Quite Quitting

Glenn's Grief

It wasn't the chirping of birds or the sun dancing around my face that woke me but a feeling. A feeling that someone was watching me. I moved my legs first, then my hand to get a sense of where I was, till Alex's musky yet familiar flowy smell reminded me I was in his arms. I opened my eyes to see his face, fast asleep. His face contoured into something innocent as his breath moved his chest lightly. If he was sleeping, then who was watching me? I scanned the parts of the room I could see from my current view from the couch and saw nothing but darkness. It wasn't morning yet. I turned my head slightly, a weird fear creeping in, probably due to the dark, and I paralyzed myself from making sizable movements. Until finally, the dark magically became bearable as my eyes focused on the little brightness coming from the streetlight visible from the windows. This gave me the courage to sit up and turn my head away from Alex.

I let out a soft yelp but quickly transformed it into a breathless howl because I saw Glenn staring straight at me. He looked like he was concentrating hard on something. In this setting, he almost looked like a killer waiting to stab his victim.

"Glenn?" I whispered. No response. "Glenn," I whispered an octave higher. He blinked, or at least it looked like he did. "You okay?"

"Va..va..." He exhaled. Suddenly he wasn't stoically standing. Instead, he crashed onto the floor and crawled toward the couch, grabbing my face. "Valerie!" He howled, gripping my face so hard I felt his fingernails disappear into my cheeks like one's foot does into a pile of snow. "Valerie!" he cried.

I tried to look at Alex, hoping this didn't wake him, but Glenn would not let me budge. Eventually, his nails dug in so hard that I gave up and sat there trying to shush him, but to no avail. "Glenn, please let me go!" I finally said in a normal human tone.

"Don't leave me, Val." He whimpered.

"I am not going anywhere, but you have to quiet down because if Alex wakes up, he will not be happy." I grabbed his hands and tried to pry them off my cheeks, his grip tightened, and I felt some of the jagged nails break my skin.

"Val, I can't live without you! Val, I am so sorry! I really am!" He was now uncontrollably crying, and I felt Alex stir next to me. This was not going to end well, but Glenn did not care. "I love you, Val."

"Okay, okay..." was all I could say. Then, I felt Alex snap up next to me. "Alex," I called out.

"What the fu..." Alex began to yell

"Don't say anything," I warned him. "He is having a bad trip, I think...I think he had drugs on him." I whispered. "He has me gripped. I can't get out. Let me just try to calm him." I grabbed Glenn's hand again, but I caressed them this time. "I am here. I am not going anywhere."

"Promise?" He hopefully asked. I smiled, nodded yes, and returned to pacifying mode, shushing him.

We stayed like that for a while as I felt Alex's restlessness beside me. Finally, Glenn's grip loosened, and he melted onto the floor. The numbness in my cheeks retreated, and a sharp pain replaced it, though thankfully, it did not last long. Alex softly got up and picked Glenn up.

"Let's go," Alex said, guiding his brother back into the room the way he had earlier.

I laid back down, snuggling into a small fuzzy blanket Alex had thrown over us, wondering what time it was. But, unfortunately, my phone was in my pocketbook, in the office, and Alex had no clocks or alarms around his living room. So all I could do was guess that it was somewhere around 3 o'clock ('The Haunting Hour,' Noel would say when we were kids and tried to pull all-nighters in the summer.) due to the fact that it was still pitch black out.

Alex returned to the living room but did not get back onto the couch. Instead, he grabbed keys hanging off the wall next to the door. "Come on, I am taking you home." He angrily said. "You can't be here while he is like this."