The Art of Illusion

All night. I’d spent all night staring up at the shadow drenched ceiling of my room, the covers cast away from my body due to the sickly heat of the summers night. It seemed to appear that the events of the day troubled my night as well. I rubbed my sore, tired eyes. No doubt the shadows that clung to them were darkening by the second; my head throbbed with exhaustion and too many memories that lacerated my heart painfully. I couldn’t go on like this much longer. As the clock on my bedside table ticked, it felt like a metaphor for my life, seconds, minutes, hours, days just draining away. Time spent missing you, calling out for you… How much of my life would I waste away due to my pride? Was I ready to finally swallow it whole and find you…? Was this the path I was meant to take all along…? To find a way to make it work…? After all, my job in life was to protect you… I truly believed that. Tapping my fingers against my bare torso, I came to a conclusion. In the morning, I would set about finding you. The question ‘Why do I love you?’ had tortured my mind for the past fifteen years, but it was time to forget about ‘why?’ it was time to forget about what people would think and just accept myself for the person I was, to indulge in the fantasies that were wrong to everyone else other than us… I just hoped desperately in my tired hazy blur, that it wasn’t too late… I watch lights from headlights roll past the room, my half closed blinds splitting the lights into segments as they frittered past. I could hear the whoosh of the cars they belonged to through the open window. Even that hadn't relieved the heat. One thing was for sure, I fell asleep hot, confused and restless.

I wasn’t sure exactly what time I dropped off to sleep, but I awoke to the annoying vibrating of my phone. Stretching I cracked by neck bones before reaching into the jeans pocket of yesterday’s skinnies that I tossed on the floor late last night. The sun shone in a coffee colour due to the heavy blinds that partially covered the open window, they fluttered in the breeze like the beat of butterflies wings, alerting me to the slight drop in temperature. I hated mornings. The only mornings I could tolerate were the mornings I awoke to your warm presence wrapped around my waist and cuddled into my hair. I didn’t care to look at the caller ID in my fatigued state; instead I slid my finger across the screen and answered in a groggy thick voice,

“Hello?” The response I got was not one I expected. It was my best friend, well the only one other than Ryan. Our high school friendship circle had slowly disbanded due to everyone's own personal goals, which was sad. And now, we barely spoke. Me, Max and Ryan were the closest. I sent Max birthday gifts, and Christmas cards. We were lucky if we saw each other every six months.

“Alan…” Maxy sobbed, my heart instantly hit my stomach like I’d just pulled some serious G’s on a rollercoaster. He hardly ever cried unless it was a situation that seriously called for a deep level of emotional turmoil. I hadn’t seen him all that recently because he’d found himself a pretty boy toy to occupy his time. Stuck in the honeymoon stage of his relationship, I hadn’t gotten much consideration… alas, that is life… Worried I responded immediately, fearing the worse… That his boyfriend had broken up with him and left him with even more self-doubts to riddle his brain and dent his self-confidence… Maxy had a fatal attraction to bad boys… mostly the ones who worked in hell as chief drug abusers. You know; the type of guy who sold his soul at the ripe old age of fifteen.

“Maxy are you ok?” I blabbed quickly, eager to console him as a best friend should.

“No.” He blubbered through tears. I couldn’t comprehend what could have left him so devastated; to say I was panicking would have been the understatement of the century. I sat up, leaning my back against the cold wooden headboard of my bed. I bunched the abandoned blankets around my waist, concentrating on every little squeak and sigh emanating from the speaker.

“What’s wrong Maxy? I promise you can tell me and I won’t make a single bitchy or sarcastic remark. And that means a lot coming from me.” He laughed lightly through his tears before sniffing loudly, which in turn gave way to harder sobbing. He stayed that way for a good few minutes as I sat awkwardly on the other end wishing he’d made a house call instead of a phone call.

“Alan…” he paused sniffing again. “I don’t know how to tell you th-this…” He stammered heavily as he once again repeated the sniffing sound. “R-Ryan was in an –accident…” he paused again as I heard my heartbeat roar exaggeratedly through my head… Shocked I stayed transfixed in my silence, my mouth forming a perfect ‘o’ shape. There was an awkward silence as Max burst into tears again. Not wanting to be mollycoddled by him anymore in regards to the situation, I asked sharply,

“Which hospital is he at? Don’t BS me about him not wanting to see me, because I’m going to see him, Max.” I spat a little more venomously than I had originally intended. The words sounded like lead hatred as they sank in the air. I felt terrible but I couldn’t give a shit. Ryan had only ever confided in Maxy after we’d broken up. He’d skipped town, lived with a few friends around the state and then to the best of my knowledge he told Maxy where he was going before moving state completely. I hadn’t seen him in years, and now I had the perfect chance to make everything right.

“Y-you can’t see h-him Alan…” Max sobbed, and I instantly snapped. No one was going to keep me from my Ryan ever again, even if it was my best friend.

“Don’t give me that fucking shite Max. Where’s Ryan at?” I shouted, my anger seeping from me without me even realising or acquiring the chance to tone it down. I obviously pissed him off because he uttered the one sentence that broke my heart and shattered my life to a thousand tiny glistening shards.

“You can’t see him Alan! He was in a car crash...” He spluttered before shouting furiously in misplaced grief and rage “He was D.O.A!” I froze, stuck like an ice sculpture, left to rot in this putrid moment. The phone slid helplessly from my hand as time slowed inevitably. My vision blurred as I felt temporarily deafened… What…? Tears freely cascaded down my cheeks without my numb body even feeling their weak existence… I could faintly hear Max shouting my name desperately mixed with fumbling ‘I’m sorry’s and ‘please answer me’s. But it had struck me too hard; the news had left me suspended in the most grating pain… I was overwhelmed, I couldn’t even comprehend…

My own flesh and blood, my own brother… the pillar of my life and existence… My reason for living had just vanished in one sickening moment…

How can one twin carry on living without the other…? I always told myself that even if he wasn’t here, he was alive and living life happy… I swallowed and gulped trying to keep the pooling salty bile in my mouth down…

Ironic really, I did always used to scream at you that you were going to be the death of me… I guess karma decided to kick me in the ass, because I was the death of you. Maybe, if you’d have lived here with me, you’d have never ended up in that situation…

My bleak world changed that day, but I still asked myself the same question throughout the hardest transformation I’d ever battled… Why did I love you? Especially when it seemed to do neither of us any good... Why was it that as human's all of us seemed to fall in love with what we couldn't have...? Was it just a part of human nature...?