The Playlist

What is love?

It was three am when I was woken by night terrors. Not my own. It was Blake; in the room below me screaming. I slid down the ladder as quickly as I could and tried to open the door. It was shut.

That feeling of being so high and then melting again into the low you’ve always known, that’s how, I felt. Only I didn’t always feel like that, I used to be quite happy. Lately all I could think of was dad and Daniel and every voice that was entering my head. It was horrible. Just a chorus of nightmares.

The world seemed so rushed as I demanded him to open the door. He did after a minor tantrum but insisted on wailing more.

“Blake… What’s wrong?” I said, curling my arms round him and holding him tight as he sobbed. He was hard to control with all the thrashing so I tightened my grip on him and told him to breathe in and out slowly. It worked for a while at least.

“My parents… they were here… they told me… it was my fault!” he sounded like a toddler having nightmares and wanting to crawl into an adults bed. Caught between sobbing and breathing his voice was tired and raspy.

“It wasn’t, they aren’t here. It wasn’t your fault.”

“It was,” he pushed his tears back with the palm of his hand and rocked back and forth.

“They aren’t here and it was not your fault, okay?”

“They wanted to get away from me!”

“No, they didn’t. They wanted to treat themselves but it went wrong. You did not set a fire or plan anything, this is who you are and will be and it will never ever be your fault.”

He lay down in his bed and I got in after him. It’s funny how spooning is typically one of those comforts for girls but no, he needed someone and I was going to comfort him.

I could feel the butterflies in his stomach and the glass in his lungs, shaking. Shaking so much they could rupture out of him any time soon.   He was so weak, so skinny. I figured out a lot from that. He lost his appetite years ago. Not only from all those doctors excuses.

Skinny is perfect.

I wanted to hit whoever got that into his fragile mind. Skinny is not perfect, it’s just something other people tag you with. One minute you’re fat and that’s a bad thing, the next thing you’re anorexic and that is also a bad thing.

I wanted to squeeze him so tight he could never fall apart again, yet if I did he’s be shattered into a million tiny pieces and nothing could ever solve that. That’s the problem with life. Fixed things can always be broken.

I felt so childish, playing this game where one day I’m the hero and the next I’m the damsel in distress. It made me mad; it made me think ugly things at 3:14am.

He finally fell asleep. It was beautiful. He was beautiful. Those short, desperate breaths that wanted so much. Maybe that was love, the trying to be wholesome for someone you’ll never be. The wanting to be put back together and still suffering. Wanting to care and to be cared for. Who knew.

I fell asleep with my cheek against his back, his spine was a ferocious snake that wanted to rip away the prey but couldn’t. His ribs were a cage that held his fluttering heart captive, his shoulder blades those broken butterfly wings. Then there were his collarbones. They made strict and straight seem perfect. In all honesty, no matter how much they protruded they were still to envy.

~

When we woke up, it was far past noon. Too late for breakfast or lunch now. Instead we sat in the porch and listened to the playlist we always listened to.

We barely spoke, just hand in hand we sat, listening and breathing like two lost souls who had finally found each other but could find not what they were looking for.

I had a call from dad, he was pleading for my mother but I explained everything. He merely cried explained his own situation. He’d be getting his own apartment and moving his things out, he wouldn’t bother my mum any longer. He’d already filled her answer machine and email inbox and our post box. She didn’t need anything else.

She didn’t deserve anything else. Though I didn’t feel sympathy for my dad. He was only nice when he was needy. I felt pity.

I shuffled closer slightly to Blake and he wrapped his arm round my waist as I let my hair fall over my face, my head sinking into his shoulder. I hung up without haste when dad said goodbye. He said I love you for the first time over the phone, I guess he just wanted to get it out to someone that he did actually feel love. But what was the love he was giving?

The story got a little tangled in my hands, my life was just sort of an assortment of old trinkets that had been knotted together too long to be separated. None of that mattered in the silence.

We sat there, awkwardly hugging as the music played on and I remembered he needed more comfort than I. It didn’t really matter though, we were just messed up kids in a screwed up world. Nothing more but nothing less.

What is love?

What is love?

Oh…

Is it giving up?

‘Cause that’s not how you raised me.