Page 24 of Loverboy

Another notification pinged.

Jasper: Good boy.

My mouth fell open. He didn’t mean it like that. Or maybe he did, and he was fucking with me, because he knew what a little freak I was. More importantly, would it kill him to respond with more than one or two words?

Milo: I’m lonely now.

Milo: Can you leave early?

Too much nicotine. The nausea hit hard, followed by cold sweats. I stubbed the unfinished cigarette out in the ashtray on my desk and sank to the floor, staring up at the ceiling, my whole body tingling. It took several minutes for the room to stop spinning, and even then, I only managed to roll onto my side, clutching an empty cigarette pack and a drained liquor bottle in my sweaty hands.

My stomach growled. I punched myself in the gut, but it didn’t help.

Milo: Are you ignoring me?

Milo: …I’m hungry.

Lying on my side, I could see under my bed. My attention snagged on the box I kept beneath it, and I reached out and grabbed it, tugging it into my arms and holding it against my chest. I flipped the lid off and propped myself up on an elbow, looking through the contents—old concert tickets, wristbands from comic expos, and polaroids were all loose in the bottom, and among them, a necklace. I picked it up by the chain, the vial dangling and catching some of the moonlight spilling in through my window.

Inside the vial, my brother’s blood was dark and coagulated, the sight of it nearly making me feel even sicker than the nicotine already had. I hated that my teenage self didn’t have the common sense to fill the vial with an anticoagulant to preserve it, and the state it was in now felt like a bad omen—like I’d lose him, too.

I was spiralling. I stuffed everything back inside the box and slid it under my bed, forcing myself up and leaving my bad coping mechanisms on the floor. I dragged my feet to Jasper’s room, my promise not to hurt myself still rattling around in my skull. I hadn’t failed yet—not entirely. I was still in one piece, and that had to count for something.

The bed in his new room was bare, the bag of sheets and pillowcases tossed haphazardly on top, and it made me wonder if he would appreciate coming home to a freshly made bed after working all night. I snorted. Either it was a little funny, or I was drunk.

I ripped open the bag, dumped the contents out, and ended up fighting for my life to put the sheet on. By the time I figured it out and got the pillows in their cases, I was breathless and dizzy. It looked comfortable enough… but what kind of brother would I be if I didn’t test it out, just to be sure?

I crawled under the blankets and pulled them up to my chest, wiggling my toes for good measure. I felt giddy. Everything in the cramped space smelled faintly of pot. I’d hated it once, but now, I couldn’t get enough of it. The smell of pot meant Jasper, and he meant not being alone.

On the nightstand crammed between the mattress and wall, his cologne was a recognizable blur. I reached for it and missed. I tried again, the bottle tipping onto its side under my heavy hand. Cursing under my breath, I dragged it off the table and lifted my head long enough to spray the pillow before collapsing face-first into it.

That was the right combination.

Marijuana and menthol smelled like home.

11

Jasper

I COULDN’T BRING myself to kick Milo out after I got home from work and found him passed out in my new room. His scrawny body lay diagonally across my bed, curled in the fetal position with a pillow tucked between his arms and legs. Sweat-soaked strands of bleached hair clung to his skin, and his brows were drawn together as if he were struggling to solve an equation.

The lamp on the nightstand was on despite my constant scolding about wasting electricity, its warm glow adding much-needed colour to his sickly skin. A bottle of my cologne was clutched in his hand, and the scene managed to steal the air from my lungs. All that was left was the instinctive urge to protect him as I carefully peeled the bottle from his grasp and tucked it away in the drawer.

“You’re in the way,” I mumbled, tugging at the pillow and meeting resistance.

He whimpered and held on tighter, his body beginning to tremble. My heart clenched as I crouched next to him, the cramped storage closet that passed for a bedroom amplifying the uneven, panicked sound of his breathing. He reeked of booze.

“Hey, I’m right here.” I squeezed his clammy hand.

My exhaustion from the day evaporated, replaced by an overwhelming need to chase away whatever haunted him, as if someone had injected espresso straight into my bloodstream.

He startled awake, jerking upright with the pillow still pressed to his chest. I stayed still as the panic drained from his eyes, recognition settling in. His breathing slowed, and he slumped back against the wall, my own adrenaline fizzling out alongside his.

There was no erasing his pain—not tonight. There was only one thing I could do, and it was a small sacrifice in the grand scheme of things. I’d catch up on my sleep some random Sunday, when I crashed for twelve hours straight.

“Late-night Timmies run?” I rubbed my eyes beneath my glasses and glanced at the clock. Nearly three in the morning, but coffee had long since become an emotional support beverage rather than fuel.

Milo looked away, guilt flickering across his face. Then he nodded, quick and sharp, setting the pillow aside as he focused on steadying his breathing.