Chapter Text
Appointment.
Public hospital.
Clearance.
Procedure.
Month.
Your body goes still and
Kenny sits cross-legged on the floor near you. Stan shifts closer. Kyle takes the chair opposite, laptop deliberately left closed on the table.
“Not a full interrogation,” Kyle reassures, and you just stare at him. He winces.
“Sorry. Poor choice of words.”
“Yeah man,” Kenny snorts, “Great bedside manner, doc.”
Kyle ignores him, eyes still on you. “Just tell us what happened. In whatever order you remember.”
Whatever order.
That is good.
Maybe it is worse.
Order has become a thing other people expect from you.
You look down at the bowl.
“They didn’t do it,” you murmur.
Kenny’s jaw tightens.
Kyle nods once, then clarifies. “The procedure.”
“Yeah.”
“Did they say why?”
You try to remember.
The room with the doctor.
The screen.
The interruption about medication
The consultant.
The other doctors.
White coats
“They couldn’t,” you say.
Kyle waits.
You know he is waiting for more.
You know there is more.
More exists. You can feel it, a mass of information somewhere behind a locked door. If you could just find the handle.
“They said the site needed…” You frown. “A specialist. Or a machine. Or the right– I dunno. Imaging, maybe.”
“Ultrasound?” Kyle murmurs.
“Maybe.”
He nods again, but there is tension in the movement.
Kenny’s hand curls around his own ankle.
Stan watches your face.
“And they didn’t know that before?” Kyle asks.
The edge is there.
Not at you.
But near you.
You flinch anyway.
Kyle sees it and his expression softens immediately. “Sorry. I’m sorry. I’m not angry at you.”
“I know.”
You do know. That does not stop your body from hearing anger and preparing to become responsible for it.
You try to keep going before he can feel worse
“They said… there were two… uh. Places they could do it. One… was easier. But he didn’t think it would work. So he didn’t–” You pause. “Want to. Or he could, but didn’t. Because wrong place.”
“Okay,” Kyle says, very softly, very forced, very tight.
“Fuck,” Kenny breaths. Stan’s eyes flick to him.
“Dude.”
“What? They made ‘em go there just to not do the damn thing.”
“Kenny,” Kyle’s tone carries a warning with it.
“No, I’m–” Kenny stops himself. His eyes flick to you. He exhales. “Sorry. Keep going, hun.”
Keep going.
You nod.
The phrase helps, strangely.
“They told me about the flare.”
Kenny’s expression stills.
Kyle’s brows draw together. “What flare?”
“The pain flare. After the procedure.”
Kyle sits back slightly.
Not because he is relaxed.
Because something has hit him.
“They didn’t explain that at the initial appointment,” he mutters.
You look at him.
That feels right.
Does it?
You do not know.
“I thought maybe they did and I forgot.”
“No,” Kyle responds lightning quick. Too fast. Too hard.
Then, he softens. “No. I would have written it down. They didn’t explain that.”
Something in you loosens and
“So I didn’t forget?”
Kyle’s expression breaks around the edges.
“No, love. You didn’t forget.”
You look down.
The bowl blurs.
Kenny makes a small sound under his breath.
Stan’s hand moves like he wants to touch your shoulder, then stops. “How bad is the flare supposed to be?”
You hear the doctor’s awkward laugh.
Some.
Most.
Almost all.
Bad.
Very bad
Your fingers tighten around the spoon
“At first he said some people get it,” you say. “Then most. Then almost everyone. And then I asked how bad, and he laughed.”
Kyle sharpens into stillness.
And Kenny very quietly, voice gone to gravel, says low, “He laughed.”
“Not like–” You shake your head, but the motion makes the room shift slightly and you feel your body tilt to correct, and then you tilt back to overcorrect, and end up on Stan’s shoulder. You pull yourself straight and nobody comments, but you feel the way Stan stiffened.
“Not mean. Awkward. Like he didn’t want to say it. Like it was bad and he didn’t want to…”
Finish.
Tell me.
Look at me.
Words scatter
Stan’s voice is soft. “He didn’t wanna say how bad it was?”
You nod.
“Yeah.”
“And then?” Kyle’s voice is so hard it hurts.
“I…” Your fingers wring together, “I said okay.”
Kenny closes his eyes.
You repeat yourself. “I said let’s do it.”
“Because you thought it was happening then,” Kyle surmises, slowly.
You nod again.
The motion feels delayed, like someone else has pulled a string.
“Because if it doesn’t work, then…” You stare at the bowl. “Then it counts.”
Kyle’s hands curl into fists on his knees. Kenny’s expression goes strange in a way you can’t parse.
Stan looks confused for a second, then horrified when he understands.
“It counts,” he repeats.
“Data point,” you shrug.
The phrase tastes metallic.
“If it doesn’t work, they know. Then they… They can stop saying maybe it’s that. Maybe inflammation. Maybe the old thing. Maybe I didn’t try enough. Maybe
Your train of thought jerks.
Stops. You stare at nothing
The next sentence does not come
A silence forms around you.
Kenny fills it carefully. “So you were gonna go through something they basically told you would hurt like hell, just to prove it wouldn’t help?”
You consider that. It sounds stupid when he says it.
It sounds true.
“I have to.”
“No,” Kenny grounds out, and the word comes out too sharp.
You blink.
His face twists.
“I mean– fuck, I didn’t mean no like that. I just mean…” He drags both hands through his hair, frustrated and helpless and not hiding either very well. “Jesus Christ.”
Kyle’s voice is low. “Kenny.”
“No, I know.” Kenny looks at you. “I know. I’m sorry.”
You are not sure what he is apologizing for yet.
The room has started to flatten, and the lights are getting brighter. They’re coming from the window. Dawn pales and filters
Stan says your name. You look at him.
“You still with us?” he asks, quietly, scared, and fuck could you just be fucking normal
“Yes,” you respond flatly.
He gives a small, worried nod. “Okay. Sorry. Dumb question.”
“It’s not.”
“Still.”
Kyle presses two fingers to the bridge of his nose. “Did they schedule the appointment?”
“They said they would call.”
His hand lowers.
“They said they would call,” he repeats, slow, like he was testing the weight of the words on his tongue.
You nod.
“When?”
“One month.”
“No, I meant– when would they call?”
You stare at him.
The question echoes, then slips.
When would they call?
When would they
“I don’t know.”
Kyle looks like he is swallowing glass.
“Did they give you a paper? A date? A referral number?”
You try to remember leaving.
The corridor.
The bathroom.
The nurse.
Taxi stand
Music.
Floor
“I don’t know,” you repeat, flat.
Kenny’s voice goes soft in the dangerous way. “That’s alright.”
Kyle looks at him sharply. Kenny looks back, challenging. For a second, their argument happens silently over your head.
Then Kyle’s gaze returns to you, gentler with effort. “That’s not your fault.”
You nod.
You don’t believe him, exactly
The belief is not available to you.
But you register that he said it.
“They didn’t help with the meds either,” you add suddenly, because the thought surfaces and you grab it before it can sink or before you do
“I asked. He said no authority. I asked… timing. No authority. I asked who. He said– said call– to call.”
Kyle’s expression hardens. “You already called.”
“Yeah.”
“Did you tell him that?”
You look down.
No.
Did you?
Maybe.
No.
“I don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
The question isn’t cruel.
Still, it lands wrong.
Your eyes burn, but distantly, as if someone else’s body is preparing to cry in another room.
“I don’t know.”
Kyle inhales sharply, and then immediately looks like he hates himself for it.
“No,” He sighs. “That came out wrong.”
“I don’t know,” you repeat, because it is the only answer and because all the others have gone. “I just didn’t. I thought– I think I was trying to ask something else, and… I thought I could call later. Or maybe I didn’t think. I don’t know. He already said no. So.”
The room goes quiet.
Kyle rubs both hands over his face. Stan looks at you in a way that is almost physically painful.
Then Kenny says it.
Too bluntly.
Too fast.
“If the meds are fucking you up this bad, then stop taking them.”
The sentence falls into a pit in your chest that you hadn’t noticed had been cored out.
No one moves.
You look at him.
For a second, you do not understand why the words make your chest go cold.
Stop taking them.
So simple.
So clean.
So obvious that it feels like mockery, even though you know it is not. Kenny sees harm and wants harm removed.
Still.
The words hurt.
“I can’t,” you say, flat.
Kenny leans forward. “Why not?”
Kyle tries to interrupt, “Kenny–” but he just keeps speaking.
“No, I’m asking. I’m not trying to– I just don’t understand why they’d make you keep taking something that’s doing this to you.”
The defensiveness does not come as anger. It comes as fog.
As a slow, awful pressure behind your eyes. As the sensation of trying to hold entire nights worth of research in hands that have since gone numb.
“Because it has to build,” you test the shape of the words in your lips. The ones you’ve told yourself so many times in your head you no longer recognize them.
Kenny’s brows pull together.
“The medication. It has to build in my system. And if it works, then… then it works. And if it doesn’t, that’s also…” You search for the word. “Information.”
Kyle looks away.
Stan whispers, “Another data point.”
You nod.
“Yeah.”
Kenny’s mouth tightens.
“So they get to hollow your brain out for five months and call it science?”
“Kenny,” Kyle’s tone is sharper now. Kenny darts his eyes to him, narrowed.
“What.”
“Do not make them defend the treatment plan that’s doing this to them–”
“I’m not–”
“You are.”
Kenny stops.
His eyes flick to you.
Something like realization cuts through his face.
You are not angry.
That kind of feels worse.
You almost wish you were.
Anger would give you shape. Anger would let you throw something clean across the room and hear it break.
Instead, you sit there with the spoon in your hand and the bowl cooling in front of you, trying to remember how to explain why you’re eating the poison and not the oatmeal in a way that does not make you sound complicit in your own destruction.
“I need it to work,” you manage.
It is not the sentence you mean
But it is the one that comes.
Kenny’s face crumples slightly.
You keep looking at the bowl.
“I need something to work.”
No one speaks.
Your voice continues without permission, softer now.
“If I stop, then maybe… I didn’t try long enough. And then maybe when I go back, they’ll say… they’ll say I didn’t give it a chance. Or that they can’t… know. Or that there’s nothing– nothing to conclude. And then I’ll have to start again. Or wait again. Or
…?
The thought fails and your jaw closes slowly.
You stare at your hands.
The spoon has left a shallow crescent pressed into your palm.
Stan shifts beside you, awkward and careful. “That makes sense.”
You look at him.
He seems startled by your attention, then rushes to clarify. “Not like–” he sighs, breath coming sharp. “Not that it’s good. It isn’t. It sucks, and it makes sense you feel trapped. I mean.”
His breathing is fast, faster than is reasonable for a conversation on the living room floor.
“I mean, I get why just stopping doesn’t feel like an option.”
Kenny looks down. Kyle’s shoulders lower slightly.
You nod.
The relief is small. So small it almost does not
But it is there.
Kenny rubs both hands down his face.
“M’sorry.”
You blink at him.
“I said it ‘cause I got scared,” he says. His voice is rougher now, the drawl scraping against something honest. “I see you not eatin’, sleepin’, not remembering and my brain went, okay, get rid of the thing hurting ‘em. But that was stupid– well, not stupid, but not–”
“Not enough?” Stan supplies, gently.
Kenny nods. “Yeah. Not enough.”
You look at him.
He looks miserable.
You do not want him miserable.
That thought is clear.
Finally, something clear.
“It’s okay,” you say.
Kenny winces. “Don’t let me off that easy.”
“I don’t know how hard to let you off.”
The sentence leaves your mouth before you can examine it.
For a second, no one reacts.
Then Kenny laughs.
Not because it is funny, not exactly, but because it is you, and because the alternative might be crying.
“Fair,” he murmurs softly.
Kyle leans forward. “I think we should seek a second opinion.”
You knew it was coming. Still, the words press against you.
Private hospital.
New doctor.
New cold room.
New explanation.
New cold hands poking and prodding
New bill.
New possibility of being told the same thing in a different, more expensive chair.
“... I don’t want to.”
Kyle winces. “I know.”
You shake your head. Your voice comes shaky. “No, I really don’t want to.”
“I know,” Kyle repeats. “But if the public hospital can’t even tell you when they’re scheduling the procedure–”
The sentence lengthens.
Or maybe you lose it.
Public hospital.
Scheduling.
Procedure.
Escalation.
Records.
Private referral.
Insurance.
Options.
You try to follow, but the words begin to stack strangely, each one arriving before the last has been processed, until the whole thing becomes a pile of urgent sound.
Your gaze drifts to Kyle’s lips.
It is moving.
You love his lips.
That is a strange thought to have right now.
You wonder what he is saying.
Then you realize you have missed several sentences.
“Sorry,” you say.
Kyle stops immediately.
“What?”
“... I lost the...” Your brow scrunches.
His face changes.
“Oh,” he murmurs. Then softer, “Alright.”
Kenny looks at Stan.
Stan looks at you.
You feel the room witnessing the gap.
Shame comes late, blurred at the edges
“I’m sorry. I’m trying, I am,” you add, though no one accused you of not trying.
Kyle’s voice gentles. “I know.”
“I want… to understand.”
“I know.”
“I just
Your lips remain parted for a second too long.
Kyle closes his eyes briefly.
And when he opens them, the fight and anger has bled from his face, leaving only grief and something like guilt.
“We don’t have to decide right now,” he murmurs.
That should help.
It does. A little.
Kenny shifts closer. “Yeah. We can just… sit for a bit.”
Stan nods quickly, too eager to be useful. “Yeah. Or you can sleep. Not like a command. Just if you want. Or we can sit. Or eat more. Or not eat more. Whatever feels…”
He trails off, embarrassed.
You look at him.
Whatever feels
Nothing feels like anything clean enough to choose.
Still, the offer is soft.
You place the spoon down.
It clinks against the bowl.
“I’m tired,” you admit.
Three bodies react at once.
Kyle stands.
Kenny’s hand reaches for you.
Stan looks relieved and scared in the same breath.
Not because sleep will fix it.
Because sleep is at least a need they understand.
“Bed?” Stan asks, gently.
You nod.
Then hesitate.
The laptop is closed on the table.
Your document is inside it.
The sentence unfinished.
The thought still
Still what?
You cannot remember.
Kenny follows your gaze. “It’ll be there later.”
You look at him.
He smiles, but it hurts.
“I promise,” he murmurs. “The document ain’t going anywhere.”
That almost makes you smile. It doesn’t.
Kyle gathers the medication log and your phone. Stan takes the bowl. Kenny helps you stand, slow and careful, one hand at your elbow and the other hovering near your waist in case your body forgets how gravity works.
Yeah, there it is.
For a moment, the room tips.
Kenny steadies you.
“Easy,” he murmurs.
You lean against him because he is there, because your body understands him more quickly than it understands instructions.
As he guides you toward the bedroom, Kyle says, very quietly–
“I believe you.”
You turn your head.
He is behind you, holding the folder against his chest like armor he has forgotten to put down.
“... What?”
His throat moves.
“I believe you,” he repeats, clearer now. “About your body. About the medication. About all of it. We’ll figure out the rest later, but I believe you. We believe you. Even if the doctors don’t.”
The words enter slowly.
Not all the way.
Not yet.
But they enter.
Somewhere.
You nod.
Kenny’s hand tightens around your arm.
Stan opens the bedroom door and steps aside, awkward and gentle and so careful it makes you ache.
The bed waits.
You are so tired you can barely feel relief.
But when you sit, and Kenny kneels to help with your socks, and Stan puts water on the nightstand with the straw angled toward you, and Kyle sets the folder down instead of opening it, something in the room changes.
Not fixed.
Not better.
Only paused.
For the first time since they came home, no one asks you to explain.
You lie down.
The boys arrange themselves around the bed in the uncertain choreography of people trying not to crowd you while also refusing to be far away.
Stan lingers by the nightstand, fingers tapping nervously against his thigh.
“Can we stay until you fall asleep?” he murmurs.
You look at him.
He looks like he expects you to say no and is prepared to accept it.
“Always,” you respond. And you mean it, more than you’ve ever meant anything.
His shoulders soften, and dip in relief.
His shoulders drop.
“Okay,” he sighs.
Then, quickly, with a small embarrassed wince, “Sorry. That one’s good, right?”
Your mouth twitches.
“... Yeah,” you whisper, “That… one’s good.”
Stan smiles, small and relieved.
Kenny huffs a soft laugh into the blanket.
Kyle, from the chair beside the bed, covers his face with one hand.
For a moment, through the fog, through the pain, through the dull static still eating at the edges of thought, you can almost feel the shape of the room.
Water.
Bed.
Warmth.
Them.
You close your eyes before the shape can disappear.
The public hospital does not call.
Not the next day.
Not the day after.
Your phone stays beside you anyway.
On the table.
By the bed.
In the bathroom, balanced on the sink, screen facing up.
Then in your hand.
Then beside Kyle’s laptop, though you do not remember giving it to him.
Tap.
No missed call.
Lock.
Tap.
No missed call.
Lock
Medication alarm.
Promotional email.
You were looking at your phone for a reason
What was it
Kenny: hydrate, coward
No missed call.
Lock.
At some point, Kyle covers your hand with his.
Warm
“You’re going to burn a hole through it,” he murmurs.
You look at him.
It takes a second.
“Oh.”
“I’ll keep it near me,” he promises. “If they call, I’ll bring it to you.”
Your fingers stay curved around the missing phone.
Then your hand drops to your lap.
“Okay.”
Kyle calls the hospital.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
He writes everything down.
Date.
Time.
Number called.
Person spoken to.
Outcome.
No update.
No appointment reflected in system.
Advised to wait.
Advised to call back.
On the second call, he is still polite.
On the third, he is not less polite.
He is worse.
His voice goes calm. Even. Hard. Like the sky before a storm.
“No,” he starts, low. “I understand that you personally cannot schedule it from this line. I am asking who can.”
A pause.
“No. I’m not asking whether the patient will be contacted eventually. I’m asking whether the referral has been processed.”
Another pause.
Kenny looks over from the kitchen. “Oh,” he grins, “somebody’s boutta get politely disassembled.”
Stan spends an inordinate amount of energy trying to keep his lip from twitching. “Please don’t make him laugh right now.”
“I’m admiring him. If he laughs, that's on him.”
“You’re heckling the hospital.”
“I’m not, I’m scared for them, and I don’t even work there.”
Kyle closes his eyes in a long, slow blink.
Then opens them.
“No,” he grits out, “A vague instruction to wait is not a care plan.”
You look at the table.
There is a snack bar on top of your phone.
No.
Your phone is with Kyle.
No– the snack bar is on the table
Chocolate chip.
The hospital has not called
Kyle exhales slowly through his nose, pinching his brow, “Could you please give me the direct line for the department handling the procedure list?”
Pause.
“Then could you give me the name of the department?”
Pause.
“The email?”
Pause.
His jaw sets.
“I see. So there is no date, no visible appointment, no estimated timeline, no direct contact, and no escalation pathway available from this line.”
Kenny whistles softly.
Stan rolls his eyes, lip quirked, “Dude.”
“What? I like when he gets all scary and organized,” and then low, “might need to see a shrink about that.”
Kyle flips him the bird without looking away from the call.
Kenny raises both hands in surrender, trying to look innocent and failing miserably.
The woman on the line says something cheerful about checking back in a few working days.
Few.
Working.
Days.
You try to count them
Loose numbers
“Thank you for your time.” Kyle’s tone is even, but each word feels punctuated by the weight of monsoons behind them.
He hangs up.
The room stays quiet.
“Alright,” Kenny announces, getting up. “Time to start calling people sweetheart in a threatening way.”
Stan winces. “Please don’t.”
“No promises, sweetheart.”
Kyle sets the phone down. He sighs.
“We’re going private.”
Private.
Appointment.
Doctor.
Again.
The word private makes it sound gentler than it is.
It is not gentle. It is only faster.
“... Ok.”
The appointment appears in two days, because private care apparently moves with the speed of money. Kyle prints everything: scans, medication list, symptom timeline, questions, duplicates, highlights, tabs. Kenny makes one joke about him becoming a clipboard. Stan puts a snack bar into your bag with the grim, embarrassed focus of a man who has learned one thing and intends to use it.
You do not eat it.
The first doctor is kind.
He listens. He frowns in the right places. He says, “That sounds very difficult,” with enough sincerity that you believe he means it.
It does not do anything.
His office is too bright. His desk is white. There is a plant with glossy leaves and a framed certificate on the wall, and when he asks for the history, your mouth opens around nothing useful.
Kyle gives dates. You give fragments. Kenny adds the parts you soften. Stan speaks only once, when the doctor asks about daily function and you say, “It’s not that bad.”
“They forget to eat,” Stan blurts.
Everyone looks at him.
His face twists with discomfort, but he keeps going. “And drink water. And sleep. Not always. Just… sometimes. More than sometimes.”
The doctor writes it down.
Pen moving.
Paper accepting.
Your life becoming notes.
In the end, the kind doctor cannot do much. He can review. He can sympathize. He can refer.
“I think you need to see the specialist,” he says.
Another door behind this door.
You leave with a referral, a receipt, and the strange sensation of having spent money to be moved sideways.
In the taxi, Kenny sighs, “Well. At least he was nice.”
Kyle exhales roughly. “Nice is not a treatment plan.”
“Didn’t say it was. Just saying, if we’re collecting useless doctors, at least this one had manners.”
Stan laughs under his breath, then looks guilty.
You watch the buildings slide past the window, your reflection laid faintly over them, pale and not quite lined up.
The specialist comes quickly too.
Faster than the public hospital call that still has not come.
No missed call.
No appointment.
No movement.
This doctor is different. Not warm. Specific.
Where. How long. What changed. What makes it worse. What has failed.
He looks at the scans.
He does not treat their nothingness as proof of yours.
“These don’t show everything,” he says, thinking.
Kyle’s hand closes around yours. Kenny goes quiet. Stan leans forward like the sentence itself has become something to hold.
The specialist cannot give certainty, because certainty is apparently not a medical service anyone provides. But he says there is something there. Something wrong. Something that may need further investigation.
A procedure.
Maybe surgery later.
Insurance. Scheduling. Diagnostic value.
Next step.
Next step.
Next step.
The phrase repeats until it stops meaning movement and starts meaning another version of waiting.
Kyle asks about the medication.
The specialist listens.
Actually listens.
He says the cognitive symptoms sound significant. He says they should not be brushed off.
Should not be brushed off.
Kyle writes it down.
“So, translation,” Kenny drawls, “there’s something fucked, but we don’t know what flavor yet?”
Kyle sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Kenny.”
The specialist pauses.
Then, to his credit, he responds, “Broadly, yes.”
Kenny leans back, satisfied. “See? I’m basically a medical interpreter.”
“You said ‘something fucked.’”
“And he understood me.”
You almost smile.
Almost.
The specialist offers to arrange the next step.
Not someday.
Not wait for a call.
Arrange.
You say yes, because yes is the bridge forward.
Because no is staying here.
Because the public hospital has gone quiet and your body has not.
On the way out, Kyle handles the forms.
Kenny handles payment and says, “Damn. Private healthcare really said emotional damage but itemized.”
Stan walks beside you, close but not touching until you reach for his sleeve.
Then his arm is there immediately.
Waiting.
Ready.
“You okay?” he asks. Then grimaces.
“Sorry. Bad question.”
The hallway is too bright.
Room is too cold.
The floor reflects the lights back up at you.
Your name is on a paper in Kyle’s hand.
It’s cold
Your next appointment is on a card.
Your snack bar is in your bag.
Still unopened.
“I don’t know,” you say.
Stan nods, awkward and solemn.
“Yeah. I mean, fair.”
At home, you sleep.
Hard.
Badly.
Like a body switching off without asking permission.
When you wake, it is dark
Or evening.
Or the curtains are closed.
The appointment card is on the table.
Insurance forms beside it.
Kyle’s notes stacked neatly.
Your phone screen-up.
Still no missed call from the public hospital.
For a moment, you cannot remember which doctor said what.
Kind one.
Referral one.
Useful one.
Specialist one.
Private one.
White rooms.
Rolling chairs.
Careful voices.
Your pain made chronological.
Your body made billable.
There is a next step now.
A real one.
You should feel relieved.
You lie still.
Somewhere in the apartment, Kenny laughs softly at something Stan says.
Kyle answers from the kitchen, low and tired.
A glass clinks.
Water runs
sounds are real
probably
You stare at the ceiling.
Private doctor.
Specialist
something wrong with body
mind doesn’t know yet
Next step.
You repeat it silently until the words flatten.
Something wrong.
Don’t know yet
next step
Something wrong.
don’t know yet
don’t know
you dont fucking know
where are you
You cannot read.
Not tonight
the words wont sit still
slip when you look at them too directly
black marks split blur refuse to become useful
Your head is spinning. Eyes are looking at colour in the corner of your vision where there should not be blue and yellow smeared over the paragraph and they drag across the same line four times before you understand you have no understanding.
You put the book down.
there are other ways to be a person
Audiobook
That is easier. Sound doesn’t need eyes. It can happen while you lie down. You press play. Lie back and close your eyes.
The room tilts and spins and shifts under you.
No
you shift
no
something shifts
The bed is under you. The pillow is beneath your head. Blanket over legs.
Phone beside
water on night stand
There are voices outside the room.
Kyle in the kitchen, probably. Kenny somewhere near him. Stan laughing softly. Or saying something. Maybe both. The sounds are real. Probably.
You keep your eyes closed.
The audiobook begins
you let go
A voice. Calm. Professional. Warm in the wrong way. Enters the brain like an intruder. At first, it is fine. At first, it is words.
A sentence.
You know sentences.
A name
a place
ve rb
You follow. Sort of. Enough. Then the words start curling and flattening and spearing heat into your brain and flat and curl and sto p
Eyes open
ce iling there
voice sound rhythm
Pressu re
Mouth moving in another world. The narrator speaks with dreadful patience, each syllable round and clear and meaningless and the clarity makes it worse because you know the words mean something. You can hear it. You can hear the shape of sense of grammar of language
b ut noth ing op ens
nothing ent ers
rise no it shouldnt be there
She it he she it he it if when he unless while she they
You know grammar. There is a sentence and you know it is a sentence because it has the shape of one. Subject verb verb clause
Then the narrator says something and a white-hot spike pierces through you.
Wrong.
tense word
wrong t ense wro ng wor d
he stop it when stop fair weather thing when why
No. Wait. The sentence is correct. The sentence is fine
You are wrong
You are wrong
you are wron g
The fear comes before the thought finishes.
Sharp and bright and stupidly physical,
the same sick little lightning that goes through you when a line breaks
wrong, when grammar stumbles, when a
word sits crooked in a sentence and your whole mind flinches
to fix it before you
can stop yourself.
But there is nothing to fix.
You open your eyes. The ceiling is there.
The voice keeps going.
The words go low where they should go high. High where they should go low.
he stop it they thing please please stop fair whether weather fuck stop wither when why please
They fold
at the wrong joints. They bloom at the wrong
ends. They come clear and round and patient, each syllable polished smooth, and shatter
ing only when it reaches your brain and no, stop, because you can hear the grammar. You can hear the shape. You can hear language.
Not language
not understanding just so u nd
y ou can n ot rea c h it
.
The voice rises. Falls. Rises. Falls. Not speech. Chanting. Something you don’t understand and are not meant to.
Room thins. Voice goes on. Sentence goes on.
You know it is a sentence. You know it has meaning. You know words are supposed to open. You know they are supposed to unfold in your head and become thought, image, plot story self
They do not.
They curl.
They flatten.
they spear heated
th ey chant
t hey chan t
Th ey ch an t
And that is what breaks you.
The first sound is small.
A hook of breath.
No.
No.
Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. To anything.
screaming at you.
Something is wrong Something is wrong Something is wrong
You sit up too fast and the colors
drag after you
The lamp streaks
The wall smears
The blanket has your legs.
Your legs.
Caught.
No
You kick once, panic-white, and pain
flashes up through the body like proof of the
body, bad proof, bad hurt wrong proof, flesh
proof, and the voice keeps speaking.
Still calm. Still warm. Still wrong. It fills the room like water filling a box.
Phone.
Where
Phone
Hand
Nightstand
Glass
You hit something.
A clatter
Water.
Cold on your wrist.
The voice continues
You cannot find
wordless screaming in your ear in your face breath on your cheeks just screaming screaming SCREAMING SCREAMING RUN
you cannot
w h er e a re
The door opens.
Shape
Person shape Human
Hand on frame
Stan is there. He is there suddenly
and you do not understand how he got from outside to inside. Doorway, floor, bed.
His face pales with fear, hair messy, one hand already reaching for you.
“Hey,” he murmurs.
Voice from phone Voice from Stan Two voices No. One stopped? No
The chanting still
stop stop stop stop stop Stop STOP
Stan’s mouth moves. His face changes. Worry. You know. Eyebrows up and pulled. Mouth gone soft. Eyes too open.
“Hey. Hey,” he whispers, urgently, “what happened?”
He comes to the bed. Too fast. Not fast enough. His hand lands on your shoulder. Warm. Real. Weight. You jerk into it or away from it or both.
“Does it hurt?” he murmurs. His voice is scared but trying not to be.
“Where does it hurt? Babe, where does it hurt?”
Hurt
where
It does hurt everything hurts
n o
its the voice
You look at the phone, and Stan follows your eyes. He grabs it. The audiobook stops.
Silence drops.
“There,” he mutters quickly, “It’s off. I turned it off.”
Off.
The word does not attach
Stan’s hand is still on your shoulder. His thumb moves once, then stops, like he is afraid the wrong motion might make you worse. His face is close now. Too close. Not enough. His eyes flick over you: your face, your hands, the spilled water, the blanket twisted around your legs.
“Where is it– the pain? Is that it? The dizziness?”
Questions come apart in the air.
“The… sentence was right,” you whisper and you’re blinking hard and long and trying to focus your eyes on one point but failing because one point keeps moving and spinning
Stan goes still. His hand tightens.
“What?”
You look at him.
For one second, he is not a whole person. He is hand. Shoulder. Black hair. Eyes. A mouth making sounds. Fear in the mouth. Fear in the eyes. Stan-shaped. Stan but not assembled.
“The wrong word,” you insist, begging him to understand.
His face changes again. Confusion now – fear under it. Trying. He is trying so hard you can see his jaw working with the effort.
“Okay,” he whispers slowly, but it is not an okay that believes itself. “Okay, was it– did something happen with the audiobook?”
Audio tool
book
no
Voice chant wrong high low wrong
y ou re w ro ng
You breathe. It catches. You look at his eyes. Clear eyes stare worried into blank ones. Then you ask
“Where are you?”
And Stan goes cold. Immediately. The color pulls from his face. His jaw locks. His hand freezes on you, fingers spread over your shoulder like he has forgotten that his hands could move.
“I’m here,” he swallows shakily. Quiet and careful and trembling. “I’m right here,” Stan-shaped whispers.
No, no that is not the question
or it is
is?
what did y ou ask
“Where are you,” it comes out smaller, further away.
Stan’s breath catches. Then he whips his head toward the hall.
“Kyle,” he murmurs, loud.
Not loud enough.
A beat as his eyes scan your form.
Then again, breathless now – alarm shattering his voice.
“Kyle–!”
Footsteps. Fast. A chair scrapes.
Kenny’s voice.
“What happened?” It is urgent, hard, from somewhere outside, low and sharp – and then the room is just doorway, light, motion, bodies.
Kyle first, looking stricken.
Red
eyes
hand on doo rframe m ou th tig ht diz zy
He sees Stan’s face and his own changes before he even looks at you. All the sleep, all the tired, all the private clinic exhaustion disappears into something clear and controlled and frightened.
Kenny behind him.
Hair sleeve bare feet on floor
His expression changes for one second, then shuts around fear. Not hiding it. Holding it. Making it smaller so he doesn’t scare you more.
“What happened.” Kyle’s tone is hard but is betrayed by a tremble. Stan does not take his hand off your shoulder even as he responds.
“I…” he takes a breath to stabilize himself, “I don’t know. I– I thought it was pain, they were crying, then–”
Something tightens on you. Stan looks, wounded and scared, to Kyle.
“They asked me where I was.”
Kyle’s eyes flick to you. To the phone. To the spilled water. To the blankets tangled in your sheets. To your hands. He comes closer.
“Hey,” he murmurs. “Can you look at me?”
Look
c an you can
You look at his hands.
“No,” Kyle shakes his head, shifts closer, and says softer, but firmer– “My face, love. Look at my face.”
fac e
you lif t your ey es
Kyl e co me s tog eth er s low ly
cu rls
eye s.
mouth.
Person.
Static fuzzes your vision and curls and explodes in little clusters of colour and you struggle to hold the shape of him together. You know him, but knowing is thin and fragile and you keep sinking and surfacing and sinking again and you need to fucking hold on
“Did you fall?” He grits out through his teeth, and his hands are shaking, and Kyle please don’t shake
Fall you think of water falling the glass. The sound.
“I spilled… it,” you say, sounding drowsy and drugged and your speech dragging low.
Kyle pauses. His expression shifts. Not frustration. Adjusting. He understands the answer is wrong and unrelated and hides that away somewhere behind his eyes. Kenny’s mouth presses tight. Stan’s thumb twitches against your shoulder.
“That’s okay,” Kyle murmurs. “The water doesn’t matter. Did your body fall? Did you hit the ground?”
Ground.
Hit.
Body.
You look down.
Body is here.
Body did not.
“... No.”
“Did you hit your head?”
Head.
You touch your hair.
Kenny’s face crumples slightly at that. He swallows it fast.
“No,” you say.
“Any extra medication?”
Extra.
Medication.
Boxes.
Log.
Cells.
Wrong time.
No time.
You stare at him.
The question becomes shapes.
Any.
Extra. “Kyle,”
Medication.
Any extra. “Ken, get the log.”
Extra is more.
Medication is
log
“No,” the word seeps from your tongue, because the word ‘log’ lands late and wrong, because the spreadsheet is a liar that will tell on you, because the pills are proof and accusation and you do not know what you have done. “No, no… don’t, I didn’t… I don’t know– I think I, I– no–”
Kenny is already at the table. But he stops the exact moment you say no, body freezing up. One hand on the notebook. Laptop. Rooted. His eyes flick to Kyle uncertainly.
Kyle looks at him, expression pinched, then back at you.
“No one’s angry,” Kyle says. “We’re not checking because you’re in trouble.”
Trouble.
Angry.
Checking.
Your breath shakes on the exhale.
Stan sits beside you on the bed now, folding himself close to you, one knee on the mattress. Arm around your back because you have started leaning without noticing, and his face is pale. His lips are parted and he looks like he’s trying to breathe for both of you and failing.
Kenny comes back slower. Empty-handed. He crouches beside the bed.
“Okay,” he grits out, and his voice is low. Rough and frayed at the edges. “No log right now, look at me, hun.”
Kenny is eyes.
Mouth.
Hand on mattress.
Piercings.
Knee.
His hand settles near yours, palm up. Waiting.
Kyle crouches in front of you.
The room has too many pieces.
Kyle-lips.
Stan-hands.
Kenny-piercings.
Blanket.
Water.
Phone.
No voice.
No voice.
Still voice in head.
“What happened?” Kyle asks again. Or you think he asks again.
The question goes wrong.
What.
Happened.
Happened is appointment. Happened is doctor. Happened is no call. Happened is private clinic, specialist, scans, nothing and something, helpful and useless, body and pain and money and folder and forms.
“The… doctor was… nice,” you say.
Kenny’s eyes close for half a second. Stan makes a small, choked sound.
Kyle’s face softens with pain, but he stays with you. “Not the doctor. Just now. What happened just now?”
Just now.
Now.
The voice.
The wrong sentence.
The wrong correct sentence.
“I couldn’t… couldn’t read,” you say.
Kyle nods. A small, sharp nod, like he has been given a corner of the map. “Okay.”
“And then… voice.”
“The audiobook?” Kenny rasps.
His voice is gentle. His eyes are wet but steady, fixed on you with terrifying attention. He is not joking. He is not moving. Even his hands have gone careful.
You nod.
Maybe.
“It… was wrong.”
Kyle’s brow furrows. “The story?”
“... No.”
“The app?”
“No– the…”
Fucking… Words, they wouldn’t come, they wouldn’t come
“The voice?” Stan asks.
You turn toward him. His face is so scared. You want to tell him not to be scared.
You cannot find that sentence.
“Yes,” you hiss instead, then– “No. I…”
Stan’s eyes shine. He does not correct you.
Kyle’s hands find your hair, smoothing it down, “What was wrong with it?”
The world gets less spinning. The warmth of his palm grounds you. It makes you here.
Your mouth opens.
The first true sentence comes up like something dragged from deep water.
“The words wouldn’t open.”
The room stills.
Kenny’s hand, palm-up on the mattress, curls slightly like he has stopped himself from grabbing yours.
Kyle’s face changes. Not understanding yet. But hearing.
Stan whispers your name.
Your name
And then you break all the way because you’re here, you’re a person, and someone else is seeing you and hearing your name was the final nail piece of evidence that proves you’re fucking here.
“I couldn’t understand it,” you say, too fast, crying so hard the words scrape against each other, “I knew it was words, I knew it was grammar, I knew it was supposed to mean something – but it didn’t, it kept going and it sounded like chanting and terrifying and I couldn’t understand.”
A hitched inhale, “I could hear the shape but everytime it changed, I couldn’t predict the next word, I could hear where the sentence was supposed to be but it was always off – and then I thought it was wrong, I thought it was the wrong tense, the wrong word, and I got scared, I got so scared because that’s wrong, I know when words are in the wrong place, I know when sentences are in the wrong place, but it wasn’t wrong–”
Your breath catches. “I was wrong, I was the thing that couldn’t read it right, I was the broken place–”
“Hey,” Kenny mumbles, voice cracking. “Hey, no.”
“I was,” you sob and it's ugly and it's everything you wanted to hide from them and, “I was– I was, the words were curling and my brain was hot and they wouldn’t mean– they wouldn’t arrange themselves to mean anything and I need them to mean, I need words to work, I need words to work–”
Your breath catches too high and your chest locks. Stan pulls you against him, gently – urgently.
His arm comes around your shoulders and your cheek presses into his shirt, and his heart is pounding. You feel it against your skin, forcing the very existence of him into your bones, squeezed into your marrow–
“I’ve got you,” he murmurs, breathless, “I’ve got you.”
Kenny’s hand closes over yours.
Warm.
Hard.
Real.
Kyle sits on the bed now, close enough that his knee presses through the blanket against yours. His hand comes down over the twisted fabric, steady and firm. His eyes are red. His face is focused and open in a way that looks like it hurts.
“Breathe,” he whispers, and you sob harder. Another person telling you what to do, what your body needs best–
His jaw clicks shut. “No– Okay. Don’t– don’t force it,” he bites out and it looks like it hurt, “Just – stay with us. With our voices.”
Voices.
Not the audiobook.
Their voices.
Stan, shaking, frightened.
Kenny, rough, restrained.
Kyle, low, hoarse.
You cling to Kenny’s hand. You think you might be hurting him. He lets you.
“I can see,” you wept, “but it doesn’t feel like seeing and– I don’t know what’s real and I don’t know where I am, and I can’t, I can’t fucking run – I’m just stuck in here, I can’t get out, I can see everything and I can’t get out and I don’t feel like me, I don’t know who I am, I don’t know where I went, I don’t–”
The words bounce of the walls and leave indents in them, a permanent witness to the ugly shattering of you, and Stan’s breath breaks above your head. Kenny’s eyes flood and he looks down once, fast – like looking directly at you hurts too much and looking away hurts worse.
Kyle’s hands wrench themselves into the blanket. His lips press into a flat line – control, cracking at the seams.
“I don’t feel like a person,” it tears from you like admitting it aloud feels raw in a way your aches have never felt before.
“I don’t. I’m not– I’m just in here and I can see and I can feel and that’s– I’m not gone, I still know that I’m losing it, I’m just watching it happen, and I can’t get out of my body, and I can’t make the body feel like mine, and I can’t make my brain feel like mine, and I don’t know what part of me I have left to give.”
“Jesus,” Kenny breathes, something like a prayer, something more like pain.
“I… I think I’m breaking down,” you whisper, “I think I have been, ever since I started the medications. I keep waiting for the fog to pass, and it just… isn’t. I don’t know what… I know something’s wrong. I can feel it. I can see it. I see me breaking down. But I don’t know what’s wrong. I have the knowledge, I just can’t use it,”
And Kyle sucks in a sharp inhale – your personhood, your body, your doctors – all connected–
“And I can’t remember things,” you continue, faster now. “I can’t remember the month. I can’t remember when you left, or what I ate, or if I slept. I can talk in the moment, but then the moment goes away. I have to keep doing things because if my brain isn’t engaged, it drops everything.”
Your name, said in a strained, low rumble that you feel vibrate across Stan’s sternum – and you shake your head against Stan’s shirt.
“No, listen, please, please – I need to say it before I forget, I’ll forget, I’ll forget how scared I am and then I’ll act normal again and then my brain will lose even that, I won’t know how fucked I am and I don’t know how, I’m not, but I don’t know how to fix it,”
“We’re listening,” Kenny says immediately.
His voice is thick now. His thumb drags over your knuckles again and again, not smooth, not practiced – a scared rhythm – human.
“We’re listening, hun,” he whispers lowly, “keep goin’.”
“My body is telling me something is wrong,” and suddenly your voice is low. Flat, warbling. “But my brain isn’t functioning well enough to read the signs. My body and brain are both– both wrong, and I don’t have the vocabulary. It’s not nameless, it’s there, it’s there, but I can’t name it, and the cure is nameless and the disease is advancing and everyone keeps telling me what to do, saying next step like it means something but I don’t know what’s happening. I never know what’s happening.”
Stan’s arm tightens, coils like the muscles are looking for something to do but continue existing without doing anything, while helpless and watching his partner break down in his arms.
Kyle looks like he wants to reach for a pen, a plan, a phone, a doctor, a path, anything, and then deliberately does not. He stays where he is. Hands on you. Eyes on you.
You see the choice.
Maybe.
Maybe you imagine it.
“My brain is a vacuum,” you murmur. “No information is being processed. I liked my mind.”
The words turn small.
Small and devastated.
“I liked my mind,” you repeat, and your voice sounds like glass.
“I was proud of my mind. My body betrayed me, but I still had that. I had work. Thinking. Words. And now the medication is taking that too.”
Kyle’s face crumples.
Only for a second.
Then he swallows it.
But you see it.
Kenny’s head drops, forehead briefly against your hand.
Stan’s chest shudders under your cheek.
“They feel violating,” you whisper, like it was a sacred thought dusted off to distort the reality around the shape of it.
The word lands hard.
Violating.
All three of them go still.
“The disease took my body, and the cure took my mind. Body betrayal is one thing, I know that, I’ve been living with that, but violating my mind is different. It’s worse, it’s worse, because what am I supposed to be if I can’t trust my brain? What kind of person am I? I can’t solve shit so will I just keep… Keep compartmentalizing and just lose what I am bit by bit – because it’s already happening, this thing I am isn’t me.”
Silence.
Not empty.
Shattered.
Kyle’s eyes are wet.
Kenny’s mouth is trembling.
Stan is crying now, quiet and helpless, face pressed to your hair like he is trying to hide it and failing badly.
You barely see them.
You see parts.
Kyle’s hand.
White-knuckled.
Kenny’s piercings.
Shining in dim light.
Stan’s shirt.
A wet spot from your tears.
The world made of fragments and reactions.
You say, “It’s not like being sad and not feeling like yourself. It’s not that. I’m just not me. I’m not me at all.”
Kyle inhales sharply.
“This is severe,” he mutters.
The word comes out rough.
Not clinical.
Not detached.
Severe.
A word with weight.
You look toward him.
He leans closer, eyes locked on yours, and his face is doing too much: fear, grief, anger, love, all held so tightly it looks painful.
“This is severe,” he repeats. “And I believe you.”
“I don’t know if I’ll remember that,” you sob.
“Then I’ll remember it,” he promises, low. “I’ll remember it for you.”
You shake your head.
“I need the meds,” you say, flat now, like detachment might give you dignity. “They help the baseline pain. Maybe. I think. But they sacrifice my brain, and I can’t stop because they need to build, and if I don’t finish then it doesn’t count, and if it doesn’t count I have to start again.”
Your voice catches.
“I can’t get an appointment to change them. The public appointment isn’t showing. Nothing is happening. I can’t stop the meds, can’t stop the pain, can’t make anyone call, can’t make the words work–”
The rest breaks into a sound too raw for language.
You barely see them, but you feel them.
And then suddenly, you’re the most vile, disgusting person you’ve known.
You feel the shape of their horror.
The way it gathers around the bed. The way your words have gone into them and lodged there, sharp and living, and now they have to carry it because you could not keep it contained. Because you opened your mouth and poured the worst of yourself into the room and made them look at it.
Guilt hits so hard it almost cuts through the panic.
“I’m sorry,” you sob, suddenly, violently. “I’m sorry, I’m– I shouldn’t have–I shouldn’t have said all that, I shouldn’t have put that on you. I can’t– I’m sorry, I know it’s too much, I know, I know it’s too much–”
Kenny’s head snaps up.
“No,” he says immediately.
Kyle says your name at the same time, sharp with grief. Stan’s arm tightens around you like the apology has frightened him more than anything else.
“No,” Kenny repeats, voice rough now. “Don’t you dare apologize for telling us where you are.”
“I don’t know where I am,” your breath shatters.
“Then for telling us that,” he rasps. “For letting us know.”
Kyle leans closer, his hand firm through the blanket. “You did not put this on us. It was already happening. Now we know.”
“But you have to–”
“We want to,” Kyle says, and the force of it cuts clean through the room. “Do you understand me? We want to know. We want to be here.”
Stan’s voice breaks against your hair. “I don’t want you doing this alone.”
You try to answer.
Only a broken sound comes out.
Kenny’s thumb drags over your knuckles, scared and stubborn. “Too much is kind of the point of us, baby. You don’t have to make it smaller so we can love you through it.”
He moves, then.
He rises from the floor enough to fold over your hand, pressing his mouth to your knuckles. His eyes are squeezed shut. When he speaks, his voice has lost all its usual looseness.
“You shouldn’t have to hold all that by yourself.”
You almost laugh.
It comes out as a sob.
“I can’t hold it at all.”
“Then don’t,” he says, and his voice cracks. “Drop some of it. We’re right here.”
Stan lifts his head.
His face is blotchy. Devastated.
“I thought it hurt,” he murmurs. “When I came in. I thought it was pain.”
“It is,” you whisper.
“I know. I know it is. I mean…” He struggles, breath catching. “I didn’t understand. I got so scared when you asked where I was.”
“I didn’t mean you.”
His eyes close.
“I know.”
His arm tightens around you.
“I know,” he repeats, and it sounds like some part of him has gone hollow.
Kyle reaches for the water glass.
His hand shakes once.
Only once.
Then he steadies it and brings the straw to your mouth.
“Drink.”
You do.
Because Kyle is holding the glass.
Because the straw is at your lip.
Because instruction is easier than choice.
The water is cool.
Throat.
Swallow.
Body.
Still body.
Still trapped.
Still something.
“Again,” Kyle says.
You drink again.
Kenny’s thumb moves over your knuckles.
Stan whispers, voice shaking, “You’re in bed.”
Kyle murmurs, “At home.”
Kenny rasps, “With us.”
You breathe.
It catches.
You breathe again.
The room does not become normal.
The ceiling does not settle into certainty.
Your hands do not feel entirely like yours.
Your name still hangs loose somewhere nearby, waiting to be reattached.
But the audiobook is silent.
The chanting has stopped.
Their voices remain.
Stan, “Bed.”
Kyle, “Home.”
Kenny, “Us.”
And for one moment, the words open.
The audiobook stays off.
No one reaches for the phone again.
It lies facedown on the nightstand beside the half-spilled glass, harmless now, black screen to the ceiling, as though it knows it has done enough.
Your breathing has gone from ragged, to shaky, to something almost manageable.
Not steady. Not good. Just less sharp around the edges. The crying has left your face hot and tight. Your chest hurts. Your throat hurts. Your head feels scraped hollow.
Stan is still on the bed beside you.
He has tucked himself along your side as close as he can get without climbing fully into your lap, one leg folded under him, one stretched awkwardly toward the foot of the bed, his arm still around your shoulders and upper ribs, holding you against the solid length of his torso.
Every few breaths, you can feel the shudder he is trying not to let into his chest. His shirt is damp under your cheek.
Kenny is on your other side, though mostly by accident.
He had started kneeling by the bed, then half-risen, then leaned in further, and now he is caught in the sort of position only Kenny would commit to: hip against the mattress, one knee on the floor, one leg bent wrong, half his torso draped onto the bed so he can keep hold of your hand without stretching.
His fingers are still laced through yours. He looks deeply uncomfortable and entirely unwilling to move.
Kyle is in the desk chair he dragged to the bedside, knees almost touching the mattress, one hand still resting over the blanket near your shin as if he is anchoring himself there as much as you. The notebook is closed on the desk behind him. His phone is in his hand now, screen dimmed.
For a while, no one speaks.
Then Kenny clears his throat and says, voice rough from trying not to cry, “Okay. New rule. That thing stays off.”
Kyle glances at the phone. “Agreed.”
“Forever,” Kenny says.
“Kenny.”
“What? I’m negotiating.”
“With who?”
“The room.”
Stan lets out a tiny, broken breath that might have been a laugh if he had more of himself available.
Kenny’s thumb moves once over your knuckles.
No one reaches for the phone.
The silence after that is better than the voice had been.
Then it becomes too large.
You feel it opening around the bed. The dark corners. The ceiling. The space between one breath and the next. Without the audiobook, there is nothing chanting, but there is also nothing holding the room together except bodies and fear.
Kyle notices first.
Of course he does.
“Quiet?” he asks softly. “Or talking?”
The question takes a second to arrive.
Quiet. Talking. You do not know.
Your fingers tighten around Kenny’s hand.
Kenny looks at Kyle.
Stan looks down at you.
The silence presses wider.
“Talking,” you whisper.
Kyle nods immediately, like the word has given him a task. “Okay.”
“Not the book,” Stan interrupts quickly.
Kyle blinks at him.
Stan flushes. “I mean. Sorry. Maybe not that one.”
“No,” Kyle murmurs. “You’re right.”
Kenny shifts, grimacing as the floor punishes him for his life choices. “Something easy.”
Kyle looks at his phone. “Easy how?”
“Low stakes. No lore. No plot. No sentence that thinks it’s better than us.”
Despite everything, your mouth twitches.
Kenny sees it.
His face softens so fast it hurts. “Yeah,” he murmurs. “Exactly. Something stupid.”
Kyle scrolls for a moment. “I have the transcript from that cooking video.”
Kenny turns his head. “Why do you have a transcript from a cooking video?”
“Because the website was badly formatted.”
“Of course.”
“I was trying to find the ingredient list.”
“And instead became emotionally involved with the formatting.”
Kyle gives him a tired look.
Kenny lifts the hand not holding yours. “No, I respect it. Everyone needs a hobby.”
Stan mutters, very quietly, “Maybe that’s good.”
Kyle’s attention shifts to him.
Stan clears his throat. “A recipe. It’s just… steps. Ingredients. Not really a story.”
“Yeah,” Kenny says. “Nothing can happen to flour.”
Kyle looks at him.
Kenny looks back. “Probably.”
Another small sound escapes you.
Not quite laughter.
But close enough that all three of them react.
Stan’s arm tightens around you once, helplessly.
Kenny’s thumb starts moving again over your knuckles.
Kyle looks down at his phone, and when he speaks, his voice is careful in a way that is almost unbearable.
“Okay,” he says. “Recipe.”
He starts reading.
His voice is not smooth.
That helps.
He reads a little too carefully, a little too precisely, flattening some of the natural rhythm because he is concentrating on getting every word right for you, and the imperfection of it is almost unbearably comforting. It is a human voice trying. Not a disembodied one performing sense from above.
“One cup flour,” Kyle reads. “Two teaspoons baking powder. Half teaspoon salt.”
Kenny murmurs, “Brave of salt to show up.”
Kyle pauses.
Stan makes a tiny, wounded sound into your hair.
“What?” Kenny says. “I’m bein’ supportive.”
“You’re heckling a recipe,” Kyle says.
“I’m keepin’ it humble.”
Kyle looks at you.
You do not understand why he stops until you realize he is checking whether the talking is too much.
You press your fingers weakly against Kenny’s.
“Keep going,” you whisper.
Kyle’s face does something painful and soft all at once.
“Okay.”
So he does.
You do not understand every word.
That stops mattering.
Sometimes you lose the thread halfway through.
Sometimes you only catch separate pieces floating up.
flour
salt
bowl
stir
warm
But the words do not spear. They do not curl into nonsense. They do not become chant.
They pass through Kyle’s mouth, and then into the room, and then into you as sound that means someone is here.
Kenny shifts again, wincing.
Stan murmurs, “You can get on the bed, you know.”
“Can I,” he drawls, sarcastic.
“It’s a bed, Kenny.”
“I didn’t want to presume.”
“You’re literally half on it already.”
Kenny looks down at himself, as if noticing this for the first time. “Huh.”
Kyle sighs. “Just get on the bed.”
“Yes boss,” Kenny says, but his voice is too soft to carry the joke properly.
He hauls himself up with very little dignity. The bed dips as he climbs onto the outer edge on your other side, lying half on top of the covers and propping himself awkwardly on one elbow so he can keep hold of your hand. His shoulder presses lightly to your upper arm now.
The two of them bracket you, Stan warm and solid at your back, Kenny crowded close at your front-right, and something in your body unclenches at the simple fact of containment.
Kyle keeps reading.
After a few lines, he stumbles and stops. “Sorry. I skipped one.”
Stan, very quietly, murmurs, “I think it was the butter.”
Kyle looks back at the screen, and then a little, disbelieving chuckle – slightly breathless.
“You’re right.”
Kenny turns his head slightly. “Stanley Marsh, recipe cop.”
Stan goes warm against your side with embarrassment. “I was listening.”
“I know. S’cute.”
“Please don’t.”
Kyle rereads the line.
Butter. Sugar. Stir until combined.
The words are simple.
The room is not.
But simple helps.
Kenny’s thumb strokes once over your knuckles.
Again.
Again.
A rhythm.
Not chanting.
Just Kenny.
The room settles by degrees.
Not into safety.
Safety is too large a word for tonight.
But into shape.
Stan at your back, one arm firm around your middle, cheek sometimes brushing your hair when he forgets to hold himself up. Kenny at your other side, one leg tangled in the blanket, hand still locked with yours, shoulder pressed close. Kyle in the chair pulled so near the bed his knees touch the mattress whenever he shifts, his free hand resting over the blanket near your leg like he has to stay physically connected to believe what he is doing is helping.
At one point, your eyes close.
They open again when Kyle pauses.
“Keep going,” you murmur.
Kyle does.
Stan says, very low by your ear, “Bed.”
You breathe in.
Kyle reads another line.
Kenny squeezes your hand and says, “Home.”
Your breath shakes on the way out.
Kyle’s voice keeps moving through the room, steady not because he is unafraid but because he is choosing each word on purpose.
Then, after the next step, he lowers the phone slightly and Kenny says, quieter now, “Us.”
The word lands.
Not perfectly.
Not all the way.
But enough.
Your body feels unbearably heavy.
The panic has not gone. It has only burned through its first bright fuel and left you scorched and exhausted in its wake. But the bed is crowded with proof of your existence. It is not just negative space.
Stan’s arm around you. Kenny’s fingers threaded through yours. Kyle’s voice building one sentence after another and laying them carefully down like planks over the water your words keep sinking beneath.
By the time sleep finally takes you, no one has gone back to the living room.
Stan has slid lower against the headboard, still tucked around you, his arm never really leaving your middle. Kenny has given up on dignity entirely and curled closer along your other side, one knee nudged up against your thigh beneath the blanket, his hand still trapped in yours. Kyle is still in the chair, though he has turned it sideways now and leaned in – forearm across the mattress, head bowed over his phone when he reads, and lifting each time he checks your face.
It is not graceful.
It is not comfortable.
It is not enough to fix anything.
It is a barricade.
Kyle reads until his voice starts to roughen.
“You’re making baking powder sound traumatized,” Kenny snorts.
Kyle almost sounds a little offended, “I am reading normally.”
“You’re readin’ like the ingredients personally disappointed you.”
Stan makes a tired, protesting noise on Kyle’s behalf.
“He’s doing fine.”
Kenny’s smile is small and exhausted. “Yeah. He is.”
You do not understand the joke completely.
But you understand the room.
The phone stays dark.
The audiobook stays off.
Their voices remain.
Not enough to fix it.
Enough to follow.
Enough to find again, if you drift too far.
And when sleep finally takes you, it does not take you while you’re alone.
Home. Bed. Us.