Two Dead Boys

“I forgot who you are,” he whispered.

He was a boy, a bird without wings walking along a tangerine sky and in that sky he saw in himself another world entire; where he once saw skin and bones there was anger and air--an empty prayer. He walked along that horizon and swung his arms against the bitter sun and came away knowing nothing but that anger and air and grew weary.

He came upon a boy, one in the same as he, as they mirrored one another. The boy peered up through stained glass eyes and studied his brother. He was motionless, statuesque while the world around him moved in loud whirs and thrashing lights. In his eyes he found a light storm--lightning ripped through his corneas and his irises bled a rust colored sun. In those eyes he saw himself and he watched himself disappear back into the opaque sky.

The boy stepped back from his mirror and heaved over a scratch thick sink. Speckles of vomit peppered the underside of the faucet and it slipped in his hand when he reached to turn it on. He could hardly see his reflection past the fog and film of grime clinging to its edges. What would he have seen anyway?

His fingers sprawled across the glass when he heaved again, his knees beginning to buckle. He saw a glimpse of himself in the mirror and caught himself on the edge of the sink with his right arm, straining against the cold, bone-like porcelain.

The door behind him whined open and the warm yellow light sobered him quickly when it washed over his bare, bruised back.

“Hey babe,” he heard. It was her voice. “Are you okay?” Her question was followed by a trembling silence. “You don’t look so good…” she trailed off with deep concern. He squeezed his eyes shut when she flipped the faulty, flickering light on and bent down to him leaning against the bathtub. She outstretched her hand to his face and he reached for it, cherishing her kindness and love and the clean feel of her palm cradling his cheek bone. He looked up at her with a crooked spine and smiled gently, fighting off the sting of tears that were beginning to well in his eye lids.

“I’m alright.”

There they sat in a dirty bathroom with the graffiti clad walls around them convulsing and sweating out what he couldn’t. Walls of guilt closed in on him and crumble into his throat against her shoulder as he embraced her with all the wretched pride he could muster and he sighed in false relief against her skin.

---

“Damn.”

Murky red lights floated around him like bleeding fireflies as he stumbled back onto the unraveling couch, grabbing up his filthy white shirt and throwing it around his sweaty neck. The room spun. Faster…faster…faster. Damp paper cups sprawled around the edges of an empty pool where they’d just played. People climbing out of their sex sweat excitement as they celebrated the fourth of July in chorus, standing, on the couch, against the walls, on the bathroom counter upstairs. The Midwest night sky crisp and clear, embracing the hidden middle class suburb.

“You look like shit.” Billie turned his head when the person next to him leaned into his ear, looking half amused and half worried.

He felt tension in the couch and realized Adrienne had followed him back into the den and nestled herself under his weak arm. She glanced over and leaned in to both of them, saying, “he’s fine. He’s just feeling a little…sick.” At the last word she had chirped confidence, an optimism he felt he didn’t deserve to share with her.

She smiled at Billie warmly and set her hand on his knee, giving him a reassuring squeeze before she relaxed against the couch to speak with another girl with whom her conversation had been cut short before tending to her long distance boyfriend in the bathroom. As they spoke, he listened to her voice and her voice only. It was difficult in a room of thirty other people, but he was accustomed to this and could always find that comforting sound.

To his right he felt two blue eyes staring at him with serious doubt, crouched over his long legs with his hands clasped worriedly together. Mike always knew. He always knew. Billie turned again to him and met his gaze, not daring to admit even to his brother what he’d done.

“I’m fine,” he whispered forcefully, his treacherously weak half grin slipping under a lie. His best friend looked at him skeptically for a few seconds and with a light of his cigarette, swung his head around when someone called his name to use his lighter.

“Okay,” he said through a billow of smoke.