Love Lies A' Bleeding

Chapter 11: Blacked Out

I woke up with a light pointed straight to my eyes. I panicked for a while, because I thought I was dead and seeing heaven—not that I believed I was really going to heaven if I died. The hallucination vanished though after I saw my brother’s face looming above me—maybe this was hell.

Yes, my brother’s room was definitely foreign. I couldn’t even distinguish if I was still on earth or on mars. His room had all sorts of these nerdy stuffs: books—several of them hardbound, a huge poster of the solar system on the ceiling, the map of the Philippines at the back of the bedroom door, a globe that stood in place of the bedside lamp, a really weird-looking picture of a balding man on the wall beside the window, and a telescope where the end pointed to the window.

Who did my brother think he was, Einstein? Or was it Aristotle? I really couldn’t tell.

“Hey, what are you doing?” I bolted upright, snatching a pillow from below my feet for defense.

As unfortunate as it already was, I sleep at my brother’s room every time I go to my mom’s house while my brother sleep with my mom. But since it wasn’t Friday and my brother didn’t know of my arrival, I had to make my bed on the floor beside his bed, right across his shoes and dusty books. It really was gross.

“Don’t you think I should be the one asking you that? Last night I remember I went to bed alone and now I wake up to see my sister sleeping right at the exact location where I know there should only be tiled floor.”

I put the pillow down. “This will never happen again. Anyway, who wants to sleep near your shoes? Jeez, if I know there are stuffs in there you feed every time you wear them.”

“You don’t call them stuffs. What you meant are bacteria. And excuse me, I don’t happen to be nursing one. I happen to change my socks everyday and I wash my feet as much as I could. Do you know how many bacteria you can—”

“Oh, shut up,” I said, stretching my arms above my head. “If I really want to get cozy with bacteria, I can always find them on Google.”

He frowned. “Google is not 100% accurate most of the time if not all the time. It’s—”

I motioned him to stop with both of my hands before he could continue with more nerdy stuffs. “I don’t care. If I were you, I’ll just leave me alone.”

“But I weren’t you, and I don’t want to be you, ever. And this is my room so I can say whatever I want.”

“What does that mean?”

“You make mom cry all the time. I hate you for that. I thought you’re cool, but you’re not anymore. So now, what are you doing here really?”

It felt like I wasn’t talking to my brother at all. Who was this kid?

“You’d better pay me some respect, brother. I’m still five years older than you.”

He rolled his eyes at me. “Whatever.”

Then, he left. As soon as he was gone, I went to lie back down for a couple more minutes on the makeshift bed mom helped me make last night. King was only twelve. Before the separation, all thoughts of my brother were just he was the nerdy kid who didn’t wear eyeglasses, and the nerdy kid who seemed to scare my best friend. But after the separation, my brother seemed to be altogether different. I didn’t even know if he was the same brother I used to wrestle on his bed so he would wake up in time for school. I really couldn’t see the resemblance, except maybe, he has the same stuffs, only worse. He didn’t have toys anymore.

I went downstairs for breakfast. It was already six-thirty in the morning, but it felt like I never slept at all. Last night, I wanted to tell mom about Noah, but I soon forgot it as soon as we talked about dad, marriage, happiness, and life in general. I admit it was my first heart-to-heart with anybody. Even with Molly, I was too embarrassed to start talking about family.