Copyright 2014 JC Wallace
Welcome my new weekly flash story The Hollow: Soul Seekers. My previous story Diventando: Becoming has been pulled so I can prep it for publication. I will let you know in the future a date of publication.
Logan’s stood and turned away from Levi. Beneath his
thin white T-shirt, the muscles in his back rippled and Levi knew he was trying
to control his anger. Anger for me. A
painful stab hit Levi in the heart.
Suddenly, Logan spun to face him. “You stopped
taking your meds?” Confusion quickly morphed into irritation and then into anger.
“Do you know how awful it was watching you? You should’ve seen the look on your
face. It was as if you were about to be murdered by some monster – a monster
that doesn’t exist, of course. I felt so damned helpless. If fear could truly
kill a person, you would be dead right now. That’s how scared you looked.”
Logan shook his head violently, as if trying to rid his mind of a horrible
image.
Levi drew back a bit. Logan had never expressed such
angry with him. Not once about Levi’s irrational fears, or his strange rituals
to avoid the panic, or his late nights filled with dread, or for being a major
drain on his life. Not once had Logan
indicated that his little brother’s mental illness bothered him or was an undue
burden.
Now Logan was saying all but saying that and Levi thought he
knew why.
Levi had always gone along with whatever his parent
and experts said would help him to get better; numerous therapies and counseling,
medications, exercise, eating right. Until now, Levi had been a helpless
victim. Now Logan looked at Levi as if he were an accomplice or something
worse. He looked so disappointed.
“Don’t be mad, Logan. I can explain.” Levi’s eyes were
gritty, as if filled with sand. Rubbing them didn’t help. He squinted. Is it getting brighter in here?
Logan folded his arms over his large chest. His body
posture was a warning that Levi’s explanation had better be a good one. Levi couldn’t
stand how Logan glowered down at him and tried to halt his impending tears. But
they were inevitable and burned him eyes.
You
never, ever cry. Stop it.
Lowering his head, Levi hoped to stall long enough
for his eyes to dry. The moment necessitated strength and great will. He didn’t need his deep-seated, innate
weakness to be pulled further into the light.
A blink and a single tear left a moist trail as it
rolled along the side of his nose. Before he could capture the wayward drop, it
rolled over the top of his lip and fell, splattering on his hand.
Damn.
Betrayed by a tear.
“Are you crying?” Logan asked and Levi could hear
the innuendo in his brother’s voice.
Poor
pitiful Levi. So fragile. Don’t get him upset. He’s so scared all of the time,
unable to keep it together long enough to go away to school or keep a job.
Whatever will we do with him? Just pathetic.
God, he was
pathetic and weak. That thought was enough to stop his tears and replace them
with disgust. Who in the world lived like he did? Who lived in an empty shell
where they rarely experienced any emotions except fear? Levi had fear down pat,
from low-level anxiety to full-blown, debilitating, scared-to-death fear. He
was an expert at fear. But all of those other emotions that actually made a
person human—like happiness, sadness, lust, love, anger—well, those emotions
and sensations merely echoed about Levi’s insides, never taking root, never
growing in intensity. He was never totally pissed off or ecstatic or
lust-driven or deliriously happy or any other extreme. On rare occasions,
though, he’d experienced the intensity of certain emotions, almost like a real
boy. Those had been attached to life changing events with hit-you-head-on
emotions like when his Nana had died suddenly (punch to the stomach grief), or
when he’d accidentally stabbed Stevie Haskins in the foot when trying to juggle
knives (big time remorse), or when he’d crashed his bike into a car, breaking his
leg in two places and missing summer camp (bitter anger), or when Logan had
crashed his snowmobile, flying helmetless into a tree and nearly dying (big
time fear but at least there was actually something to fear that time).
That pity in Logan’s eyes energized Levi’s disgust,
threatening his long-standing resolve that he could never, not in million
years, do anything to hurt his older brother. But fuck if that anger wasn’t
stretching out and filling him up. Being an unfeeling shell, Levi’s ability to
deal with emotions when they occurred hovered around an “F” minus. Intense
emotions rarely entered his world and when they did invade, they took total
control and called all of the shots.
Levi bolted to his feet, towering over Logan who still
kneeled on the floor. The motion nearly knocked Logan off balance and he
struggled to stand. Levi’s pointed a finger into Logan’s chest before his
brother could regain his senses.
“I’m so sick and tired of people feeling sorry for
me. The way you look at me so full of sympathy and pity is sickening. You
wanted to know why I didn’t come to you? That’s it, right there. That look,”
Levi sneered, poking his finger up into Logan’s face.
Logan looked down his nose at the finger and then back
at Levi’s face, the surprised expression melting away. Logan’s eyebrows
furrowed and his jaw clenched, but he remained silent.
Red heat flushed Levi’s cheeks. “And Dad with his
disappointing glance over his reading glasses whenever I fail to meet his
expectations like his golden boy, Logan, and telling me I just have to stop
being afraid as if it’s all that easy. Or Mom whispering to Aunt Joanie on the
phone how I am just not right and to pray to the great Lord any girl I find
will understand my ‘condition,’” he said, adding the air quotes, ”lest I will
live life alone.” And he would live
alone if girls were his only choice.
“And everyone else in my life who can’t understand
why I sometimes miss classes, or rarely leave the house or go for coffee or to
the movies, or go on Spring Break or whatever else normal people do.” He took
in a deep breath unable to cease his rambling. He was a prisoner with
unattainable freedom dangled in front of his face daily and he was sick of it.
Logan shifted his weight then returned to his
inanimate stature.
“Excuses,” he confessed, raising him arms and
letting them drop to him sides. “That is the sum of my entire life. Excuses to
make up for my inborn weaknesses, my innate inability to understand there
really is nothing to be afraid of. Excuses carefully designed to spare myself
long winded explanations of what is exactly wrong with me and evade puzzled,
incredulous looks when they realize there really is nothing wrong with me because it’s not like I have cancer or some
chronic physical aliment. And if there’s nothing really wrong with me then why should
I tolerate meds that make me numb, spacey, and unable to concentrate. That make
me feel like I live in an alternate universe parallel to this one. I want to
feel something, anything real. I can’t live like this anymore.
I’m…I’m…emotionally retarded.”
Levi desperately wanted to avoid Logan’s stare, but
he stiffened his spine and met Logan’s eyes with an icy glare. Don’t back down Levi. Now shut up!
The momentary pardon from his previous exhaustion
ended and he swayed a bit, desiring nothing more than to collapse onto him bed,
crawl under the covers and shut out the world. The intense emotion evaporated
faster than snow on black pavement under the spring sun. Logan took a long
moment and studied Levi’s face. He cocked an eyebrow. What conclusion would he
reach about Levi’s ranting? He hadn’t been privy to many of Levi’s emotional
overdoses, first because they were rare, and second because the last one occurred
when Logan had been in a coma for two weeks. Lucky him.
Levi was about to break the awful silence when
Logan’s face relaxed from his irritation and a smile curled at the corners of
his lips. “Are you done?” He rocked back and then forward on his heels, his
smile appearing. “I mean, far be it from me to impinge on your pity party since
apparently I’m the one who invited it with my piteous leering.”
Levi frowned. “Piteous? Really Logan?”
Logan returned the frown. “Golden boy? Really Levi?”
The door to Levi’s room flew open. Levi spun around,
his hand coming to his chest. Again, his heart shifted in overdrive. Art Reed
stood in the doorway in his white v-neck T-shirt and white tighty-whiteys, his
t-shirt tucked into his underwear, which Levi had always found just odd.
“What the hell is going on in here?” their father
growled. His salt and pepper hair disheveled, he blinked his eyes as they
adjusted to the sudden brightness of the room. Apparently, he’d come straight
from bed the minute his feet the floor. “I can hear you two numb-skulls all the
way in my room.”
“Sorry Dad. We were just talking and got a little
loud. We’ll be quieter.” The sincerity in Logan’s tone had an immediate calming
effect on their father.
“You’d better,” their father said, pointing his
warning finger. “Some of us have to get up early tomorrow.” The door to the
room slammed shut as abruptly as it had opened. Footsteps faded down the hall
and a door slammed shut.
Levi turned back to Logan, still trying to recover
from his father’s surprise entrance. Logan’s smile faded and his expression
returned to that of a worried older brother.
After twenty-five minutes of persuasion, Levi
finally convinced Logan he’d be okay and Logan left. Levi finally flopped into
bed at 1AM, more than exhausted. Morning would come quickly and his statistics class
started at 9AM. He sucked at statistics.
##
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Can't wait for the next chapter.
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