I needed to leave this hospital before I go full metal jacket. It’s nearly three in the morning and the thought of sleep is far from my mind.
My mustard yellow corduroy jeans that reached right to my belly button were cute with my black turtleneck shirt, but it wasn’t the most comfortable.
I was thankful I had the night off already, and even more thankful I didn’t have makeup on because I would’ve looked like a raccoon by now.
The door swings open and in walks my brother dressed like he just came from a mission as 007. He needs a haircut. Those moppy curls are looking similar to Harry Styles.
“How is she?”
“Sleeping, she was combative when she first arrived so they gave her medicine to help calm her down. It knocked her out. It’s pneumonia. They are going to keep her for a few days.”
He drops his head, letting out a relieved breath, raking his hands through his hair and down his face. I pull a chair next to me, patting the seat.
Our mother was dwindling by the day. Her speech was slurring, her motor function failing, and now she’s got pneumonia. With an already compromised immune system, it wasn’t looking very good.
This disease takes you so slowly, so torturously that it takes pieces of your family with you. Maybe I was selfish for being angry with Emerson. It wasn’t his fault Mom forgot me, yet I was still upset with my twin.
It’s easy to sit on the outside and judge me for being angry.
I know it’s not his fault that she remembered him.
But every time I looked at Em, drunk or high, I would think…
This is what my mother chose to remember, and this is what he is turning into. Resentment burned in me, something I had never felt for him.
I was angry because why was I so forgettable? What was it about me that was easy to forget and him easy to remember?
He trudges over, falling into the chair with a thud. I lean forward resting my elbows on my knees and looking over at him.
“Who got you to wear a tux?”
He scoffs, “I was at a wedding in Alberta.”
A pause falls between us, filled by the even breathing of our mother and the steady beep of the monitor.
It’s an awkward moment for us, going from siblings who used to talk twenty-four seven to not knowing what to say. My mind was working overtime, should I say something? Which one of his friends got married? I haven’t even met his friends. Should I apologize? Should I hug him?
“I—”
“You—”
We say at the same time.
“You go first,” I say nodding my head toward him.
He sits still for a little bit, gathering himself before he begins.
“How did we get here, Charlie? When did everything go to shit?”
When you decided it was your fault for killing your best friend and when our mother forgot me. I think that’s when you started drinking, really truly drinking, not just occasionally. Then it was coke. It was just too much for me. That’s what I want to say.
“After I flushed the third baggie of coke. When the only things you cared about was hockey and getting fucked up. When Mom looked directly at me and didn’t know who I was, and then asked for you.”
He looks up at me with tears in his eyes, and it takes whatever is left of my heart. It breaks me. I think I’m gonna throw up. I hate confrontation.
“Then help me. I want to be better, but I need help. I feel alone, Charlie. You’re not making shit at the bar. You’re barely making rent. Move in with me, we can help each other. We are all we have. It’s just us.”
I loved my apartment. Pearl and Fitz, even the way my water in the bathroom ran cold for thirty minutes before it got hot. My stuff was scattered everywhere, but it was mine. It was my space to be creative. I loved it.
“You can’t just spring stuff on me like that, you’re always doing that, just throwing stuff at me and expecting me to handle it. I can’t give you an answer right now. I have to think about it.” I rub my temples, moving my hands across my face as I let out a heavy breath.
He nods, a few tears leaking from his eyes. I reach my hand over rubbing his arm. “Hey, I love you, Em. Just let me think about it.”
He hugs me tightly, pulling me into him. He clings to me, like I used to when we were little. He was older by two minutes and growing up he never let me forget that. He was my older brother, and I was the weird little sister. He protected me from people who laughed at me. He made me feel cool even though I knew I wasn’t. I’d never seen him this weak, not like this.
He’d been the strong one, and now it was my turn.
“If I move in, and it’s a major IF, Emerson Vincent, you are quitting everything. Cold turkey. I’m not moving into an apartment that smells like booze.”
“I’m actually staying with a teammate. He has a house and he doesn’t let me have alcohol in the house. He barely lets me have my shoes on in the house,” he scoffs.
I furrow my eyes. “What happened to your apartment?”
“Remodeling, I didn’t like the kitchen.”
“You don’t even cook.”
“Ladies do, and I like when my women are in a nice kitchen. It’s hot.”
I retract from him, scrunching my nose.
“You’re a pig, jersey chasers don’t count as ladies. Does this teammate know you are trying to move your sister into his home?”
Emerson nods, “I’ll tell him, he won’t mind. The house is the size of Texas, plus he stays locked in his room most of the time. He won’t even know you’re there.”
“I’ve been here forever, do you mind staying the night with her? I can pick you up in the morning,” I ask softly, needing a bubble bath, some time to breathe. I want away from this God-forsaken hospital.
Once he agrees a weight lifts off my shoulders. I say my goodbyes, kissing my mom on the forehead and I’m heading out the door before Emerson can change his mind.
I basically skip through the exit doors of the sterile smelling prison and out into the crisp breeze. I wiggle my toes in my black high-top vans, happy to be outside. I was starting to get high off the fumes inside that place.
I move to the side of the doors, stopping to dig my hand inside my bag, feeling around for my pack of cigarettes and lighter. Once I have grasped them, I take them out, pulling one slender stick from the pack and laying it on my lips.
The lighter is refusing to light, so I start to cup my hand around the tiny flame, until I feel prickles of someone’s hands wrapping tightly around my wrists.
I automatically go to jerk back from the intruder, but they have a firm grip on my thin wrists. I think this might be the moment I get murdered.
“You shouldn’t smoke. It’s bad for you.”
That voice.
It’s a little deeper, richer, but I can still hear the rolling Rs and distinct tone.
I had a nearly eidetic memory, but even if I didn’t, I’d still remember him. The one guy, the only person, I’d come into contact with that made the winding gears in my brain stop.
The reason I considered Chicago University in the first place.
Why I followed his work every year after I met him.
And secretly, it was why my heart paused for a moment when a tall, longhaired man crossed the street or stood in front of me in line at a coffee shop.
“Jesus, saving the day again.”