Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
❧ Milo lay motionless on his bed, blankly staring up at the ceiling, feeling strangely numb inside.
Nearby, Elio stood pensively at the window, observing the courtyard below. After a few silent minutes he turned to his brother.
"Come on, let's head out to our spot," Elio urged gently, nudging Milo's leg.
Milo didn't respond, and gave no indication he had even heard. He just continued his listless gazing aloft.
With a resigned sigh, Elio tried coaxing again. "You've nearly finished that book right? We can wrap it up together out at our spot."
Still no reaction from Milo. Elio grabbed his brother's ankles and dragged him insistently towards the foot of the bed.
"Ow!" Milo finally exclaimed as his body slid limply across the covers.
Elio smiled triumphantly. "So you are still alive after all. Now get up! " He retrieved Milo's notebook and pencil off the desk and tossed them into his vacant arms. "Let's get some fresh air, it'll do you good."
Milo wanted to keep resisting, cling to the numb sanctuary of his room. But something in Elio's encouraging smile weakened his defenses.
With a resigned huff, he let his determined brother pull him to his feet and usher them eagerly out the door.
-----
Milo lay listlessly on a grassy bank overlooking the swimming hole, staring up at the clouds drifting by. Nearby, he could hear Elio splashing as he swam laps.
After some time had passed, Elio lifted himself from the water and walked over to where Milo was still sprawled on his back, eyes distant and troubled.
Elio wrung the excess water from his hair then sat beside his brother, gazing at him with concern.
"Hey," Elio ventured gently, "Why don't you write out everything you're feeling right now? All that heartache and anger - put it on paper. Might help get it out of your system."
Milo turned his head, eyebrows raised skeptically.
Elio shrugged. "Trust me. Treat it like a letter you don't intend to send. Sometimes writing things out can be cathartic."
After contemplating Elio's earnest face for a moment, Milo sighed and grabbed his nearby notebook and pencil.
Flipping to a blank page, he pressed pencil to paper. All the tumultuous emotions he'd been internalizing since that awful window scene came pouring out...his naive yearnings, stinging humiliation, hopeless longing for Oliver, fury over the flirtations with Chiara.
On and on they flowed from his pencil tip as Elio looked on sympathetically, he never knew his brother to ever feel like this before.
