Keep Getting Closer

The problem isn’t even Skyler’s fault. But it’s not Noah’s fault either. The problem just is.

*

When it happens, there’s no actual reason for it.

His day had been okay up until this moment, right before Noah gets home from work. But if he thinks about it, the detached threat of it had been sitting there since he woke up, sat at the counter with his coffee cup, and listened to Noah tell him about his plans. He thought it was sleep deprivation. Stress. It would go away. But something tipped over the edge between nine and three. And now Skyler wants to peel his skin off. The urge to vomit is sitting at the back of his throat. Something is churning in the pit of his stomach. Pressing into his lungs. He doesn’t feel attached to his body anymore.

Then he blinks and Noah is home. He’s talking about something in the kitchen, and God, Skyler wants to hear him. He wants to listen but he only hears ringing in his ears. He’s staring at his tingling hands, an itch in his palms that he can’t scratch.

“Skye.”

It’s the way Noah says his name. Something inside of Skyler heaves. He wonders if Noah can hear it because he stops talking. There’s a moment of silence in the apartment. Then Skyler breathes and Noah knows.

“Skye. Skyler, look at me.” He does, but he can’t focus on Noah’s face. “Where are you?”

Skyler closes his eyes to make the spinning stop. He curls his fingers. There’s a burst of static. “I can’t breathe.”

*

The problem is that Skyler is fucking broken. He’s been broken since his father left when he was fourteen.

He remembers watching his mother hurl a plate towards the wall when the front door closed. He remembers that this was the first time he heard that shrill ringing in his ears. It made everything happen in slow motion. It muted the sound of broken porcelain clattering to the hardwood floor. It muted the sound of his mother screaming. Skyler sat there in the middle of the kitchen as his hands went numb and something constricted in his chest. He remembers vaguely wondering if this was a panic attack.

And he watched his mom try to put it back together the next day, trying to repair some semblance of normalcy. It wasn’t one big piece missing though. It was a handful of small ones. All the ones that made it unusable and worthless, no matter how desperately she glued it back together. He watched her cry over it when it didn’t work, ugly and broken sobs, until she took the plate and shoved it back into the cabinet. He spent the last four years of his life in that house wondering why she kept it. He still wonders.

Because the problem is that there’s nothing to make it unbroken. It just is now.

The problem is that Skyler is permanently fucking damaged. And Noah can’t do anything about it but drown in it with him.

*

Noah’s been absolutely silent for an hour. He’s only touched Skyler once since 8 AM. It was to force Skyler’s white-knuckled hands open so he stopped digging his nails into his palms at 5:06 PM. And now they’re not touching at all.

Skyler hasn’t said anything else since they left the apartment. He doesn’t have to because he’s loud enough.

That’s the juxtaposition of them:

Noah is an anechoic chamber. Skyler might as well be screaming in his taciturnity.

*

Skyler met Noah during winter break in his sophomore year of college, nineteen and exhausted.

They were part of the handful of kids still on campus during Christmas. Skyler didn’t want to go home and Noah didn’t have the money to go home. This is also when they met Ava and Phoenix.

The funniest part about the situation was how disparate they had been. Noah was a psychology student, Ava was in a mathematics program with an emphasis in duel engineering, Phoenix was a history major with an international studies minor, and Skyler was an English student considering a Latin American studies minor. Skyler was aware that under different circumstances, their paths never would have crossed. They would also untangle come January. But they kept each other from being lonely during the holidays. That was really all that mattered at the time.

A lot of their time was spent in town. Sometimes the library, getting coffee from downtown. Watching TV in the lounge. Playing worn-out, old board games from the last millennium that Noah found in a closet. Skyler missed his mom, but he didn’t have regrets. Being at school during the holidays spared him a lot of sadness and anxiety. He still thinks it spared his mom a lot of the same thing.

Noah kissed him on New Year’s in the student lounge when the ball dropped on TV. Skyler’s still never sure what actually made him kiss Noah back a little more eagerly than he intended. Sometimes, when they reminisce over the story, Skyler blames the cinnamon whisky Phoenix managed to get. Either way, he kissed him back with minimal blushing. Because fuck it all, he thought.

There was a part of Skyler that felt like life had been on pause those weeks. So it didn’t surprise him when Ava and Phoenix went their separate ways without meaning to. Classes started again, everyone came back, and life continued. The only one that surprised him had been Noah. Who sometimes liked to surprise Skyler after his last class until he finally asked him out on a date.

This was when Noah kissed him again and Skyler’s face rivaled his red hoodie.

*

The thing is that while the problem might not be his, Noah still takes it.

Noah knew about Skyler’s panic attacks long before their relationship reached the point it’s at now. He had known about them long before he first told Skyler that he was in love with him. He had known about them long before he had asked Skyler to move in with him when he moved off campus finally. The only turmoil it had caused in their relationship hadn’t even been when Skyler accidentally punched Noah, but instead during the period of trying to find how to handle them. For Skyler’s sake.

It took months and multiple unpredicted panic attacks. Somewhere over the year, Noah had started to ask where Skyler was when he started to zone out on him. When his breathing changed. When his eyes started to catch the light. Sometimes Skyler pulls himself back when Noah asks. Sometimes he thinks he’s dying. Sometimes he shuts off completely. Always he cries. Always do his hands prick with pins and needles. Always does a ringing in his head mute the rest of the world.

This is why Noah takes him to the lake when Skyler is about to crash into himself now. Because his own thoughts, his own soft cries, his own quiet words, can’t bounce off walls and echo back to him here. The trees take them and leave them.

So after Skyler stops crying in the passenger seat, Noah manages to get him into the grass by the water’s edge.

And when Noah looks at Skyler, he knows that he’s not there. Something in him isn’t there. He’s not Skyler. Noah doesn’t even think he’d respond to gunpoint right now. He wants to stop Skyler from scratching his nails against his jeans because the sound makes him cringe. But he doesn’t. He knows Skyler isn’t even consciously doing it. He watches Skyler’s tangled hair move in the cold breeze. He wants to brush it off his forehead. He wants to tell him that he’s going to be okay, but he doesn’t. Because he can’t.

He just tries to read some of his book. Skyler stares at the water like he’s sleepwalking.

*

A part of Skyler blames his father. Another part of him blames his mother. The majority of him blames himself.

The first time it ever happened around Noah, something cracked. Skyler still doesn’t know if it was in him or in Noah. He thinks maybe it was in the both of them when Skyler’s hands slammed into Noah’s chest to shove him away because he couldn’t breathe. Because he felt so smothered and he couldn’t stop himself. Because it felt like his heart was going to slam out of his fucking chest. Because it felt like he was fucking dying. It might have been in the both of them when Skyler started to cry. When Noah had to haul him out of the bathroom to get him to his dorm, saying “I’m sorry” over and over. Something split that day.

Sometimes Skyler thinks it was him when he woke up and Noah was still there. Trying to write out Skyler’s notes from the class he missed, even though Noah didn’t know shit about actual English literature. He thinks it was him when he heaved a broken breath and then threw up. And Noah only watched with his jaw clenched until Skyler told him that he could feel everything again.

Something collided into Skyler that night. It might’ve been the beginnings of love, if he thinks about it, but it felt like misery when it happened.

That’s the problem now: he’s both in love and miserable.

Skyler is his own collocation.

*

It’s been two hours of absolute quietude and space.

“Hey.”

It’s like waking up in the middle of the night in a pitch black room. Skyler’s blitzed out like he just did five shots. He knows where he is, but getting here felt like a dream. His hands aren’t prickling with pins and needles anymore, but they don’t feel right either. Almost like they still aren’t attached to him. The piercing ring in his ears has subsided to a dull thud. To the pulse in his head. But he can hear Noah shifting by the sound of his denim jacket moving to his left. He takes a deep breath that finally reaches his lungs.

“Where are you?” Skyler actually hears Noah this time, but he’s still disoriented. Skyler’s head feels like it’s full of cotton and his eyes are burning and swollen.

Skyler makes a noise in his throat, eyes closed. Then he leans towards where Noah is. And Noah gets the hint. He shifts closer until Skyler can feel Noah’s outlines hovering around his, his warmth without touching him. He keeps leaning and Noah keeps scooting until his head finally fits into Noah’s shoulder without ever opening his eyes. This is his answer.

Skyler can smell Noah’s cologne. His shampoo. The petrichor soaked into his jacket. A hint of their detergent. Noah slips his hands into the pockets of Skyler’s thin parka jacket, pulling it tighter around him as he overlaps his arms. Skyler starts to angle his head back, his nose brushing behind Noah’s ear. The thing that heaved finally lulls.

“You know I have you, right?” His voice is distinct now. Skyler feels the vibration of his words against his back.

Skyler’s voice cracks when he whispers, “Yeah.”

Noah shifts, his arms closing in around Skyler. He kisses from the top of Skyler’s head down the side of his face to his jaw as Skyler starts tilting his head back more. Skyler’s eyes flutter shut. The sensation of Noah murmuring against his mouth feels like the beginning of a kiss, “I’ll always have you. Okay?”

Skyler’s mouth opens under Noah’s with a hitch. “I know. I know.” Noah finally kisses him. It says a lot that neither of them actually say. It’s slow. Almost lazy. Skyler curls his fingers around the back of Noah’s neck. “Noah,” he breathes. It’s into his mouth, broken. “Noah, Noah.” He just hums in response. “I love you so damn much.”

Noah smiles. Skyler feels his teeth against his lower lip when he does. “I know.”

“Don’t just say I know.” It’s in between a kiss, but Skyler bites softly for emphasis. This is Skyler, this is the boy he’s in love with. Who bites when Noah says he knows instead of saying it back even though he’s exhausted. So Noah laughs. “It’s not romantic.”

Noah’s mouth moves from Skyler’s to his jaw. “You know I would give you the whole fucking world, Skyler.”

“I don’t want the world.”

Against his pulse. “I know that too.”

“Noah,” Skyler grounds out between his teeth. His voice cracks again.

He shifts one more time with another laugh, his mouth fitting back against Skyler’s. It’s another kiss without heat but Skyler still feels a warmth in his stomach. A jolt in the way Noah’s fingers push into his hair to hold him still. Finally, Noah murmurs between their lips, “I love you.”