Open Eyes (Phan)

Twenty Three

Phil

"My mum blames me for my dad dying." Dan started.

We were in the kitchen. I had made us both cups of hot chocolate. I was standing in the kitchen, behind the counter. Dan was sitting at the counter across from me.

I pulled the cup away from my lips when he started talking.

"He died the day after I was born. It was mum who found him. He was the love of her life. Her first marriage. First everything. I guess she had no idea that he was depressed."

He paused for a breath of air. His eyes stared at the rim of his cup.

"She's always seen me as a reminder of him. A reminder that she'd failed as a wife. She could never look at me with anything other than resentment for a man I never knew."

I watched him intensely as he took a small sip.

"My little brother, though. I was close to him. When my mum got remarried, it was good at first. But then it wasn't. I don't know what happened. I was too young to understand when it started."

I tilted my head to the side.

"When what started?"

He visibly swallowed.

"When he started hitting her."

I froze with the cup halfway to my lips.

"It started small. And then it got worse. They fought a lot. Either they weren't home, or they were fighting. And their fights usually ended with my mum getting a bruised forehead or a cut on her cheek. So I had to protect my brother. He's younger than me. I had to be there for him when they weren't."

Another brief pause. I couldn't pull my eyes away from his face. From his eyes.

"I helped him get ready in the morning. I walked him to school. Then in the evening I'd make dinner when mum wasn't home. I'd help him with his homework. We'd hang out together and try to drown out the shouting. And then I'd put him to bed."

Another sip.

"The day that my mum left with him was the day my step father first hit me."

I choked on my drink.

"He held me against the wall by my throat until I couldn't bre-." He cut himself off. He closed his eyes.

He shuddered, as if he was playing the memory in his mind.

I was about to tell him to stop when he opened his eyes and kept going.

"For the next three years, it was almost everyday. I'd come home and he'd be drunk. I'd go up to my room most night with new bruises and cuts."

I couldn't breathe.

"And when I started high school, it only got worse. I got through a week before the bullies found me and put a target on my back. I'd get beat up during the day, and go home and get beat again."

"Dan."

He ignored me.

"The depression set in pretty quickly. Along with the anxiety. And then the voices started shrieking at me. There are voices in my head. Always talking. Always bickering and yelling. They tell me that I'm worthless. That I should die. They contradict every nice thing anybody tells me. At some point they got louder than everyone else. So I started to believe them."

That meant that every kind thing I'd told him or done for him, he had people in his head telling him I had ulterior motives. Or that I didn't really mean it.

"I started self harming in my second year of high school."

I winced internally.

"First it was cutting. Then it was cutting and burning."

"B-burning?"

"Yeah," he said, nodding. "I'd hold a lighter to my skin until it blistered and burned."

I squeezed my eyes shut to keep myself from crying. My hands were shaking.

"And when I tried to kill myself, the voices were finally quiet." His eyes glazed over. "That night, my step dad and broken a bottle over my head. The walk to the bridge was painful. Every bone in my body ached. It felt as if every tendon was being ripped apart. But when I got there; when I stood on the edge, the pain faded. I felt calm."

He blinked.

I wanted to go over and comfort him, but I couldn't bring my limbs to move.

I wanted to say something to ease the torment swimming in his eyes, but my lips didn't want to open.

Everyday that I saw him, talked to him, spent time with him, he'd go home and get beat.

"Oh," he said, reaching into his back pocket. "I took this from the bathroom."

He set something on the counter. I couldn't quite tell what it was, so I approached the counter to get a better look. And when I realized what it was, my breath caught in my throat.

"Oh, Dan," I breathed. I picked up the small object. It was a razor blade. "Did you use it?"

I was terrified to hear the answer. Terrified to know what he did with the small piece of metal. But I couldn't pull my eyes away as he lifted up his sleeves. Bruises littered his pale skin. But amidst the multicolored patches were long, thin, puffy red lines. Fresh lines.

I had to set the cup down so I wouldn't drop it. With trembling fingers I held his hands in mine. Tears welled in my eyes. My chest ached, as if someone was cutting open my heart with a pair of scissors.

I walked around the counter and wrapped my arms around his small frame. He buried his face in my chest. I stroked his hair as he cried softly into my shirt.

My heart broke and then was put back together, only to shatter once again, like shards of stained glass at my feet.

"I'm so sorry," he sobbed. I squeezed him tighter.

"You have nothing to be sorry for."

"I'm sorry I couldn't tell you sooner."

I pulled back to look at him. His eyes were red and slightly puffy. I wiped the tears from his cheeks with my thumb. He stared up at me with wide eyes.

Wide. Brown. Gleaming. Eyes.

And then I realized just how close we were. I could see the kaleidoscopes in his eyes. I could see each freckle on his flushed cheeks. I could see the wrinkles in his chapped lips.

My heart hammered so loud I wouldn't be surprised if he heard it.

His lips parted ever so slightly.

And before I could properly judge the situation before me, before my brain could catch up with my heart, I leaned in.