Gone, Gone, Gone(8)

Three cats.

Three rabbits.

A guinea pig.

I close my eyes and listen to the animals inside my head and the memory of his chirping and the silence all the way around me.





LIO


CRAIG IS THE ROCK IN MY PROVERBIAL SHOE.

He’s completely unavailable. He told me himself.

“I’m like sold-out movie tickets, is what I am,” he once said. “I’m, like, at that same level, is the thing, and I’m not saying you would care or anything, but just in case like, that friend of yours wanted to hit on me or something, you should maybe just let her know that I’m completely unavailable. And gay, but that would be like such a lesser problem than how unavailable I am, because I am that unavailable.”

And then he sticks himself right onto my life. And onto my mind. He is unavailable and inescapable.

A while ago, he had this boyfriend. Cody. Stuff didn’t work out. I have a feeling the guy treated Craig like shit, but I don’t know details.

But now Craig isn’t open to affection from anything that doesn’t have fur. This explains why, even after an afternoon looking for his animals, I’m home instead of with him. He didn’t ask me to stay. It doesn’t explain why I kissed him.

I guess his face explains why I kissed him. I’m weak.

And I like that he wants me to talk. I’m not really going to talk. It’s nothing personal, and it’s not deep or exciting. It’s just something I don’t do.

But he wants me to. There’s something interesting about the way he wants me to, because his reasons are different from my family’s and my teachers’ and my therapist’s. They want to know that I’m normal. When I talk, they feel better.

Craig wants to know what I have to say.

I wish he knew that, the truth is, I don’t have much say. I’m not an enigma. I’m just talked out, probably permanently. I said all I needed to say when I was a boy made of sticks and radiation and half-digested oatmeal. I don’t feel good. I want to go home. Make it stop. It’s been seven years, and I’m still out of words.

Kissing him also probably has something to do with the fact that I’m so bored that I either want to die or jump on the next plane home.

My sister Jasper says, “Weren’t you in Glenmont today?”

I don’t know how she knows this. Maybe she analyzed the gravel samples from my sneakers.

I shrug and turn back to my computer. I’m trying to write an email. It’s really irritating emailing with Craig, because he responds a few seconds after I hit send. It’s gratifying, but problematic, as it takes me an hour to write a few witty paragraphs.

And what do I say to him now? How am I even supposed to explain?



Craigy—



Funny story, I saw a little chocolate on your lips and realized I was ravenously hungry. Sorry for attacking your face.



Hell no.

“Two people were shot in Glenmont today,” she says.

Sometimes it’s like Jasper never lived in New York.

And I saw the news too. One person got shot, and one store full of people watched a bullet glide harmlessly onto the floor. Jasper wants to be a writer, and she can’t even get her facts straight.

She sighs. “Come on. I’m taking you to therapy tonight.”

I make a face because it’s my duty to, as her little brother, but the truth is I don’t mind Jasper all that much. Growing up, we used to have all these family talent shows, and Jasper and I always won. We were the true rock stars of the family, since my twin brother, Theodore—yeah, Theo and Lio, it’s a problem—preferred being in the audience. The rest of our sisters were too young or too old to qualify for our fantasy band. I can sing, and Jasper knows how to shred an air guitar.

Theodore never participated in the talent shows. He was a whiny kid and always said he wasn’t feeling good enough, even though I would be up there singing my heart out in front of the fireplace, if it was a good week, or on top of my hospital bed, if it wasn’t. I sang even more as I got well, which is something else Theo never did.

He’s the reason I’m in therapy. My mother’s abandonment and the cancer as a whole and September 11th also have something to do it with, but Theo is the reason everyone knows I need therapy. Theo is the reason I don’t like to talk.

There isn’t some long, drawn-out, tortured explanation. It’s really pretty basic.

My brother and I had the same face.

My brother and I had the same voice.

For some reason, he was born to talk and I was born to sing. We always knew that.

For some reason, we both got cancer.

For some reason, here I am.

Yaaay therapy. I’ve been in it for seven years. That’s almost half my life, and longer than any human has any excuse to be in therapy. It’s a testament, at the very least, to the longevity of my . . . something. Whatever it is that’s wrong with me. Not cancer.

When we decided we were moving, no one even considered not finding me a new therapist. It was a priority nearly as high as finding a place to live.

“You’re a little f*cked up, aren’t you?” this therapist said in our first meeting, after she’d finished reading through my file. She’d skimmed it already, she said, but she read through it twice again while I sat there, since it was probably clear I didn’t have much to say. She then told me I was a little f*cked up, and I decided I liked her.