Asylum

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

October 2013

Gabriel chewed absentmindedly on the end of his pen as he thought about the answer to his history homework question: Who was defeated three times in his efforts to become president? That’s an easy one. Gabriel jotted down Henry Clay. Next question: What two states did the Mason-Dixon Line serve as a boundary for?

“Child’s play,” he muttered before writing down Pennsylvania and Maryland.

“What’s child’s play, Gabby?” his mother asked from her supine position on their sofa. It wasn’t even dinnertime and she was already sauced. Fantastic.

“Eighth grade history,” he said as he wrote down a few more answers to the take-home quiz.

“Such a smart boy.” She pushed herself up on an elbow to take another sip of her drink. “Where’s my other smart boy?” She was referring to Gabriel’s identical other half, Justin. Unfortunately, Justin couldn’t care less about homework. He used to, back in sixth grade, but not anymore. He was probably smoking a joint up on the roof of their crappy-ass apartment building.

“I think he’s at the library,” Gabriel lied. No need to poke the bear. Sure, she was in a good mood at the moment, but you never knew.

“I wish I grew up with the smarts you two got,” she lamented. “Maybe then I coulda made something of myself and could find a job that sticks, ya know?”

“Smart has nothing to do with it,” he grumbled, instantly regretting it.

“What’s that s’posed to mean?” She sat up and shot him a mixed look, part hurt, part angry.

“Nothin’ Ma.” He sighed.

“You got somethin’ to say to me?” Her voice rose. At his silence, she huffed and downed the rest of her glass. “The managers at that store are all corrupt corporate lemmings. They wouldn’t know a good idea if it hit ‘em in the ass. You’ll see when you get older. Most of the people in this world suck. It’s full of judgmental pricks. Don’t be one of them.” She stalked off to her room and slammed the door.

Gabriel breathed a sigh of relief. At least she hadn’t gone out of the apartment. He really wasn’t in the mood to deal with that.

As he finished his quiz, the front door to the apartment opened quietly and Justin slinked in. Today he wore combat boots, black jeans, some punk band T-shirt, and…holy s**t, Mom was going to be pissed.

“You pierced your lip!” When he had gotten his eyebrow pierced last month, she had threatened to lock him in his room for a month. Of course, she could never enforce that since she wasn’t home half the time.

While they had the same dark brown curls, slight builds, and bone structure, their looks had drastically diverged over the last year. Justin mostly rocked the emo look, while Gabriel could easily fit in with the prep-school crowd. The kids at school would often come up to Gabriel and ask him how he could stand his freak of a brother. It took all of Gabriel’s self-control not to punch them in the face and tell them to f**k off. He loved his brother, regardless of whether he wore eyeliner and put purple dye in his hair.

“That’s not all,” Justin stuck out his tongue, showcasing another new piercing.

“What’s next, your d**k?” Gabriel snickered.

“You never know. I hear a prince albert makes s*x better. Or then there’s a Jacob’s ladder.”

“A what?”

“Google it.”

Gabriel pulled over the cheap, ancient laptop his uncle had gifted him when they’d moved out of his apartment, and entered in the search. It took a moment for the weak signal of their stolen Wi-Fi to return any results. When a bunch of ladder images popped up along with a few retro movie posters, Gabriel looked over at his brother.

“I don’t get it.”

“Add the word ‘piercing’ to your search.”

Gabriel did as instructed, hit Enter, and waited. New images filled the screen.

“Oh. My. God. No way!”

Justin shrugged.

“Dunno, the pain might be worth it.”

Gabriel froze. While he and Justin had always been tight, lately he knew that Justin was keeping secrets from him. Just the other day, he accidentally caught a glimpse of his twin as he was getting out of the shower. The bathroom door had been open, and Gabriel noticed a dozen or so cuts in parallel lines on his right thigh. He was too freaked out to say anything in the moment, so he quickly backed away before he could be noticed. Now his brother was giving him the perfect opening to ask about it. But how? How did one bring up something like that?

“You…” Gabriel paused, feeling awkward. “…like pain?”

Justin stilled and met his eyes, then looked away. He shrugged.

“Maybe.”

Gabriel considered that for a moment. He had seen some things online about people that were into pain. That it was okay if it was safe, sane, and consensual. There was a whole huge world of kink out there. Frankly, the idea fascinated him, but at the same time it also weirded him out. There were so many contradictions. For instance, he had also seen a bunch of stuff about how cutting was really unhealthy, both mentally and physically. What was the difference in the end, really? How could one be okay and another be damaging? You couldn’t believe everything you read on the internet anyway; he knew that. He wished he had someone in his life to advise him on the truth, someone knowledgeable and trustworthy.

“Is something bothering you, Jazzy?” He thought the affectionate nickname that stemmed from his brother’s full name, Justin Zachariah, might soften him up.

Justin stared at him for a long moment and then gave a slow side to side of his head.

“Nope.” He popped his p. “I’m tired. Gonna hit the hay.”

“Did you finish your history take-home?”

Justin didn’t bother to respond as he headed to their bedroom and shut the door.

Gabriel sighed and stared at his own reflection in the dusty glass of the living room window. He was a good kid, clean-cut, buttoned up. He was caring and intelligent. But even with all his smarts, he still couldn’t seem to help his brother, who he loved more than life itself.

* * * *

Later that night, as he lay in bed on his side of their tiny shared bedroom, Gabriel couldn’t fall asleep. He knew Justin was awake as well. Not that he could see him. He just knew. Like a twin’s sixth sense. Or maybe he was just picking up on his breathing patterns or something.

“Jazz?”

At first, he thought Justin was going to ignore him, but then he heard a quiet, “Yeah?”

“I saw those cuts on your leg.” Why was it so much easier to talk in the pitch black of night?

Justin didn’t respond, but in the quiet, Gabriel could swear he heard his breathing speed up.

“People don’t just cut themselves for no reason.”

“No…they don’t.”

“So what’s your reason?”

“I dunno, Gabriel.” He sounded annoyed. “I guess I’m just f****d in the head.”

Gabriel didn’t know how to respond to that. He didn’t want to piss his brother off. They were a team. It had always been the two of them together taking care of their crazy mother. No dad in sight. Not much family to speak of, except for their uncle, Barry. So, no, he wasn’t going to let something like this come between them.

“You’re not f****d in the head.”

“I bet a shrink would beg to differ.” Justin laughed, but with no apparent mirth.

“Why do you do it?”

Justin didn’t answer for several long minutes. Gabriel was starting to feel a little sleepy and drifty when the voice came out of the dark.

“I do it so I don’t get as bad as Mom.”

Gabriel felt a sick feeling churn within his stomach. Now he was wide awake.

“What do you mean?”

Gabriel heard movement and soon after felt the warmth of his brother slide under the covers with him. It had been years since they had slept together. Clearly, Justin was in need of some comfort, so Gabriel pulled him close and rubbed a comforting hand up and down his back.

“Tell me, little brother.” It was an old joke, Gabriel being a whole twelve minutes older. He was horrified to feel the dampness of tears seeping from Justin’s cheeks through his pajama top. “It’s okay. Whatever it is, we’ll deal together like always.”

“Some days…I don’t want to get out of bed, just like her. Some days…it’s just the opposite, and I find myself feeling invincible, doing things that later I know are so stupid, but in the moment, they just seem like fun. I don’t…Fuck, Gabby, I don’t want to be like her. I’d rather kill myself.”

Gabriel squeezed his eyes closed at his brother’s admission.

“But when I cut, it’s like it fixes me. At least for a little while. I get clear, and there’s nothing else on my mind except for the pain.”

“You’re nothing like her.”

“But I am…”

“No. You’re not,” Gabriel said firmly. If he believed it hard enough for both of them, then maybe it would be true.