Secrets & Specters

I feel more than hear my window open. He creeps towards me, bypassing the sleeping bag under my bed, the one housed there just for him, instead he climbs up next to me. My breath stalls as he curls his much larger body around my small frame and rests his head in the crook of my neck, his breath tickling my ear.

"Are you awake?" He breathes, his soft voice barely a whisper.

Before I answer him I look to the window he just came through and notice he left it open. I stifle a gasp as my eyes lock on a figure watching us through that still open window, as my tired eyes focus the figure becomes clearer, revealing our spectator. Perched on a low branch just outside my window sits a large raven, it's feathers so dark it almost blends into the night if not for the reflection of a street light catching on its cold calculating gaze. I'm transfixed by the almost human-like intelligence displayed there as the bird watches us, observing our interaction as if it knows. As if on some deeper level it understands, almost as though It can see me the way...

I internally scoff at my train of thought, looking away from the bird and its knowing eyes. It doesn't know anything.

Turning back to him I whisper softly that I am still awake.

His arms tighten around my waist, pulling me closer.

"Do you want to talk about it?" The words flow from my lips, an offer I've made so many times I hardly even need to voice it aloud. I always do though, there are more than enough unspoken words between the two of us.

I hold my breath, hoping that maybe tonight will be different, maybe tonight he will choose to let me in,to speak the words I know are desperately trying to claw their way out of his throat. Maybe tonight he will tell me a secret I already know, he'll allow me to be his confidant and this room to be his confessional. I'll act as if this is the first time I'm granted access to what goes on in his head, pretending I haven't been shouldering the weight of his pain for years. Finally I'll be free of the role of the unwilling spectator cursed to bear the full force of his pain but unable to be more than just a ghost in the periphery of his consciousness. So if tonight is the night I will listen, I will hear his pain as if for the very first time, because that is what he needs from me. My secrets will remain my own, my pain a faded specter in the back of my mind because tonight I need to be strong, to weather the blows so this time, so for once, he doesn't have to.

Outside my window the bird continues to stare, I shiver, a feeling of harsh judgment trailing down my spine, as if the bird is calling me out on the hypocrisy of my thoughts. The half formed thought that passed through my head when I fist locked eyes with the creature earlier tries to resurface, but as I feel his hold on me tighten, feel his breath coming faster, I look away from the bird and push it down as I remain perfectly still waiting for his words. My patience is rewarded moments later when they come, slow and hesitant, a soft whisper laced with pain,

"My mother is out of town."

He pauses, calming himself, I stay silent, waiting, after a few beats of my heart he speaks again,

"My sister was upstairs."

This time when he stops I make a small noise of encouragement, feeling his hesitation... It must help as he lets out a deep breath and continues,

"I knew I shouldn't have stayed out that late, but I just didn't want to go back to that place, not when he's there and she's not."

I reach for his hand, he grasps it tightly as he goes on.

"And my sister was there, and mom was out of town, and I was late, and he was drinking." He lets out a shuddering breath, I turn and tilt my head towards him, catching his despondendent gaze.

"And I can take it, you know? I really can, better me than them. If it means they're safe, then I can take it."

*I have to take it*

The thought hits me like a smack in the face, the emotion behind it so strong I have to force myself out of his head and back to the present, back where he can see me and I can hold him, where I can do something, *anything* at all. The action seems insignificant in the face of what he's going through, but it's so much more than I've ever permitted myself to give, the small action solidifying my place as something more than the mute bystander I've always been, a helpless specter ruled by a curse.

So I don't say anything, just pull him closer as I feel his body shake with unshed tears.

As I hold him I allow myself one last glance outside my darkened window where I see the bird, still there, still watching, those too knowing eyes reflecting the haunted resignation that accompanies a lifetime of shouldering others burdens. As soon as the thought passes through my head I see raven's gaze turn triumphant, the sentiment echoed by the accompanying caw as it rings through the night, notes tinged with clear satisfaction. I grit my teeth and jerk my gaze away from the smug beast and its unwelcomed insinuations. As if it knows us, as if it knows *me*.

It doesn't know a thing. No it doesn't know anything at all.