anyone who hadn't grown up with him, the note would have been indecipherable, especially with the ink being slightly smeared from tears of his own.

Gerard,

By the time you read this, it'll be too late to save me. I'm writing this at two in the afternoon and I know you won't be home until I'm long dead. You can't be a superhero now.

Please don't feel like this is your fault. It's mine. I gambled my entire life because of a situation in a book that I thought would translate to real life. I thought that you making love to me would help, that I'd be able to be free. But that didn't work. Our lives are not fiction and that book is not real life. If I hadn't of been so blinded by a stupid idea, I would have realized that this was how it would end.

Gee, when you agreed to be as close to me as two humans can be, it only made me love you more. You didn't free me, I only ended up more chained. I wanted more from you, I wanted that night over and over again. I wanted to hear you saying you loved me but... you never did. Because you don't, do you? I'll never be anything more than your brother.

I'm sick Gerard. I'm in love with you and there's no way to make it stop. I tried to be with others but they aren't you. I'm sick and twisted and we're both going to be arrested if anyone finds out. I can't let that happen to you. I don't want to bother you anymore and I don't want to be sick anymore. I want to be free.

I love you Gerard, God knows I do. And that's why I had to do this. For you. To let you go.

Keep passing the open windows. Always.

I still have that book and Mikey's suicide note is still in it, tucked into the pages where no one can see it. I read it once in awhile and it never fails to make me cry. Someday, I believe someone will find me stiff and cold, clutching that book with a note of my own. I have the vodka and sleeping pills underneath my bathroom sink. I'm just waiting.

Mikey stopped passing the open windows. It's only a matter of time before my guilt gets to me and I do as well.