Love Empire Part 1

I woke up with a start to the sound of the telephone’s loud ringing.

“Gahwd. Are you kidding me” I grumbled.

I clicked my phone to check time before I picked the telephone up, to check time, instinctively.

It shows 02.03.

“Babe... can you come to the hospital’s ER section like literally right now?” a voice at the far end of the line sobs and talked in hiccupy-like voice; definitely struggling to fight the tears.

I feel a burning in my lips. I know whose voice this is. A heartbeat skipped in my fingertips and I let a moment fall before answering: “yeah, yeah, sure. Keep your phone close, alright? I’ll be right there”.

I come around 15 minutes later after hurdling with clothes, car keys, and parking. My eyes skimmed the mostly empty waiting room but few lines of chairs, potted plants, and a dark feature on one end of the relatively small room, feet brought to his chest – hugged by an imminent power that some of his muscles showed, face burried into his feet. I bet he wanted to look smaller than what he usually is with all those pride he’s naturally brought with himself. He’s not the type to hide it – that pride, I mean – never it occurs to me until this very moment of distress.

I sat down next to him in silence for a few minutes, cradling my head in my palms – thinking about what I would say to comfort someone I know too well is reluctant of any comfort people usually come up with. Especially me though, because I knew him better than most people. I know he knows it that I’m there, I couldn’t be wrong to say he’s heard footsteps in the hallways, half running towards another hallway and then stopping abruptly a meter away infront of him and then a radiance of bodily heat next to his even though he wore a jacket and he’s been hugging his legs for at least the past ten to fifteen minutes.

And before he could speak, as he held up his head, my fingers finds his arm and I laced them around it, pressed my lips unto my hands that wrapped around his arms, my eyes searching his’ – in which I only find grief – and mumbled, “you’re not anything but not freaking all right, you hear me?”

Without a word, he let his arm free of my lacing fingers and put it around my hips and bury his face on my shoulders, shaking his head. I shuddered. We stayed silent like that minute after minute, until I grew too warm of him and I get up to make him eat the food and warm milk I brought with me. He looked so much better after calming down. His eyes were the eyes I knew he always had.

“Do you want to talk about what happened, or should I remain purgatory?” I asked.

“Yeah. Uh, no. Mom. ER. Been here for more or less an hour before I called you. Dad won’t even come, goddamnthis. What is this life”

“Don’t curse,” I say with a little more pressure than I intended to. “Why an hour?” I continued. I didn’t even bother asking about his mother, for my weird brain’s sake.

“I don’t want you to see me like that”

“Like what?”

“Like a wounded animal; a wild beast; a sick weird person crying over a pain he didn’t know how to get over” he answered, rather quietly.

“How’s she now, though?”

“Dunno”

“Aaah, alright. We’ll cuddle and chase the shit out of this night together, yes?”

I didn’t wait for an answer before I brought out a body pillow I always had in my car and a blanket I borrowed from a nurse the moment I came here. We sat next to each other on the bench, shoulder to shoulder. He rests his head upon the body pillow which rests on the wall, staring into the wall across.

It’s really weird that to me how he always seemed so strong, determined, and brickwalled that he was almost impossible to get through; that he wasn’t able to shatter; that however hurt he was, his protective side would always come back whenever I’m around. It was like I wasn’t supposed to think he’s breakable, and it is weird because all of this has made me forget that he can still hurt, he is still human.

“You can sleep on my shoulder if you want to, you know. After I woke you up in the middle of a dead night. I’d be staying up for the rest of the night, I think”

I just smile and didn’t argue. I’ll let him be my stronghold when he wanted to, when he can afford it, and let my head falls softly unto his right shoulder, my arms under his’. I close my eyes and tried to relax.

I actually wanted to tell him that it is okay to not be okay; that he shouldn’t be so hard on himself; that he can rely on me too instead of always seeming so strong. But I kept it; I let him grief.

I know he knows that when I say ‘we can cuddle all night and chase the shits away’, that’s what exactly we’re gonna do together. But he knows I know that I never do it with soft words and murmurs, that I can’t stand one bullshit in life. Not with the bullshit people are used to doing that when all it does is numb the truth, muffling every sound. I do it with silence, letting the grief penetrate into us to make us able to let go.

“I love you, you know,” I say, with my eyes still closed.

A heavy exhale escaped his nose and he drifted off to sleep, too. –red

To Be Continued