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He wakes early in the morning, limbs shaking with the fear that only, always, comes at this time. It feels as if it’s the only fate of Philip’s that remains steady, remains certain.
Philip knows how it goes by now. His skin feels too tight, too constricting; sticky and suffocating with sweat. The feeling (the sickness) starts from his core and ripples out like shockwaves (the shudder in his spine the epicenter, spreading quakes like the crumbling of Earth’s surface). He’s stuck in it until he can get back to sleep again (or forget, forget, forget).
He finds himself on the front porch, breathing in the cool night-time air. It helps, a little. The thought comes to him, unwelcome, when his breathing has slowed and the sound of the outdoors returns to him:
things should’ve gone differently.
Lukas is happy now. Happier now. It’s been… God, Philip’s lost count. Months, of course— maybe four, five since back then.
(They hardly talk about it anymore. Philip says he doesn’t want to. Why would Lukas argue with that?)
Time was something Lukas always needed. And time he was given. Time strengthened him and enlightened him and healed his many, many wounds— he can hold his boyfriend’s hand in public now without shying (or shoving) away; he can calm himself down from a nightmare in sixty seconds because he gave therapy a shot and therapy — therapy gave back.
But time is doing nothing for Philip. Time, slowly, strangles Philip. Time grabs Philip by the neck and shows him the future that everybody’s moving onto while he drowns in the past.
Days – they just blur together. Day, after day, after day.
He doesn’t know it, and he can’t help it. What he knows is when life moves so fast you don’t have to time to stay grounded. When the world’s like a desktop globe spinning out of control; so relentless and dizzying and unstoppable.
The only thing that's similar is that Philip still cannot hold on.
He floats, and drifts, and watches his life like he’s standing right beside himself. He can reach out, but can’t touch. His hearing’s gone to shit, he says, but he knows it’s just his comprehension. People forgive him for the constant daydreaming, but that’s not it. Philip hasn’t dreamt in a long time. (He wishes he could. He’d kill to dream again.)
“Do you know what I mean when I say… being a… a bystander, in your own life?” he asks Lukas one night. It’s the best and only way he can describe it to him.
Lukas stops pushing around the food he’s got on his plate, jaw clenching and unclenching like it does when he’s considering something.
He takes a forkful and stuffs some stew into his mouth, then says, “What, like watching a movie?”
He chews and swallows.
“‘Cause, yeah. Feels like my whole life’s like that.”
Philip leans back a little when Lukas meets his gaze.
It’s not exactly what he meant.
“Surreal, right?” Lukas adds, quieter. “But, y’know, we… I think we’re allowed to feel that way.”
But Philip understands what Lukas is talking about too, so he nods his head, then gets back to eating Gabe’s stew.
Lukas would probably understand if Philip just talked to him about it. Really, actually, talked to him about it. But he’s been to enough counselling sessions in his damn life to know that feeling awful things is temporary or whatever, it’s being awful things that can’t be fixed. This is more than feeling. This is being. This is Philip’s constant state of existence; this is what’s become of his life - what’s become of him. What use is talking? What use is bringing everyone else down?
“–hilip? Is that you?”
Philip doesn’t jump, or startle, or react at all, really. Then he turns slowly. His muscles feel like tar.
“You never answered me, man,” Lukas mumbles.
His voice is low and thick with sleep, eyes still half-shut and squinting to make out Philip’s form.
“Sorry,” Philip replies, his voice coming out much quieter than intended. But Lukas still hears, if his shaking head is any indication.
“Go back to bed,” Philip says, and his words are a little louder now. Lukas moves sluggishly and ends up nuzzling into the back of Philip’s neck.
“Come with me.” His breath is warm on Philip’s skin.
“You’ll freeze out here.”
“So come with me,” Lukas repeats.
“I’m thinking.”
“You weirdo,” Lukas murmurs, pressing a kiss into Philip’s hair, then another into the crook of his neck. “Fine. I’ll think with you.”
“Lukas…”
“What’re you thinking about?”
“You should sleep,” Philip insists. He says it more firmly, hoping Lukas will listen now, but Lukas just blows air into Philip’s shoulder.
“You should sleep. You get, fuckin’, grumpy when you don’t get enough.”
“Don’t— don’t worry about it, I’ll be fine.”
“It’s my duty. I’m your boyfriend.”
Lukas’ dumb and sleepy words are feeding some life back into Philip. It’s nice that Lukas can say that now. Say that and be happy with it. Happy with who he is.
But Philip remembers that Lukas’ boyfriend’s standing outside at 3am like some freak, and that Lukas’ boyfriend can’t even open up to him about how he’s feeling less and less these days – that Lukas’ boyfriend is becoming less of a person and more of some kind of walking, barely-talking, past-dwelling burden.
And he shrugs him away. Because he can’t be happy with who Philip is.
“Just go, Lukas.”
“Babe..." Lukas moans, "Were you drinking again? What’s wrong with you?”
“What’s right with me?” He tries a self-deprecating laugh, but it comes out like a real, despairful groan.
Lukas pulls back from Philip instantly, turning him around so he can look at his face. Philip avoids his eyes. (Something else he could drown in.)
“Hey—”
“I can’t do this right now," Philip says automatically. A defense mechanism. Too many sleepness nights and pretenses pushing him closer to the edge of something.
Lukas keeps staring.
"Not tonight. Not ever. I’m feeling shit and I’m not gonna make you feel like shit too so just let me mope here and I’ll see you in the morning and everything will be fine, okay?”
Lukas presses.
With his fingers into Philip’s shoulders, with his eyes into Philip’s soul, with his hope into Philip’s heart—
Philip’s heartless. When Lukas uses his voice to press further, he totally breaks.
“Stop! Just stop! I can’t deal with this, you’re good. You’re fine now, please just stay. Fine,” Philip hisses.
“Woah, woah, woah—”
“You’re better, Lukas,” Philip’s voice comes out in ragged, desperate breaths, “Why are you wasting your time with this?”
“I’m not! Dude, what the fuck!”
“Don’t shout,” Philip warns, his voice breaking. “Don’t— Don’t do anything. You’ll wake up Helen and Gabe.”
“Well, good, maybe they can help—”
“Nobody can help. I’m fucked. Everything is fucked. Stop wasting your time on me.”
“I’m not wasting my time on anything. I love you, I—”
“You shouldn’t,” Philip snaps. “You just like me because I’m here. Because I liked you first.”
“What are you even talking about, Philip?” Lukas’ eyes are glistening and Philip can feel himself being pulled under. Deep, deep, deep blue. He can’t see the surface anymore. He’s gasping when he chokes out:
“This... should’ve... ended. Different.”
Lukas’ bottom lip is trembling and Philip feels so, so sick. It’s exactly what he was scared of. He made his fear real, when nothing else felt real.
“You— I, like, helped you realize you liked boys, but now you’re just. You’re just here because we went through trauma together,” he says, wincing through air quotes. He then motions erratically with his hands. “I know, we’re not supposed to talk about it. But it’s true, isn’t it?”
“No,” Lukas responds. He’s fucking terrified. (As he should be.)
“No, I love you,” he continues. “For who you are, idiot.”
Philip looks up to the sky and chokes out some kind of half-sob, half-laugh. “I’m no one.”
“Why can’t you see that? I’m just some. Some fucked-up kid with a fucked-up past. And you’re clinging onto me like some goddamn lifeboat when I’m the one who’s gonna sink you.”
“Will you just shut up?” Lukas hisses right back. “You can’t tell me who I like and who I don’t like. I. Love. Philip. Shea. The guy who— who takes stupid polaroid photos and pins them beside his bed, the guy with the— the cute hair and smile that could brighten up a whole room, the guy who pretends he’s into motocross just to impress the boy he likes. Th— the guy that gives up everything for the people he loves, the guy who doesn’t realize how amazing he is.”
Philip can’t breathe.
“Oh, God,” he whispers, knees buckling as he stumbles backwards, grabbing at his neck.
“Philip?!”
“God,” he repeats, heaving and sucking in air at the same time, struggling, struggling even as Lukas falls to the floor and holds him, tells him to breathe in and out and count to eight or ten or something, anything; patting his back and stroking his hair until he can breathe again.
“I'm— I’m awful,” Philip says eventually.
“I— you’re not, that’s what I was trying to say—”
“No, I mean. I’m so fucking. Shitty to you.”
“You’re fine,” Lukas says. He’s looking up into the sky, but there aren't any stars tonight. Philip already checked. “You— you need some help, but you’re fine.”
“I don’t want to.”
Lukas looks back down again. “Don’t want to what?”
“I don’t want to— to have to need help.”
“Yeah, well, nobody does.”
Lukas sniffs, pulling Philip closer to himself.
“I just, uh. I thought you were doing alright. If you'd said, like, we wouldn't have to be lying outside in the cold in the middle of the night," Lukas scoffs, teasing.
"It's okay, but. I wish you’d told me back then. About how you were feeling,” he then admits, hurt clouding his eyes.
Philip looks away from his face and says, "I wish we went to the police."
Lukas’ whole body stills. He’s still cradling Philip in his arms when he pulls back slowly.
And Philip knows what he’s done, but his blood still runs cold hearing himself say that out loud. It plays on repeat in his own head. His voice saying it again, and again, and again.
He knows how many unspoken rules he’s broken. How many lines he’s crossed. How much pain he's just inflicted.
How it took months for Lukas to accept that the past is the past and they can’t change that. How Lukas would punish himself over and over for waiting so long before they admitted what they saw; before doing anything to help themselves. How Philip would swear to Lukas that he wasn’t responsible for any of the deaths that resulted from the mess that was Tivoli all those months back. Months Lukas was moving past. Months Lukas was trying to recover from. Months Lukas was—
“Do you?” Lukas says, but his voice is low and monotonous. He already knows.
“I’m awful,” Philip repeats again, because he wanted to say it. He felt it. He's been feeling it for so, so, long. He's already fucked everything up tonight, why not just go ahead and ruin it all? It was bound to happen anyway.
This time, Lukas doesn’t comfort him.
“So, uh. You do think it’s my fault?”
“I just miss my mom," says Philip, which worsens everything, obviously.
“So do I. ‘The past’s the past’, though, isn’t it? They aren't coming back, are they?”
Bitterness is poisoning Lukas’ tone.
“Nothing we can do to fix it, so why bother feeling sad about it, right? Right?”
“I’m sorry.”
“All that shit about— about not blaming me— You lied to me.”
“Not like you haven’t lied before.”
Lukas tightens his jaw.
“Did you even— did you even try helping yourself, Philip?”
At this point, they’re both just stabbing each other, over and over again. Low blows Philip never thought they’d stoop to.
But Lukas is still holding Philip in his arms.
“So you see that this is fucked-up now,” Philip says.
“I see that you’re fucked up.”
Lukas suddenly squeezes Philip, groaning to himself.
“Shit, no. Sorry. I— God. Nothing is helping,” he mutters.
“I told you.”
“You told me all the wrong things, Philip.”
“Bad habit.”
“I… Fuck. You’re a real asshole, you know that?”
“Yeah,” Philip rests his head against Lukas’ chest, completely drained. “I know.”
They just sit there for a while. Lukas leaning against the wood, Philip in his arms and between his legs. Breathing and freezing.
“I still love you when I’m pissed at you,” Lukas says.
“Really?”
“Obviously.”
Philip huffs.
“Sounds like you hate me, though,” Lukas says.
“I don’t hate you.”
“What else do you expect me to take from, ‘I wish we told the cops’?”
“That doesn’t mean I h—”
“I wish we did too. I fucked up. You don’t think I think about that every goddamn day of my life? You don’t think I think about how if I wasn’t such a pussy about something so stupid that Helen could’ve caught that asshole and Anne would still be here? H–how I— how I wanted her to be in my future and— and your future, and about how she was so loving and how we could’ve had f–fucking family meals when she got better, and—”
Philip is crying again, which gives Lukas pause before he chokes out:
“Because I do. I think about it all the time. I still wanna fucking kill myself over it, Philip. I’m not— I’m not better, but I’m trying and— and that’s what you need to do, too. Because that’s what you told me to do. And you might’ve been lying when you said everything was fine, but you weren’t lying when you said that that’s what— that’s what Anne would’ve wanted too.”
Tears are stinging in Philip’s eyes when he gasps, “I know. I know. I’m sorry.”
“Yeah. Me too. But we’re not letting this break us,” Lukas says. “We’re not letting this break you.”
“I’m already br—”
“Trying starts when we cut out all the bullshit, alright?”
His voice is fierce in Philip’s ear. And Philip believes him.
“Right,” he answers.
Lukas holds Philip tighter in his arms.
“Aggressively trying,” Philip says quietly.
“Agres— Pff, yeah. Yeah.”
“Wh–what time is it?” Philip asks after a few more moments of Lukas holding him in the darkness. Lukas looks down at his watch, a present from an underwhelming birthday that Philip only felt half-present for.
“Like, four A.M.. I can’t really see.”
“Should we—”
“Yeah. We should.”
When they get back into bed again, there’s a rift separating them. But they talk in quiet whispers,
they make new promises.
Promises that they’ll miss school tomorrow. (They’re deathly ill all of a sudden. Must’ve spread it to each other. Sorry, Gabe. That’s what happens when you allow so many sleepovers.)
Promises that they’ll be honest. (With the ugly things and all.)
Promises that they won’t let it get this bad again.
Promises that—
“I know you think you’re terrible.”
Philip blinks, not sure that he heard Lukas right.
“But, uh…”
Lukas moves closer towards Philip, stretching his hand across the rift; healing it slowly, so slowly. His hand brushes Philip’s bare shoulder.
“I still won’t give up on you, asshole,” Lukas seals his promise.