My life is like the wind -- sometimes it's nice, cool, and isn't shoving things in my face from how horrible it can be. Other times, I feel like the waves as my life, the wind, causes an uncontrollable current that will either end up absolutely shit or turn into something calming, but we all know there's always a calm before the storm. Life is full of surprises and so far, over the past few months that's really all my life has been.
Life has been quite nice with me lately. Everything with Luke has fallen into place, Michael and I (and even Luke) are talking, and the chemicals in my brain don't seem as off balance as usual. It's pretty ordinary -- my existence, that is. But sometimes you can make your own ordinary, and make it the best ordinary there's ever been. Everyone's life is different, and I believe, like the wind, it'll take me where ever I need to go.
Right now the wind thought it was a good idea to have me in bed with Luke being blinded by the sun shining through the window I forgot to close. I could hear Luke's snores -- which was the thing that woke me up, by the way -- and the slight noises of Grady and my mother moving around downstairs.
"Luke," I whispered, poking at his nose, "it's late and we're being lazy." He twitched a little, letting me know he was awake with a small smile.
After he hummed and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes with the bottoms of his palms, he turned to face the ceiling. "What time is it?"
"Not sure, but the light is blinding so probably around noon or something." I emphasized by holding my hand in front of my face, which was still being shone on by the horror that is sunlight after waking up.
Luke nodded and his fingers moved to his chin, mocking a thinking face. "Hey, so I just realized," he started with a grin, "today is the first official day I can call you babe, since you know, you are one and all. Most importantly, though, is you're finally my Michelle."
"Michelle, ma belle; these are words that go together well, my Michelle," I sang, catching on to the joke he was making. He sat up, and that's when I noticed his skinny jeans still clinging to his legs, and his shoes at the end of my bed on the floor.
"You finally took your shoes off in my house after like, months of coming over," I pointed out, making Luke glance down at the end of the bed and laugh a little.
"Do you think I sleep with my shoes on?"
"No," I said, "but your little germaphobe feet need to get out of bed, I promised Grady I'd hang out with him."
My brother was sitting in a chair in the dining room while my mom laughed about something with someone over the phone; about what, I didn't know.
We all knew that we were in the presence of each other, but sat silently. That's hard to do in a family, isn't it? Having a quiet moment without it having resulting from an argument, I mean. There weren't many people anyone could actually do that with, but it's appreciated when it happens.
Luke seems to enjoy it, since he's about to fall asleep again. Grady throws something at him, making both of us jump and me to laugh. 'I'm forcing you guys to hang out with me today,' Grady sloppily signed after, picking at the dry pancake in his hand. I'll never understand why he doesn't eat it normally.
Luke sat up and jokingly glared at the boy across from us, "So you hit me with the pancake?" Putting it shortly, Grady nodded with a shrug of his shoulders.
+ + +
I've had a still wind as of late; extremely boring and sitting in the basement with Luke, Ethan, and Grady all day. Even the other day, when Grady said he actually wanted to go outside for once, I slept through the time that I told him I would take him. So, today, I think it would be an understatement saying that he dragged me off the couch and out the front door. He didn't know where he wanted to go, and I didn't know where to go at all. Luke had ended up joining us on our outing today, since his mom and brother were off somewhere, but it's not like we minded since we'd become so used to the company anyway.
I sat with Luke at the park we'd found, his arm around my shoulders and hand coming down to hold my own, as we discussed more about Grady's birthday. Again. We wanted to do something for him that he would remember forever, something that he would have fun with.
"I think we should take him to that one place," Luke said, bringing his leg up to put his ankle on the opposite knee. He leaned back against the bench we sat on and put his other arm on the back of the rusted, wooden chair. This was probably a splintering hazard. I'm surprised we don't have any splinters in our butts yet.
A sigh escaped my lips, but I still laughed, "Yes, because that one place is so specific. I'm being serious, babe, he deserves it."
"I know he does," he smiled, squeezing my hand as if to silently say his reply again, "but I thought we were going to tell him about the speech therapy and take him to our cliff."
"But that's not a gift from me," I pouted, "My mom is doing the speech therapy for him and you're the one who came up with the cliff idea." I really couldn't figure anything out. It was horrible of me to be this stuck on what to do for my own brother, especially with his birthday only a few days away.
"Technically you thought of going to the cliff before I did," he pointed out, bouncing his leg up and down to keep occupied, before he completely stopped doing anything all together and was quick to pull both of us off of the bench.
Do you know that moment where, in the worst way possible, the world stops and you immediately feel everything in your body shutting down and you don't know what to do but even if you did, you could because you can't do anything?
We used all the power we could to yell over to him, not caring if he couldn't hear us. That didn't matter right now. My legs launched me out of the bench we'd been sitting on, toward my brother and I swear I've never ran so fast in my life. I didn't care about Luke running after me and trying to catch up. I didn't care about my legs feeling as if they were about to give out and cause me to collapse. I needed to get to my brother.
I ignored the slowing footsteps of Luke behind me, and his light grip on my arm when he had reached me, trying to turn me around to look at him. "Michelle--" he tugged, but I stayed with Grady pulled into my lap.
There was the sound of a door closing right in front of me and Grady. "Oh my God, I'm so--"
"I -- you--" I choked. I didn't know what I was trying to say and I didn't even know what I wanted to say. I couldn't say anything. My throat felt as if it were closing. The world felt as if it were closing.
"Michelle, look at me," Luke kneeled down next to me, putting his hands on either side of my face and turning my head toward him. "I need you to go call an ambulance. You can do that, right?" All I could do was nod. I could barely even stand up from how shaky I'd become. I wasn't crying. I wasn't doing anything. My eyes were wide and I don't think I could've gotten anymore expressionless. I was scared and I wanted to puke and I wanted to yell at that woman for even driving in the first place if she couldn't stop when she needed to. But I couldn't.
"I can call them -- oh my God," the woman said, pulling both of her hands through her hair and then reaching to the bag over her shoulder, presumably to get her phone.
"Well do it quickly then! There's no reason it should take that long!" Luke snapped, giving a look to her and then trying to get Grady to respond to anything he did; shaking him, talking to him, anything.
Luke was breathing heavy, the bottom of his palms rubbing at his temples as soon as he stood up, "He's not--"
"Don't say it. Don't say it," I repeated, shaking my head violently. I didn't need to hear anyone say it, I knew what was going on. I was smart enough to know Grady was too small to even stand a chance, but I won't admit that to myself and I certainly won't let myself think he's nearly gone. He's not he's not he's not.
But when even the paramedic from the stupid slow ambulance gives you a look as if you're completely insane for looking like you've got even an ounce of hope in your body, it's hard not to break the emotionless state you've tried to keep so far.
"I--I have to call my...oh God, my mom," I buried my head into Luke's chest, feeling my walls crumbling as I started to let everything out. I felt like I was drowning; that's what I wanted to do right now. Because this was all my fault.
"Babe, I need you to breathe, I'll call your mum, you go ride with Grady, okay?" My face was held in his hands, which were placed softly on my cheeks.
Breathe. I couldn't even hear that word without thinking about the fact that my own brother was hardly breathing himself.
I don't like ambulances. I never have and I absolutely despise them now that Grady was inside of one. All because of me. The urgency of these paramedics didn't help with anything because they were shouting everything that was wrong as if I wasn't even there and I wanted to yell at them to stop stop stop but they wouldn't because this is their job and I should be more grateful that they're even trying.
Everything was moving so fast, my mouth felt dry, all of the words it held being sucked out of me and I couldn't even acknowledge the fact that Luke had rushed toward me in the stupid broken chairs of the hospital waiting room because I was so completely confused and lost that I only wanted to be with myself. I didn't deserve to be around anyone.
He rushed over to me and kneeled in front of me, my legs in the chair with me and my arms wrapped around them as my face was buried into my knees. "Michelle, you're going to be--"
"I don't need you to lie to me," I snapped at him. He doesn't need to tell me such a false thing just to make me feel better. I was well aware that nothing was going to be okay, he knew that, too. He was probably exactly like me -- refusing to believe any of this was actually happening.
It's not real, when I wake up from whatever this is, Grady will be in his room like usual and trying but miserably failing to pass the Water Temple and he'll be perfectly okay and I'll be able to hug him and he'll laugh at me and probably call me crazy but all he needed to know was I wish I was able to wake up because this hurts so bad.
But this isn't a dream, my mom is running toward Luke and I just as speechless and heartbroken as I was. Michael ran even faster than she did, and through my surprise of Luke making the effort to call him, I felt Luke rub his hand up and down my arm and Michael sit down next to me with his leg shaking.
It's amazing how fast the wind can carry you to a seemingly beautiful area and then become ruthless and call in the biggest storm you've ever experienced. And you can't do anything. Because the wind carries you where you need to go -- no matter how much you fight, the wind always wins. Wind is fucked up.
All you can do in the storm is hope you don't drown as the flood waters become a whole ocean. In the end you just wish you hadn't of fallen for the trick that is the calm before the storm. There's always something good being taken away from you when the storm rolls around.
That something, for me, was Grady and my motivation. My little brother was my motivation to prove I was a better version of who I was before, even if before meant five seconds ago. All my life I've felt motivation because I felt the need to show Grady how much he meant to me and how much I wish he hadn't of lost everything because of me.
He literally lost everything.
One single thing was held into my mind, only brought back through a string of different sentences so I didn't have to hold one thing against myself. I thought everything differently than the last so I would have more to admit that I did wrong in the role of being an older sister.
I'm being incredibly selfish, aren't I?
We don't even know if Grady's going to be okay or not and I was being close-minded and selfish, thinking the worst and only about how this affected me. My mom wasn't even doing anything; she just sat there, staring at the floor with her mouth open slightly. Michael -- oh God, Michael loves Grady as much as I do and they were so close it hurt to even imagine what was running through his head right now. Michael hadn't seen him in weeks, but I wanted to speak up and tell him that it was alright. My voice was still nowhere to be found. I couldn't reassure anyone until I could reassure myself.
Luke was pulling me closer to him on the longer chair for two, kissing the top of my head and whispering to me. Even he was anxious, but I don't know why I was saying that as if he wouldn't be. I wish his mom and Ethan were here.
I don't wish any of of were here. This isn't where we're supposed to be; we're all supposed to be laughing together about something only we would find funny. We weren't supposed to ever walk into a hospital like this and certainly never for Grady.
Everyone around me looked so broken. Defeated. There were some families celebrating the return of whoever was in the wheelchair the nurses rolled out for them. There were some families who were openly crying about everything happening to them, while mine -- besides looking nervous as hell -- couldn't do a fucking thing because this wasn't expected. This really, really wasn't expected.
And I know not all of the people in this hospital expected whoever they're here for to be in the position they were, either, but there's always warnings and signs beforehand that they don't look for. Luke, Michael, my mom, and I didn't need to look for warnings or signs; there were none. You couldn't look at me and tell me while planning a surprise for my brother, he was going to fall victim to one of those stupid, idiotic things you only think happens in movies until you have it happen in real life.
Everything good eventually gets ripped away from you and I've come to notice that's reality and reality fucking sucks.
"Luke?" I whispered, surprising not only myself with the sudden ability to speak through all of this, but also Luke, who nodded slightly. "You know how you said you smoke so you don't have to think about the real world?" He nodded again, this time confused. I was still whispering and barely able to even talk -- I couldn't tell you how I was managing to do it without breaking down right now.
"I wish I had something like that," I admitted, "right now reality isn't being very friendly to us." I sounded incredibly childish, really. But I didn't care. Nothing mattered except for knowing if Grady was going to be alright. I felt like the hospital walls were closing and the closer they got the farther away from the answer I got. For years and years, it felt like, we'd been sitting here and not a single fucking doctor or nurse or whoever came out to tell us anything.
To this, Luke sighed and turned my face to look at him. His eyes reminded me of the oceans I told you about; the ones that represent me as these horrible winds are trying desperately to tear me apart. "It's not friendly to anyone, Michelle. But it'll be oka--"
"I thought I told you not to lie to me," I said, my mouth set into a line as I watched my mother talk to some middle aged man with too many pens in his coat pocket, with an unreadable expression on her face.
"I'm not lying. You're going to be okay, we'll all be okay," Luke's eyes looked directly at me, making sure I was listening to what he was saying and not just hearing it. "I'm not promising to know when but everything is going to be fine."
But Grady's not. Everything isn't fine. 'Everything,' included Grady and Grady is gone.
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im the devil i hate myself