10 - Milo
Milo
THE REST OF the day was good. Too good. The bed and nightstand fit perfectly in the storage closet, and that alone felt suspicious. Things never went that smoothly, at least, never for me.
I buzzed with energy all afternoon, practically bouncing around the apartment, driven by a sense of purpose I hadn’t felt in over a week.
But there was no way for me to properly enjoy it with the knowledge that every high was always followed by a low just as intense.
I didn’t know how long I had to feel this good.
With my limited burst of energy, I cleaned—probably more than I ever had in my entire life.
There were two reasons for it. One, I wanted Jasper to want to be there with me.
And two, like every bad breakup, this one left scars.
I didn’t choose what stuck. I’d toss a dirty shirt on the floor, and panic would hit me.
I was messy, and she’d hated it. That could only mean one thing.
If I were too messy, my brother would leave too.
I wasn’t sure how long I’d been at it. Burnout crept in around the edges as I hunched over the sink, scrubbing dishes with enough force that it was a miracle I hadn’t shattered one yet.
“Make sure you eat something.” Jasper gripped my biceps from behind, squeezing. “Anything. I don’t care if it’s a box of crackers.”
The way he doted on me was almost enough to make me forget that he was leaving.
He’d always scolded me, but the frequency and the seriousness had increased tenfold.
I knew it was because I’d been bad and tried to leave him behind, but the not-so-subtle ways he was fighting for me now had me floating.
“I know,” I mumbled.
“I’ll be back before you know it. Play some video games. Maybe Oliver will be on tonight and can play with you.” There was a hint of bitterness there.
“Okay,” I agreed quietly, the lie heavy on my tongue.
“No hurting yourself, or I’ll kick your ass.”
“Don’t threaten me with a good time.” I struggled to fight off a grin.
Jasper pulled his shoes on with a dramatic sigh, and reality quickly settled in.
I was about to be alone all night long for the first time since my attempt.
Last time, there were only a few hours between Oliver leaving and Jasper showing up, and this time, there would be no one to save me from myself.
“I mean it. Be good, Milo.” He patted my head and ruffled my hair. My heart sank.
It felt like I’d already disappointed him before the night began.
Things were fine for about half an hour after he left for his shift.
I dissociated on the couch until the silence made my ears ring, snapping me back to reality.
I paced the apartment, checking every window and twisting the doorknob just to make sure everything was locked.
I was on the third floor, and you couldn’t get into the building without a key, but if I didn’t do it, I’d never know peace.
I needed to complete the ritual to eliminate all doubt.
My solitude rolled into its second hour.
I only knew because I kept checking my phone, on the verge of tearing my hair out as I tried to keep the intrusive thoughts at bay.
It had been a long time since I’d had the intense urge to grab a kitchen knife and hide in the bedroom under my sheets in wait of an imaginary intruder.
Growing up with my birth mother had left me with issues.
She was a magnet for nasty men, and she was usually too out of it to remember to lock the doors.
I’d been the vigilant one, even as a child.
Now I was tired of being responsible, and all I wanted was for someone else to make me feel safe.
Sofia told me I needed to grow up and be more of a man, but was it really so bad to want to be taken care of after spending my entire childhood looking after someone else?
In the kitchen, I took a bowl, dumped an entire ice tray from the freezer into it, and then filled it with cold water. One time, a therapist I saw swore up and down that the bullshit trick would reset my nervous system. So I tried.
I held my breath and plunged my face in.
For a few seconds, everything stopped.
Then my brain kicked into gear again.
I threw the bowl into the sink in frustration, water sloshing up over the edges.
I wanted so badly for something to work.
I wiped the water from my face with my sleeves and headed to my bedroom, feeling the sting of defeat.
I didn’t want to bother Jasper, but my self-control was nonexistent.
I’d already sent a text or two after he left, even though I was scared that any one of the texts I sent could be the end of it all.
One too many, and I’d be more trouble than I was worth.
Milo: Just letting you know that I’m alive.
I sent a selfie from my bed for good measure.
No response to the first message. Or the second. Or the third.
He was working. I knew that.
Smoking helped, or at least that’s what I liked to tell myself.
I pressed my lips to the mesh screen of my open window, blowing out a lungful of smoke.
There was a no-smoking policy, sure, but in this dumpster of a neighbourhood, I’d never seen management once.
As long as I wasn’t cooking up meth or causing a disturbance, I was a model tenant.
I needed a distraction. I grabbed a half-empty bottle of rum, sat at my computer, and started deleting photos of Sofia from my hard drive and camera cards.
There were a lot. She’d enjoyed modelling for my photography, and I’d liked capturing every intimate moment because I was scared of forgetting them.
I forgot a lot, with my trauma-addled brain.
On the plus side, I wasn’t crying when I looked at them anymore, which felt like progress. With every photo I deleted, sadness gave way to resentment. It was a better, easier-to-manage feeling.
I mass-deleted entire folders, hardly blinking, pausing only to linger on a few particularly intimate images that tugged at my heartstrings. Jasper was right. She didn’t deserve me—not after I’d loved her so deeply, obsessively, and gotten betrayal in return.
How could it be that I was too much, but not enough at the same time? It didn’t feel fair. With every relationship, I tried to change everything about myself to be what I thought they needed, to the point where I’d forget what I looked like underneath all of the overcompensating.
The harder I tried to anticipate others’ moods and avoid conflict, the more I seemed to find it. I read into every word, every text, every facial expression. Every effort I made to be someone worth loving ended up being another nail in my coffin.
After a while, the computer screen got blurry. I’d been so caught up in trying to purge Sofia out of my memory that I’d unconsciously moved on to looking through old folders stuffed to the brim with pictures of family.
There were three constant faces as I scrolled—mine, Jasper’s, and Blane’s. I’d bet that growing up as an only child, Jasper never imagined he’d end up with two siblings, but lucky for him, Blane and I were apparently both allergic to parents. Or they were allergic to us.
Joking about it made it easier.
I picked up my phone, considering messaging Blane to tell him about what I’d done. But it was late, and since both of us had moved out, we hadn’t talked nearly as much as I would’ve liked. The gap between my brothers and me felt wider every day.
My phone buzzed in my hands.
A thumbs-up emoji.
I pressed the screen to my forehead, jaw clenched. After making me wait so long, that was all Jasper had to say, the fucking asshole. He was already doing so much for me, and I knew complaining would have been wrong. But I needed more. Always more.
Milo: I deleted pictures of Sofia.
Milo: Are you proud of me?
I groaned and tossed my phone onto the bed, polishing off the last of the rum and lighting another cigarette. I’d lost count of how many I’d smoked, but if my hands weren’t busy, they’d find something else. Something sharp.
Another notification pinged.
Jasper: Good boy.
My mouth fell open. He didn’t mean it like that. Or maybe he did, and he was fucking with me, because he knew what a little freak I was. More importantly, would it kill him to respond with more than one or two words?
Milo: I’m lonely now.
Milo: Can you leave early?
Too much nicotine. The nausea hit hard, followed by cold sweats.
I stubbed the unfinished cigarette out in the ashtray on my desk and sank to the floor, staring up at the ceiling, my whole body tingling.
It took several minutes for the room to stop spinning, and even then, I only managed to roll onto my side, clutching an empty cigarette pack and a drained liquor bottle in my sweaty hands.
My stomach growled. I punched myself in the gut, but it didn’t help.
Milo: Are you ignoring me?
Milo: …I’m hungry.
Lying on my side, I could see under my bed.
My attention snagged on the box I kept beneath it, and I reached out and grabbed it, tugging it into my arms and holding it against my chest. I flipped the lid off and propped myself up on an elbow, looking through the contents—old concert tickets, wristbands from comic expos, and polaroids were all loose in the bottom, and among them, a necklace.
I picked it up by the chain, the vial dangling and catching some of the moonlight spilling in through my window.
Inside the vial, my brother’s blood was dark and coagulated, the sight of it nearly making me feel even sicker than the nicotine already had.
I hated that my teenage self didn’t have the common sense to fill the vial with an anticoagulant to preserve it, and the state it was in now felt like a bad omen—like I’d lose him, too.
I was spiralling. I stuffed everything back inside the box and slid it under my bed, forcing myself up and leaving my bad coping mechanisms on the floor.
I dragged my feet to Jasper’s room, my promise not to hurt myself still rattling around in my skull.
I hadn’t failed yet—not entirely. I was still in one piece, and that had to count for something.
The bed in his new room was bare, the bag of sheets and pillowcases tossed haphazardly on top, and it made me wonder if he would appreciate coming home to a freshly made bed after working all night. I snorted. Either it was a little funny, or I was drunk.
I ripped open the bag, dumped the contents out, and ended up fighting for my life to put the sheet on.
By the time I figured it out and got the pillows in their cases, I was breathless and dizzy.
It looked comfortable enough… but what kind of brother would I be if I didn’t test it out, just to be sure?
I crawled under the blankets and pulled them up to my chest, wiggling my toes for good measure. I felt giddy. Everything in the cramped space smelled faintly of pot. I’d hated it once, but now, I couldn’t get enough of it. The smell of pot meant Jasper, and he meant not being alone.
On the nightstand crammed between the mattress and wall, his cologne was a recognizable blur.
I reached for it and missed. I tried again, the bottle tipping onto its side under my heavy hand.
Cursing under my breath, I dragged it off the table and lifted my head long enough to spray the pillow before collapsing face-first into it.
That was the right combination.
Marijuana and menthol smelled like home.