Jessica Sanchez

Extract from When We Were Younger

I was twelve when I came to the realisation that I loved him.  It was during one of my sister’s sleepovers, at the point in the night when her and her friends were watching an exceptionally cheesy romance and gushing over its male lead.

“Where is my home?” he’d asked his love interest.  “My home is with you.”

At the time, I was sitting on the floor with my used eraser collection, keeping my mouth shut as instructed. In my hand was the head of a walrus, his body long since disintegrated in the name of my science homework. I remember his face being grey – the type of grey that’s so dull, it’s bright – and the area where his neck once met his body being a gritty black. While staring at the pointed ends of his tusks I thought, without any hesitation, my home is with him.

Initially, it had been liberating – assigning words to the murky feelings within me. It got me to finally understand why staring at his smile for longer than a few moments at a time made me as nervous as a squirrel caught between two lanes of traffic.  But with that awareness came confirmation of a fear, that, up until then, I had looked away from.  I’d trained myself to believe that if I didn’t acknowledge it, it would go away.  What a bloody fool I was. I should’ve known that if you have something worth running away from, no amount of endurance will ever be enough to throw it off your trail, no matter how long you train for.

Entering the pub last night, I wasn’t sure what I’d be greeted with.  All I knew was that based on what he’s recently shared with me, Hutton would most likely be louder than his usual self.  I hadn’t expected for that boisterousness to make my blood run cold.

He was a loose cannon. A grieving man capable of reacting any which way. I couldn’t let him be that man. Yes, I was unnerved by the sound of my dirty laundry flapping in the wind. And yes, there were many, many times where I found myself pushing down on my heels to keep from collapsing under fifteen years of compounded guilt. But I couldn’t let him wallow in his mania or go home and wonder what person the alcohol might turn him into without an audience to perform for.  It was one thing for me to drive him home and put him to bed. It was another to make sure he didn’t try and escape in the middle of the night like a convict of The Rocks.  But waking up to a living room packed with floral arrangements, the house keys I’d set to the side of my sofa pillow gone, it’s clear that I’ve failed him. Again.

In the rush to Levi’s car, I nearly trip over my boots’ untied laces.

On the drive west, I make two calls.  Thankfully, both are short.  The first even goes to voicemail.  I can’t exactly blame my boss.  No fucking way would I be awake at six in the morning either.  Levi just barely is, though I think that’s my doing.  Even so, he’s kind about it, reassuring me that it’s more than fine if I keep his car for the rest of the day, and that of course he’ll take Allen out for his morning walk once we’ve hung up.

While he does that, I’m stuck with my own thoughts – ever changing, yet always drenched in anxiety. The most disturbing of which centres around a specific Mercedes sinking to the bottom of any body of water within several hours drive.  I can see myself swimming above it, my arms burning as they put up a fight against water’s weight.  My ears bleeding from enduring levels of barometric pressure humans shouldn’t. In this vision, air bubbles drift past me in lackadaisical patterns. I nearly throw up all over Levi’s steering wheel imagining the purple lips they would’ve escaped. At the stop sign following my exit from the M2, I try to force myself just so no extra time will be added to the drive, but nothing comes out other than a strained hack.

Until the same car I’ve pictured careening over a nondescript guardrail comes into view, it’s the only sound I can bring myself to make.

At the top of Northern Crest Cemetery’s steepest hill, Hutton’s body looks one with the grass.  Were it not for the ground being slanted and the soles of his shoes visible, I’m not sure I’d even be able to label him a person.  He looks more like an elongated gravestone, and the closer I get, the more I can see why.

He’s lying on his stomach, nose fully pressed into the soil, arms wrapped around his torso.  His front side must be soaked.  I know from getting to the excavation site early that when the cemetery opens at sunrise, their sprinklers turn on.  Based on how loud my boots are squelching in the grass, they couldn’t have shut off any longer than ten minutes ago.

I’m still quite a ways away from where he is, but the sight doesn’t sit well with me.  If he won’t talk, that’s fine, but I can’t stand seeing him positioned like this. Like he’s dead. Like he’s waiting for the earth, now that it’s softened, to accept him. I need for him to move.  At least face the sky so I can see that his skin is still cream.

“Hutton,” I call gently.

When he doesn’t budge, I call again. This time, using his nickname.  More so because I can than because I think it will make a difference.

Now that I’m close enough, the option’s there for me to kick at the bottom of his shoe.  It’s the sort of thing I’d do if we were on any other patch of green.  Because I’m a little bit of a dickhead like that, but mostly because I’m weak and I know that an act that juvenile will earn me a fond glare.

“Hut.”

Finally, he shows signs of life.  All at once, he throws his body to the side.  Like I thought, his tan hoodie, the same one I’ve seen him wear almost every day since the burial, has been painted mud brown.  The same can be said for the front of his jeans.  Somehow, the only residue on his face are small clumps of dirt stuck close to his hairline.  Perhaps more are in his beard, but I can’t tell from how scraggly and dark it is.  That, and because he isn’t looking up, he’s staring at my skinny ankles covered in their skinny jeans.

Without thinking, I mimic his posture and lie on my side in the grass. Soon after, I can feel my two top layers – a grey long sleeve, covered by a plain white t-shirt – reach the same level of heavy saturation my jeans have.  Yet the creeping wetness doesn’t register.  I’m too distracted by how deserted the expression looking back at me is. How a Chinese factory worker could sew more emotion onto a stuffed animal, and how the passive eyes staring into mine don’t at all resemble my home. They’re not even their own.

The longer we stay silent, the more my fingers itch to reach out and cup his cheeks.  They’re wet, his left even more so now that it's pressed directly into the cemetery’s stalky blades of grass.  Like I can see him do with his own, I tighten my arms around my waist to keep from crossing the invisible line between us.

It’s a feat I don’t remember being so hard.  In adolescence, it was easier to stifle my adoration; noticing how someone has grown into themselves is difficult to do when you’re beside them while it’s happening.  But now, being handed a complete version of the boy I once knew is like receiving a dream and nightmare all wrapped in one. He’s not who he was.  He’s who I had always hoped he wouldn’t become: unequivocally breathtaking.

Gradually, shivers begin to show throughout his body.  Disregarding the blaring sirens put in place by my twelve-year-old self, I shoot up and desperately claw at the back of my shirts.  In one sharp tug, they peel off together.

“Come on,” I whisper, grateful for his arms being wrapped around his body as firmly as they are.  One swift jerk of his bicep and he’s sitting up.

After wadding up my tops, I use them to wipe his face dry.  Once I’ve moved on to his hair, ruffling it gently like I might Allen’s straight after a bath, he brings his knees up to his chest and twists his body to the right.  As I’m about to fold the shirts over and continue my motions at the nape of his neck, shivers morph into convulsions.

Through the sobs that wrack his frame, I steady my hands.  One clasps his left shoulder, while the other grips the cotton it's holding even tighter.

Silently, I dry his neck.

Then his ears.

Then his jaw.

Then his neck again, until bringing the shirts up to his eyes and applying the smallest of pressure.

The cry that follows is unlike any I’ve ever heard.  From him, from me, from my parents’ bedroom.  It’s an aggressive, raspy moan that doesn’t end until its source has squeezed their diaphragm empty. When he does, he hunches over, right into my cloth-covered hand.

One after another they come, the next always sounding worse than the last.  Several minutes in and I’m positive – absolutely certain – that nothing can be more painful than witnessing the hardened shell of the one you love, come crumbling down.

I turn my head to refrain from joining in on the intense weeping.  The minimal tears that do fall, I wipe away with my bony shoulder.

“Why?” he wails.  “Why’d you have to desert me like that?”

My eyes shut.

“Why’d you do that?” he cries, pushing further into my t-shirt hideaway.

I can hear the snot and tears mix near his lips when the continued question of “why?” begins to lose its clarity.  I’m about to wipe away the slimy liquid when I see that one of his hands is no longer holding his knees.  It’s digging into the nearby dirt, ruining the faint line where new meets old.

A fresh round of torment leads me to rest my forehead above his ear. Before dropping my shirts into his lap, I mop up his mucus as best I can.

If it meant Hutton would receive at least one answer to his question, I would trade spots with his dad in an instant.  Fuck, it’s the least he deserves.

It never occurred to me until I met eyes with him for the first time in years a metre away from where we currently are, but I see it clear as day now: he would’ve been better off if I had just died, rather than cut myself out of his life.  There’s no hope when someone’s dead.  They’re gone.  Unable to supply ‘what if’s’.  When someone’s done you wrong, but is still alive, you can convince yourself that you’re alright with what’s happened between the two of you. But the truth is, provided your wrongdoer’s still out there somewhere, walking the same earth you are, getting answers will never truly be impossible. I should’ve realised this. How can I claim to love him and not have realised this any sooner?

The morning of the funeral, all I could think about was the looks his dad and I would share any time he came over to visit my baba after the fallout. Neither one of us would say a word beyond small talk, but I always wished he would’ve. The waiting was without a doubt more excruciating than any scolding he could’ve given me.

The closest he ever got was years after the incident.  I think I was in my second or third year of uni. I’d stopped by my parents’ to collect some mail. Turns out Hutton’s parents were there as well, and once his mum saw me walk past the living room, there was no escaping dinner.  After we ate, his dad and I found ourselves alone in the kitchen, and for some strange reason, a sudden burst of bravery came over me.

I asked him if there was any good surfing in New York.  He’d just stared at me, as if he knew how many hours I’d spent asking that exact question to the Internet already.

“You’d have to ask someone who surfs,” he replied.  Then, after sensing his sting wasn’t deep enough, added, “If not, I’m sure you’ll learn to sleep at night without an answer.”

Little did he know, not a day has gone by where I’m not haunted by the look on Hutton’s face when I told him he was pathetic.  People talk about their lives flashing before them when they die, but they never talk about watching someone else experience that while still being alive.  I did.  I had to witness the person I love more than I love myself, lose all hope in humanity and know that I was the reason why.  Every time I feigned indifference when he came to me, begging with contrived optimism to give him a chance to fix his unknown wrong, I had to hear my own silence do the dismissing.

“Why’d you go?” Hutton shouts, this time with perfect diction.  As I lean back, he hurls a fistful of dirt at the grave beside us.  “Why’d you leave me?” he screams at the ground.

“Hut,” I sigh, pulling his hand away from doing any more damage.  “Please, stop.”

Instead of listening, he puts up a fight.

Immediately, my arms wrap around his body from behind and squeeze to kill. He tries to shake me off, but I refuse, holding on tight like a scared farm boy riding a bull for the first time.

“You’re hurting yourself,” I manage, hoping that he’ll hear me and give in.  My grip’s loosening, and without it, I’m not sure what will happen.

He thrashes wildly once, twice, three times, before succumbing to his exhaustion. Right as I’m about to let up on my hold, his body goes limp and takes us to the ground.

There’s a sloppy splash the moment my back hits the grass with more unpleasant noises following as the dead weight forces my shoulder blades deeper into the mud.

Like this, I can feel his protruding ribs.  They’re stretching his skin like his lower stomach is, emaciated from not being fed what it’s used to.  He’s worse off than when he showed up to the dig, ready to work.  At that point, I could see the extra slouching of his sleeves, but I hadn’t focused on them for longer than a glance; coming up with a fake job description was more pressing.  However, once I’d done a decent enough job at convincing him his work was needed, I watched him at lunch like a hawk.  I’d informed the others of his situation the first chance I could, setting up a rule that if they commented on his looks or demeanour, they could kiss their fieldwork signature goodbye, but what I’d forgotten to add to our unspoken rulebook was this: if offered, they were not to accept his nibbled-at meals. Even though I sent them passive aggressive stares each time that they did, none ever worked. Maybe if I made them as intimidating as the glare I shot Amelia when she asked if Hutton was single, I wouldn’t have had to hide my pain watching him actively wither away for over a week.

Above me, feeble weeping continues.  I can feel them more than I can hear them.  Through his skeleton to mine, they transfer.  Each shuddering breath he inhales, so do I.  Every moan-induced rumble, my own heart feels.  I’ve never felt so connected to someone and so helpless at the same time.

When I can sense him beginning to move again, my arms tighten.  Once I’m confident destruction won’t follow, they relax.

He flips around, putting a hand on either side of my head.

Seeing how much of an effort it is to keep himself up, I push lightly at his chest.  As I do, my eyes close.  I can’t have his, as blood-shot as they are, imprinted into my memory. Especially not this close.

But he won’t budge against my touch.

And I wouldn’t ever make him.

My eyes open again when two tears land on my cheeks, one right after the next.  I watch him use his left forearm as a rag, his body tilting slightly to do so.  While the distance between us is bearable, I take a steadying breath.

“What’s that?” I ask when an unintelligible mumble’s been made.

“You—”  He pauses to suck in a hefty breath.  “Why’d you abandon me?”

The word ‘abandon’ ricochets around my head like a lively pinball bouncing off metal springs.

He abandoned me!

I close my eyes once more, unable to hold stares with the person whose drunken exclamation is added to the chaos.

Why won’t you talk to me?  What did I do wrong?  Tell me!  Please, Cairo, tell me so I can fix it!  I’m sorry!  Whatever I did, I’m sorry!  I didn’t mean it!  It’s been days, just please stop and talk to me!  I’ll make it up to you!  Whatever you want, I’ll do it!  I’ll buy you that new metal detector you want with my birthday money!  Is that alright?  What about that dog we’ve always wanted?  I’ll buy you one of those!  I’ll talk to your baba!  Please!  Please, say something!

A light breeze chills my drenched cheeks.

They feel like ice.

He abandoned me!

Please, Cairo, let me fix it!

Why’d you have to desert me like that?

I’m your akhi!  I would never hurt you!

Why’d you abandon me?

Like a block of lead, Hutton’s body collapses onto mine all at once.  I groan at the force, rocking my torso back and forth out of an instinct to gain comfort.

His head falls into the crook of my neck, and right away, I can feel his lips.  They’re trembling, shaking further with every sob he continues to release.

What little breath is left in my lungs, I hold and wait.  Preferably for him to fall asleep. Then, not only would my heartbeat relax, so would his.

A minute later, he shuffles his body down mine.  When his head stops at my chest, I wrap my arms around him once again.

“Before we moved, I broke a casserole dish of Ummi’s,” I say just loud enough to be heard over his tears.  “You weren’t there.  I hardly remember it myself.  We must’ve been about four.  It was her mum’s.  She gave it to her as a wedding gift.  It was huge.  Could feed about ten, I reckon.  I was playing in the living room with Aya.  Ummi had left us for some reason, I don’t know why.  Probably to make a call or something.”

With the cemetery growing quieter, I lower my voice.

“She was cooking dinner, like she always used to back then.  I couldn’t tell you what it was, but I can guarantee it was ace.  Even the butter pasta she made was amazing.  I don’t know why.  It’s literally just butter and pasta, but it was bang on.  Eileen couldn’t even come close.”  My lips purse.  “Anyway, she was cooking something, and I thought I’d help.  Be a good son and all that.”

Trapped within a sniffle is the tiniest bit of laughter.  It almost causes me to lose my train of thought.

“I went for the cupboards instead of the oven,” I add.  “A smart move on my part. This would be a different story if I hadn’t.”

Without any mumbles of laughter to cherish, I carry on.

“The first dish that I saw was my nan’s.  I tried to lift it by one of its handles, but it was too heavy and fell.  The whole thing just shattered.  It was ceramic, so the pieces weren’t too small, but there was no repairing it.  I mean, you could’ve, but you wouldn’t have been able to use it.  It’d have to be one of those dishes you put out on display to just look nice and impress others.”  I chuckle. “Maybe she should’ve kept it.  She’s all about impressing others now.”

I clasp my hands together over Hutton’s hoodie before pressing down lightly.

“It was orange,” I recall, doing my best to conjure up its image as vividly as possible while staring at the sky above.  “A rough orange.  Before all of the wear and tear, it was probably a pumpkin orange, but by the time I got to it it was more like a used basketball sort of orange.  Around the centre it had a white crisscross pattern.  When I say it out loud, it sounds kind of ugly, but it wasn’t.  I promise.”

A commercial plane flying southward grabs my attention.

“I cried for ages after it was all cleaned up,” I remember.  “I think I was just scared that I’d get in trouble for breaking something Ummi loved so much.  At first, she was mad, but I think she was just happy that I didn’t get hurt more than the fact that her dish had been destroyed.  Still, even now, I feel a little guilty for breaking it.”

Our chests rise and fall in unison as the plane finally leaves us be.

“I kept a piece of it,” I add.  “Snuck it down my pants when she wasn’t looking.”  I smile, feeling a tiny rumble pass through my chest.  “I almost threw it away after.  It was white and I wanted an orange piece.  But before I tossed it, I flipped it over and saw it actually was orange, I’d just picked it up upside down.  Which is funny of me to say now because it’s a superstition in archaeology that painted potsherds are always found face-down.”

As we lay in silence, it occurs to me just how cold I am.  The day looks like it will turn out to be a clear one, but the sun has just barely started its ascent and I’m still half naked. I can’t complain though.  Not when my warmth is being syphoned for a need greater than my own.