Never sleep again

I could look at him for hours. Sometimes he laid next to me and didn’t pay attention to me. Sometimes he slept. And sometimes he looked back. I liked it, when he did that. The small, brown puppy eyes that shined in the darkness, though it was just because they reflected the small amount of light in the room.
Bill had some of these tics, that always made me smile. His eyebrow he unintentionally frowned, or his lower lip he pulled down way too far when he talked. The thing I most liked was that his eyes weren’t in one line. I couldn’t see where he looked at sometimes, because one of his eyes seemed to look somewhere else than the other one. He was tired, then, and I knew I could better leave him in rest. But my look wouldn’t disturb him. He loved being looked at. And I loved to look at him.
He had a dollface, and his cheekbones had always been visible under his pale skin. His face seemed to be made of porcelain, more delicated and more fragile than any other face I’d ever known. When you looked closer, he wasn’t that perfect. His skin was rough, and his cheeks weren’t as smooth as they seemed to be. In bed he was just a boy, but definitely not less beautiful than when he was hidden under thick layers of foundation.

I always had this trend to touch him when he laid next to me with his uncovered chest. As well as in bed as in the warm beach sand, in which we were just off and on, I felt this huge craving to lay my hand down on his chest and to feel how his heart beat. Thát his heart beat. I liked it that he was only human.
But of course I didn’t touch him. It was a bit weird to let my fingertips sense his warm skin, because I was sure it would become a more sensual movement than I actually wanted it to be. Anyhow, I almost never touched him. He was the sensitive one of us two, and I watched out to show that side of me. He was the only one that knew me from top to toe, but showing him that I felt this strong connection between us was too hard for me. I just didn’t dare.
When he was almost asleep my fingers brushed over his rigid eyebrows sometimes. I mumbled that the little hairs weren’t in place and lied that I combed them right. When he heard me, he smiled, but usually he was already to far away to understand my words.

To him I knew some kind of tenderness that doesn’t seem to fit me for the outer world. I was really careful with him, treated him like my little brother. I also looked up to him, but at night when we were overtired and fell down on the bed exhausted, he was my ward.

Sometimes, when I looked at him, I saw tears gathering in his eyes, which ran down over his cheeks after that, leaving a shining track. I looked away, then, and so did he. I wanted to wipe his tears so bad, and to hold him in silence until it was over so he could fall asleep quietly. But I just laid there and acted like I didn’t see his grief.
I was always convinced he cried because it was so clear to him that he loved boys. He had told me when he was way younger, and he didn’t care that much about it. He never talked about it again, and I wasn’t sure if he’d changed his mind or that he would just deny it forever. I didn’t care at all: he was my little brother and his preference for whatever what wouldn’t break my love for him.

He breathed through his mouth when he was asleep, and turned his leg almost around mine, sometimes. I doubted if he realized that himself, but I actually liked it to feel the little hairs on his legs tickle against my skin. I couldn’t help that I started to smile uncontrolled, and was glad his brown eyes had been closed for so long already.
Sometimes I saw his lips moving while I watched him, and it always took a while before I realized he was talking to me. He whispered that he wasn’t sure which day it was, on where on earth he was right now. I always looked at him sympathizing, because I know how he suffered from all the stress.
When I was sure he was asleep, I turned his long, black hair around my wise finger and played with it. Very carefully, so I wouldn’t wake him up.

But I knew now he wouldn’t wake up anymore.

I had sat down next to him for hours, and he laid in the bed where he had always longed for the most. I thought it was strange that there wasn’t a quilt to cover him, and that he didn’t lay fold up on his mattress. He was more pale than I’d ever seen him, and his cheeks, which had been a bit rounder in the last months, were more shrunken than they ever were. He looked a bit weird, I thought.  

This time I was sure he didn’t mind I was looking. A bit too sure, actually.

For the first time I didn’t feel this trend to feel the rhythm of his heart. My hand on his chest would scare me, and I knew. He laid there so peacefully. I didn’t want to disturb him.

Carefully my wise finger brushed over his eyebrows. “The hairs weren’t in place” I whispered. In thoughts I saw him smile, but he stayed there mouse-still.

He seemed to sleep, but it was in the afternoon and he just laid there, his face to the ceiling. There were cuddly-toys on his bed. I’d put them there, so he would always be in company, also when I couldn’t be there for a while.

I sighed and stood up to close the door. I was so afraid it was too cold for him.

I sat down on his bed and turned my head so I could look at him quietly. I’d never done my best to remember the view of my brother so hard, but I just didn’t realize. My fingers fold around his ice-cold hand. Mum had removed his nail polish, and I had brushed his hair. It was still a bit curly.
With the fingertips of my other hand I stroke over the tattoo which covered his whole underarm. I always thought it was a pity how he soiled his body, but I knew he wouldn’t had listened to me when I tried to stop him.

He was still so beautiful. I talmost seemed like a white light sprinkled around him, but I knew it was the sun which gave the room this strange colour. The same sun that made his eyes glitter.

The sparkle I would never see again.

I just wanted him to wake up and to talk. All these blank words he could always think up, or if necessary a preach about how much he hated me. As long as his mouth moved and told me something. I begged for his words, but Bill still laid there like he had been lying for over a day now.

I looked, and kept looking. I wished, whispered, begged for miracles I didn’t believe in. I would never see him again. He would disappear. Forever.

I hated it that I would never feel the sweet little eyebrow hairs under my fingers again. That he would never wrap his warm body around me by accidence, when he was asleep. But what I would miss most of all, were his pretty brown eyes. The eyes that had looked at me, and listened to me, though I didn’t say a word. They had hold me and comforted me. With his eyes he told me everything he couldn’t say with words.

My mum came in and I released his hand. I had to go. He had to go. I cried. Mama cried. The whole world seemed to cry.

But Bill didn’t talk. He didn’t break the silence that hurt me more than Bill had ever done to me.

That day I decided to never go to sleep again.