every atom of me, and every atom of you. mickey & max.
Sept 20, 2018 3:27:37 GMT -5
Post by ✨ zozo. on Sept 20, 2018 3:27:37 GMT -5
M A XI'm not screaming anymore. My throat wore out days ago, somewhere in-between the sobbing and the screaming and throwing up the contents of my stomach because my abdomen couldn't take the sobbing anymore. Our room is a hollow, empty place. So is my chest. And my head. His absence rings through the empty spaces he left behind, I fall asleep in his bed and then the nights get so awful I can't sleep, so I fall asleep in the garden instead and wake up to the rain on my skin.
The sky is crying. I do, too. They didn't let us say goodbye because I made a scene, fuckers.
"FUCKERS!"
I scream into the night. It doesn't scream back. It doesn't care. Nobody does. Mom does, but what can she do? Just sits there, pretending, I screamed at her and she didn't say anything, lets me mourn. I'm a teenager, I'm not supposed to know how to be kind - especially not when I'm hurting. Grieving. He's not even dead yet but to me he might as well be.
Every day I watch him. Every day he lives. I don't take my eyes off of the screen. I stay awake, even when my eyes scream to close shut, as if I glanced away or turned my gaze from him I might curse my brother all over again.
In the scary parts, and the sad parts, I find myself reaching for him. It's instinct, hand jolting to the side to find his. But of course he's not there. He's over there, on my screen.
My fingers find emptiness. He's dead. He's alive but he's not here with me.
The butterflies and the Careers kill his allies. I don't eat for three days.
The numbers dwindle down until they're less than the fingers on my right hand and I'm getting impatient. One by one they fall, cannon. Cannon. Cannon.
His little friend dies. Faline, that was her name. I start to think about how we could honour her. Plant a tree in our back yard, no, a flower. Silly thoughts.
There's no time for those. There's four boys pointing their weapons at each other and Mom and I are standing in the district square. I keep my mouth shut this time, feeling the aching distance between us in every atom of me. When they strike at his flesh I wince, crying out like it's my own pain - they're killing him. Mackenzie. My Mackenzie.
I'll kill them. I'll kill them I'll kill them I'll kill them I'll kill them I'll-
He kills them.
"What's your name?" the boy from Three asks, I scowl, hot tears streaming down my cheeks. I know what he's asking.
"Don't-""Mackenzie"
"Mickey no-""Mom, Max. Please look away now."
"NO!" I cry, shaking off my mother's desperate grasp as she tries to pull me away from him. I know he can't hear me. I know he can't but I yell anyway. Steely eyed, I wipe at my tears with flushed, hot hands and refuse.
Our birth is ours. Our deaths are ours.
His death is mine.
For my eyes only.
"Don't look", whispers Mackenzie, eyes closed. Peaceful. Waiting for death.
"Don't you give up on me!" I whisper back.
And then he doesn't.
He swings.
And a canon fires.
In a surge of applause, a tidal wave of cheers crash down on me and I drown in my own sobs, clutching my mother as tight as I can until it is he I am reaching for on that dusty wooden platform, scooping my brother up into my arms, clinging onto him like we were one, like we always have been.
And I don't care anymore that our Dad's the Mayor and I don't care if there's cameras and I don't care about the crowds or anyone else, he's my brother. He's my Mickey. We're Mickey and Max and Max and Mickey he's alive, and so am I, and I sob into his chest until my body collapses from grief
"Mickey," I weep. "Mickey, Mickey, Mickey, Mickey, M-m-m-m-m-m-m-ickey Mickey Mickey Mickey Mickey Mickey Mickey Mickey-"
It's all that I can say.
It's all anyone can say.