The Dirt Whispered, Ch. 16
I wake up to an empty bed. Really, this isn’t an unusual concept for me. I mean, I’ve always woken up alone, because I lived alone. It takes me a moment to realize that Kevin fell asleep beside me, and he’s certainly not there now. I sit up, looking around, and catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror above my dresser. I look as awful as I feel. My head is pounding. I must have had more to drink than I thought. I stumble out of bed, not bothering to change clothes or shower. I have to find Kevin first; I need to know he’s okay.
I hear dishes clinging in the kitchen and steer myself in that direction. All of my cups and mugs are set out on the table, and I stare at them, my confused mind trying to wrap my mind around why they could possibly be there. Kevin turns and starts when he sees me. “Good morning.”
I blink at him. My head throbs harder as I try to think. “What’re you doing?”
He scratches at his hairline awkwardly, and I notice the way the cups are color-coordinated, arranged in rows. “I, um, I was just rearranging the cabinets… Is that okay? I was going to ask, but you were asleep…”
I shake my head, raising my hand to it when I realize how much that hurts. “It’s… Yeah, it’s okay, I guess. This is your place too now.” I move to the medicine cabinet and, upon opening the door, wonder when he woke up, because this is completely organized too, the bottles arranged in alphabetical order and by size. I’m not sure how he even managed that, but I don’t question it, instead just reaching for a bottle of Advil and grabbing a bottle of water out of the fridge. The clock reads 9:27. I shake my head, press a kiss to his temple as I pass him. “When you’re done, come back to bed, okay?”
He smiles at me in a way that I don’t quite understand, maybe gratefully, because I’m just letting him do this. Part of me knows I should be teaching him to ignore some of the bigger things that his OCD reacts to, but another part of me realizes that he’s going to just have to do some of these things to be able to stand this place. I can’t think of any reason why he shouldn’t reorganize the kitchen cabinet so that he can deal with it a little better. If he freaks out in a restaurant about the silverware not matching or something, then we’ll deal with that in a different way.
It’s weird that I’m trying to learn to live with him like he is now. I mean, a few months ago, it looked like he would never even get out of the hospital. I mean, that day I went back to see him, when he had the hospital call, I was all apprehension. I didn’t know if he was going to tell me he was staying there for good or what.
When I walked up the steps, Susie answered my knock, that gentle, rosy smile on her face. “Thank you for coming.” It sounded horrible to hear her say that. I mean, that made it sound like I was doing Kevin a favor by being here or something. That wasn’t it at all. “You were both so upset last week when you left… Kevin’s doctor thought it might be a good idea for you to talk things out.”
Just like that, my heart fell into my stomach and was completely eaten up by the acid. “Oh…” I smiled at her, but it must have not come out right because her face twisted up like I looked like I was about to throw up and she should probably step out of the way. “Well, um, yeah. I want to talk to him anyway, so… Is it okay to go now?”
She nodded, and in another moment, I was standing in the same place I had two weeks before, just out of my brother’s sight, while she announced that I was there. When he murmured an acknowledgment and an approval of my entrance, I went in, and Susie disappeared, and my breath caught at how miserable he looked. His skin was blotchy and red, the circles beneath his eyes dark. He looked even thinner than he had and so exhausted, like he hadn’t slept at all.
“Jesus, Kev…” I breathed out, running my fingers through my hair. “What happened?”
“I…” His voice cracked, and he pushed himself to his feet, like he wanted to come over to me. He just stayed there beside the bed, looking so skinny and sick, his clothes just hanging off of him. “I can’t do this without you, Joe.” It made my heart hurt to hear that. I wanted very badly to feel better because he said it. “I can’t be what you want me to be, but I need you to be my brother.”
I wondered vaguely if that was scripted, if his doctor had told him to say that, but there was something pleading in his eyes that made me think that maybe he really did need me here. So, I nodded. He was Kevin. I loved him more than anyone in the world, and I couldn’t say no to him when he said he needed me. “I can do that.” My voice was softer than I wanted it to be; it sounded uncertain, and I wasn’t. I stepped forward toward him. He tensed with each foot. In another moment, I had my arms around him.
He stood rigid in my embrace, and it was as if I was a stranger on the street hugging him, like he was terrified that if he moved, something awful would happen. Each second that he didn’t respond cut into me like a serrated knife, leaving jagged edges that would never heal. What had I done to him?
Finally, his hands crept up my back, tightened in my shirt, and we were hugging, hugging each other, for the first time in too long. “I missed you.” He whispered.
I let out a little sob at the words, tightening my hold on him. “I missed you too.”
------------------------------------------
That moment was so different that this one now, when the blankets are folding back and Kevin crawls into the bed beside me. I roll over to meet him, and he curls into my arms, pressing a soft kiss to the corner of my mouth. “Sorry I woke you.” He murmurs, nuzzling his nose against my neck.
I hold him tighter. “You didn’t. Not really.” I yawn, smiling lazily at him. “You finish your little project?”
He nods, and with how close we are, I can’t ignore how his legs tangle with mine, like we were just meant to be together like this. “Yeah… I got up to get a glass of water, and… it just drove me crazy.”
“S’okay.” I yawn again, pressing my nose into his hair and taking a deep breath. No matter what, he always smells like coffee. “I’ll just have to get used to putting things back in the cabinet coordinated by colors.”
“You’re so good to me.” Kevin murmurs against my skin.
I chuckle, kissing his temple. “I know of a way you could be really good to me…” The way his muscles go all tense alerts me to how wrong he is no doubt taking that, and I laugh again, holding him closer. “No, no, not that! Not until you want to, babe. I meant… let’s just go back to sleep. I have an awful headache.”
He giggles. My whole body tingles in response to the sound. “Maybe you shouldn’t drink so much.” He scolds me.
“Maybe you shouldn’t talk so much.” I tease back immediately in response. He goes quiet. I wonder if I did something wrong. “Um… I was just joking…”
“Yeah, I know.” There’s a smile in his voice. “You’re just really easy to mess with, and you did tell me to be quiet…”
“Come here…” I roll on top of him, and he smiles up at me. I brush a curl off of his forehead and kiss him softly. “I love you, you know.”
“Even when you’re telling me I talk too much?”
“Kev…”
“I know.” He laughs, backhanding my shoulder. “Learn to take a joke, huh?”
I honestly never thought anyone would ever say that to me. Then again, Kevin’s always surprising me.