Across Acheron

Session 8

His self pity was really starting to get on my nerves. I stared at him for a while, watching the slight decline his lips made when he frowned and the furrow of his eyebrows as if he was about to cry.  “Well then fix it, damn it,” I snapped, my mouth moving on its own. “Quit acting all goddamn depressed just because you didn’t get your way. You’re not a god, Keenan. You don’t control the universe.”

Keenan’s eyes met mine, wide in shock. I sniffed and scratched my chin, soon regretting everything I had just said. Will he get angry? I thought nervously. Keenan’s eyes narrowed and I couldn’t seem to look away. When I thought he was going to start yelling, he laughed.

It was a pure, genuine laugh, unlike those bullshit chuckles he fed me at times. Small dimples formed at his cheeks, his skin seeming to develop a more human glow. My mouth couldn’t help but hang open as I watched him. Keenan caught my eyes but he never did stop smiling. I didn’t want him to.

“You’re quite unpredictable at times, do you know that?” he said to me. “You don’t think like normal humans do. Hell, you don’t think at all.”

“I’ve learned not to.”

Keenan laughed again, but this time it faded into the air around us like dying rain. He touched my wrist lightly with one hand and put the other over his eyes.

“Just lie down with me, please,” he whispered, sounding more vulnerable than he should have. “The last thing I want right now is to be alone. Just stay here with me for a little while, okay? You don’t even have to say anything.”

I had to stop staring at him at that point. It made me sick looking at him so helpless. Nonetheless, I put my head back down on my pillow and stayed as still as a statue. The silence wasn’t awkward or unnerving. In fact, it was calm and peaceful. The soft sound of his breathing soothed my heart and relaxed my soul, as corny as that sounds. But I’m not making this up, I swear it. Keenan just had that kind of effect on people.

After a while of quiet, Keenan whispered, “I’m pathetic, aren’t I?”

“It’s not pathetic to want help.”

I felt his head shake behind closed eyes. “Not where I’m from. Someone like me can’t ask for help. Someone like me shouldn’t be shaken by a thing like you.”

I couldn’t help but smile. I knew it wasn’t a love confession or anything, so I wasn’t quite sure why it made me feel so damn good.

“I told you I was spectacular.”

Keenan smacked my head with his free hand, but I never stopped smiling even when he said, “Don’t push it.”

 ***

I remembered something.

I knew it was a memory because I was standing in a small room with blue walls, looking over at a petite boy tucked safe under green bed sheets. Miniature toy soldiers, trucks, and action figures lined the shelves on the walls and scattered about on the floor where I stood, but I didn’t pay much attention to them.

I could only look at him. I studied him the same way a palaeontologist studied fossils. His shaggy brown hair stood at obscure angles, some strands straight while others curled at the bottom. Ocean blue eyes shone under the lamp light with enthusiasm, but they didn’t see me.

They watched a woman sitting at the edge of the bed. I recognised her as my mother, since she had the same curly hair and slightly aging skin from the other memories I had. She rested one hand on the stomach of the boy, smiling as he whispered, what is Bás rí?