SEX AND THE BOY ✓

MAKE ME FEEL LIKE LIVING A TEENAGE DREAM

"IT REALLY IS THE END, isn't it?"

The curly haired boy turns to his brother to see eyes glassier than the glasses they're behind, but the latter moves his face away before more emotions burst out, emotions that he's keeping for the moment. Kaolin Meyers sigh as he breaks another starched T-shirt into a dense square with corrugated edges then stuffing it in the suitcase.

"Nothing is really the end, Nixon. Get it out of your head that I'm not going to see you again."

"Are you?" mumbles Nixon as he shakes the box to free its contents from packing too much. "Are you not--"

"It's just uni!"

"No! It's not just college, Kaolin. You're just feeling bad for ruining his life," Nixon stomps to his brother and shoves him backwards, "and I just hope you doqn't run yourself off a bridge out of self-hatred and well-deserved penitence."

Wow. Kaolin didn't expect that but okay. It's okay if his own blood brother thinks he's going to kill himself, because that's what he deserves of course. "Whatever."

Five minutes slug by and zero words are exchanged by the boys and it's just folding of clothes, absorbing of unshed tears and thumbing of momentous realia.

"I'm sorry, Kaolin. I didn't mean what I said."

Kaolin scoffs, "you actually meant it."

"Yup." Nixon laughs in between sniffing.

"But it doesn't matter anymore." His mind is so blank, hollow like a sandpaper during harmattan.

"As long as you don't kill yourself, of course." Nixon is drawing the curtains together, before his fingers lower their speed on the fabric like straining a final goodbye. His head is hung low and his stomach even lower. It's really the end.

"Oh my God though, when did you learn dry humor?" chortles Kaolin behind his palm.

Crickets.

He then sighs and walks to his brother and holds the smaller boy's round face. "But for you, I won't."

"Wow. I feel so important right now," huffs Nixon. "Should I feel butterfly-bellied now that you're low-key admitting I belong to your family?"

Kaolin's smile drops. "Have I really been that nasty?" The images of Nixon screaming and begging and struggling under his fists, all because the coke hit the wrong spot--but that happens to be Nixon's favorite spots and he's that annoying--but this boy still loves him so much in that spite. Nixon has cooked their meals, done their laundry, worked shifts and even tucked him into bed, and Kaolin has been so blind to see all the love around him.

"Pretty much. Nasty like ginger in iced pickle juice." Nixon lightly punches his stomach with a sad smile. Crow's feet run in webs over his reddened eyes and past his eyelids.

"I love you so much, Nixon. I--"

"--know." Nixon slides a polaroid into the compartment of his brother's suitcase; the image shows a four-year-old Nixon smiling off his braces while hugging three stuffed Chop-Sucky-Chooks figurines Kaolin won at the carnival, the latter with two curly buns on his head is in the picture, still sneering at the stuffed things. "Yes, I know. And I'll never forget it."

Kaolin's eyes soak the 'i lorv my best big broh in d hole waid wod' in a scrawly toddler handwriting below the picture.

The walk down the hallway and out the door apart from the rug hairs sucking him in to rethink erasing his past is gruelling. Nixon has blown into full-on sobbing and he can't stop getting sick. All Kaolin just wants is to vomit all the lasagna he ate this morning, then maybe it won't pester him too much that he ate up the poor boy's food then broke his heart in return.