Tangled(2)

I love you, couch—have I ever told you that? Well, I’m telling you now.

Though my eyes are buried in the pillow, I sense Alexandra and Matthew walking slowly into the apartment. I imagine the shock on their faces at its condition. I peek out from my cocoon and see that my mind’s eye was spot on.

“Drew?” I hear her ask, but this time there’s concern woven throughout the one short syllable.

Then she’s pissed again. “For God’s sake, Matthew, why didn’t you call me sooner? How could you let this happen?”

“I haven’t seen him, Lex!” Matthew says quickly. See—he’s afraid of The Bitch too. “I came every day. He wouldn’t open the door for me.”

I sense the couch dip as she sits beside me. “Drew?” she says softly. I feel her hand run gently through the back of my hair. “Honey?”

Her voice is so achingly worried, she reminds me of my mother. When I was a boy and sick at home, Mom would come in my room with hot chocolate and soup on a tray. She would kiss my forehead to see if it still burned with fever. She always made me feel better. The memory and Alexandra’s similar actions bring moisture to my closed eyes.

Am I a mess or what?

“I’m fine, Alexandra.” I tell her, though I’m not sure if she hears me. My voice is lost in the sweet-scented pillow. “I have the flu.”

I hear the opening of a pizza box and a groan as the stench of rotting cheese and sausage drifts from the container. “Not exactly the diet of someone with the flu, Little Brother.”

I hear further shuffling of beer bottles and garbage, and I know she’s starting to straighten the mess up. I’m not the only neat freak in my family.

“Oh, that’s just wrong!” She inhales sharply, and, judging by the stink that joins the putrid pizza aroma, I’m thinking she just opened a three-day-old ice cream container that wasn’t as empty as I’d thought.

“Drew.” She shakes my shoulders gently. I give in and sit up, rubbing the exhaustion from my eyes as I do. “Talk to me,” she begs. “What’s going on? What happened?”

As I look at the troubled expression of my big bitch of a sister, I’m thrown twenty-two years back in time. I’m six years old and my hamster, Mr. Wuzzles, has just died. And just like that day, the painful truth is ripped from my lungs.

“It finally happened.”

“What happened?”

“What you’ve been wishing on me all these years,” I whisper. “I fell in love.”

I look up to see the smile form. It’s what she’s always wanted for me. She’s been married to Steven forever, has been in love with him for even longer. So she’s never agreed with the way I live my life and can’t wait for me to settle down. To find someone to take care of me, the way she takes care of Steven. The way our mother still takes care of our dad.

But I told her it would never happen—it wasn’t what I wanted. Why bring a book to the library? Why bring sand to the beach? Why buy the cow when you get the milk for free?

Are you starting to see the picture here?

So, I see her beginning to smile when, in a small voice that I don’t even recognize, I say, “She’s marrying someone else. She didn’t…she didn’t want me, Lex.”

Sympathy spreads across my sister’s face, like jam on bread. And then determination. Because Alexandra is a fixer. She can unclog drains, patch dented walls, and remove stains from any rug. I already know what’s going through her head at this moment: if her baby brother is busted, she’ll just put him right back together again.

I wish it were that easy. But I don’t think all the Krazy Glue in the world is going to piece my heart back together again.

Did I mention I’m a bit of a poet too?

“Okay. We can fix this, Drew.”

Do I know my sister or what?

“You go take a long, hot shower. I’ll clean up this disaster. Then, we’re going out. The three of us.”

“I can’t go out.” Hasn’t she been listening? “I have the flu.”

She smiles compassionately. “You need a good, hot meal. You need a shower. You’ll feel better then.”

Maybe she’s right. God knows what I’ve been doing for the last seven days hasn’t made me feel any better. I shrug and get up to do as she says. Like a four-year-old with his wooby, I bring my prized pillow with me.

On my way to the bathroom, I can’t help but think of how it all happened. I had a good life once. A perfect life. And then it all got shot to shit.

Oh—you want to know how? You want to hear my sob story? Okay, then. It all started a few months ago, on a normal Saturday night.