December Boys (BxB) | ✓

Chapter 28 - Of Brothers and Broken Glass

Convincing my mother to leave Axel alone had proved an arduous and infuriating task. We'd spent twenty minutes exchanging heated whispers outside my room while Axel borrowed our shower. I'd tried to thank her for the fruit and crackers she'd brought, but accidentally ended up offending her instead. To make matters worse, she had about a million questions about who Axel was and where he had come from, and I was not equipped to deal with those just then.

When we parted ways that night, my mother promised I had not heard the last of her, and as I watched her close her bedroom door behind her, the magnitude of the situation caught up with me. Axel was in my shower (protecting his battered hands with my mom's plastic gloves), and would soon be sleeping in my room. I spent the next fifteen minutes rearranging the room in an attempt to make it presentable, but nothing I did helped. I was antsy and my thoughts traveled a mile a minute. 

How the heck did I deal with this? Sure, I'd spent the night at Axel's before. It wasn't that big a deal. Thing was, we hadn't slept in the same room then.

Half an hour later, the clock edged closer to 1 am, and Axel was in bed next to me.

Now, it had never actually been my plan for us to end up this way. In fact, our portable bed was all made up next to my own bed, squeezed between my wardrobe and the window, but no boy inhabited it. The simple reason for this was that I knew the thing to be scrawny and hazardous, and wanted to neither sleep in it myself or subject Axel to its horrors. The damned thing had closed itself around Seth last year and traumatized him for life, but my mom refused to buy a new one no matter how graphically we recounted the event. When Seth slept over nowadays, we shared the bed, so naturally, Axel would too.

I was beginning to regret that decision. I'd spent a good amount of time with Axel over the last two months. I'd seen him in different situations, experienced new sides to him, and all around gotten to know him better. One might even describe us as friends if one felt inclined to do so. Yet, even though Seth and I always shared my bigger-than-average bed, it felt different now, with Axel. I was acutely aware of the sound of his breath going in and out, and the way my sheets rustled with every move he made.

I was facing away from him and trying very hard not to think about all this when he spoke up.

"I had a brother."

Axel's voice was a faint and elusive thing, something so intangible it whisked away my previous thoughts and concerns with its arrival. Turning around, sheets moving around me, I watched the lump that was Axel underneath the covers. Were we going to talk about things after all?

"What happened?" I asked, fearing every syllable. I rarely felt like I was walking on eggshells around Axel anymore. Even tonight, even when he was trembling and surrounded by shattered glass and belongings, I hadn't been afraid of misstepping. I did now.

Axel stayed silent for a while, still as stone under my blanket. I could see the faint outline of his body, a tuft of black hair peeking out near the pillow, and his bandaged hand by his side.

"Dead," Axel said at last. "Two years ago today."

I stilled.

"I'm sorry."

"I don't... deal well with this day," he continued, speaking as if it was hard work. "It's been two years and I still..." His shoulders tensed underneath the covers. "I see him everywhere."

I sat up and faced him, blanket falling off of me. The room had grown dim with October darkness, and there was a low humming sound coming from my PS4. It would have been a perfectly normal night if it weren't for the other boy in my bed.

"I think that's normal," I ventured to say, biting my lip. I didn't have much of a track record with consoling people. My limited experiences were that I was bad at it. "You say it like two years is a long time, but it's not."