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There’s a thud and a crack when her head meets the concrete. Then, a silent gasp for air. Her eyes roll to the back of her skull, not completely but just enough so that there’s more white than iris visible. There’s red caked in her hair, strands clumping together. Though she lies several feet away from him, he can feel the weight of her head on his feet.
(Over and over.)
How did she feel when she took her final breath? The snapping of her neck, throat closing in on itself, flesh pierced by the very bones that turned against it the moment they were met with the brute force of the concrete, supposed to hold it up; garbled gasps, shaky hands fumbling around her own collarbone, the neckline of her white t-shirt. Eyes rolling back; he can feel his own do the same; spit bubbling in his throat, bitter-tasting, thick, no room for air. A throb behind his ears, her ears, a ceaseless sore. An endless migraine; a tight band circling his head, starting from his temples, the only release being the gap in his skull where there’s fluids being released, fluids accumulated from the tension. The last few seconds of her life were spent gasping for air, feeling the cords connecting her eyes to her skull sever like tendons under a butcher’s knife.
(Over and over.)
He sees the memory, but doesn’t really, because the contents of the vision cannot be more than a dream. His mind keeps replaying it like it would any other stored event, but it’s not real, he knows that. He was lying again, lying about how bad Dad was. Dad yelled sometimes over silly mistakes, sometimes his words wouldn’t suffice and he’d have to use his hands too, but no, there should be no reason for Dad to do this. It didn’t happen, and Bruce was just trying to convince himself that the situation was worse than it really was to justify the feelings that felt too big for his own body at the time.
(Over and over.)
He’s trying to convince himself that he has every reason to wallow in self-pity because there’s no reason to blame himself for crumbling constantly when such a harrowing circumstance had once occurred, equalling a thousand consecutive setbacks that he lacks. An explanation, not an excuse, but the two are the same to him, because only someone looking to forgive themselves for a crime would bother making the former.
—
The feeling of an invisible rope disintegrating in his hands, threads falling from their twists. Bristles poking his palms, stinging but not quite penetrating the soft masses of flesh just yet. He has two lamps–one by his desk, the other propped next to the headboard of his bed. Only one of them is on; the latter, casting the slightest wash of dark yellow over the right side of his room. The side where he sleeps.
Bruce has a bed all to himself for the first time in years. It’s a relatively big bed, too. He used to share his bed with Mom, back when he lived with her and Brian. It’s always been odd to explain to others that, as a minor, living with his parents is a thing of the past. An arguably embarrassing phase in his life he’d prefer to ignore like any other. Somewhere along the line, Mom said to him that she couldn’t handle Brian’s snoring, so she’d snuggle up by his side and gather him in her arms. Stroke his hair and straighten his curls with her slender fingers, tell stories about the adventures she had in college, always omitting the part when Brian came into the picture and swept her up by the feet.
(Bruce had always wanted his own bed. He knew at one point that he used to sleep alone, alone with the plastic stars plastered to his ceiling, but he’d forgotten what it was like to splay his limbs across a mattress. He could never bring himself to tell Mom, though, because he wanted to protect her, and he so rarely got to see this tender side of her in the daytime. During the waking hours, Mom was stressed, pacing about and never quite making eye contact with him, balancing the duties of a housewife Brian imposed onto her after her marriage with her full-time job. Mulling over whether or not the placement of the blue plate next to the white one would displease Brian, juggling a telephone on her shoulder. His sleeping space was a small sacrifice he had to make for Mom. Mom, who worked so hard. Mom, who needed her boy to protect her from her own husband, although Bruce at the time did not even know what he was doing. He just wanted to be useful. To be loved. Bruce has his own bed now, but his fears were right – it could only happen with Mom gone.)
When he first moved into Aunt Susan’s one-bedroom apartment at an age he cannot pinpoint – not too long ago, but also not recent since he can’t summon a clear memory of when the shade of the front door changed from green to black – she said that he could bring his friends over on weekends for sleepovers. He’s never invited anyone over even for dinner; he knows he’ll bore them sooner or later, running out of conversation topics and having no materials to compensate. No board games, no outdoor equipment, not even a TV – Susan sold that when he moved in to allocate more to their food budget. There’s nothing wrong with Susan’s house; maybe a few more rules like taking off your shoes when you come in and remembering to speak quietly so as to not disturb the neighbors downstairs (the walls are thin), but he knows Susan won’t be rude to his friends. That is, if he had any. Any he would trust to bring into the one safe space he has, where he doesn’t have to constantly peer over his shoulder to see who is watching.
Not like Mom, who would pull people’s arms hard enough to leave red welts on their wrists if they dared misalign anything in his old house. Not like Brian, who would hardly show his face, much less have anything kind to say after they had left. Whether the guest ate too much or sat the wrong way, somehow Bruce would always feel as though those criticisms were really meant for him and not the other.
(Susan wants Bruce to have friends. Bruce isn’t sure if Mom and Brian wanted the same for him.)
Bruce still has trouble even coming out of his room, because he can’t understand why he would want to exist in an area of the house others can see him–see what he does. If he stays hidden, the less angry any surrounding adult is likely to be with him. He’s just like Brian in that aspect, always holing himself up somewhere that he cannot be seen, buried in something. Blankets, books, the dented playing cards on his nightstand that he likes to sort every now and then. The apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree, says everyone who once knew Brian at work – an old friend of his mother’s, a colleague, even his physics teacher who knows someone who worked in the same lab. Bruce has to smile it off, nod awkwardly, try not to bring too much attention to the fact that his heartbeat is slowing so rapidly that one might think he’s heading straight into cardiac arrest. They don’t know, shouldn’t know, and even if Bruce told him, wouldn’t believe that the Brian he knew would have done such a thing. Brian, who always spoke brightly of his son–Brian, who would greet everyone with a smile, superiors and subordinates alike. Brian, who never seemed to run out of dark purple polo shirts. Brian, face always planted in a computer, frantic writings scattered across his desk. Hard-working Brian and his ungrateful family. His wife had no idea just how kindly he treated her compared to other husbands - he would only threaten to take his life if she ever tried to leave, not actually go about it - and his son couldn't man up to realize that his discipline was only in place to strengthen him in the future.
(Brian did live up to his promise, to a certain extent, when Mom tried fleeing for a second time. He took a life. Just not his own.)
The same field. Bruce is so alike, yet so different. Brian tried everything to steer Bruce away from research, jingling the career options of doctor or lawyer in front of his face like someone trying to show someone where their lost keys were. Yet, Brian himself spoke of his research with so much reverence. Mom wanted him to be a researcher, not just because Brian was a researcher but because she worked in biomedicine; Bruce was supposed to be the culmination of the best parts of them. Mom wanted him to be like Brian but better, kinder, earnest like her.
Keep your head in your books, go to a good school, and everything will be okay from there, she told him. Research is what you were meant for, she told him. And the worst part is that she was, and is, right.
He loves it, he loves the feeling of purpose that rushes through his veins while he sorts his sources, wears his eyes out with rows and rows of text that blur if he doesn’t read fast enough. A question becomes answered, and there’s that brief spark of dopamine, that voice telling him that he did a good thing, a good productive thing, that he put his time to the best use he could in his mortal lifespan. Yet, it’s his only purpose, and sometimes he yearns–sometimes he yearns to have explored other paths at a younger age. Truth be told, he doesn’t want to become like either of his parents, Brian and Mom–Brian didn’t know how to be kind, and Mom was too stressed and tired to tap into that side of herself. He wants to break the cycle, but at the same time, he’s falling right into it, the destiny of his research. It’s the only thing he can see himself doing for the rest of his life, committing to, because nothing else he does feels as useful as this, as fulfilling–because he’s not exceptional at anything else. Good, but not exceptional. And at this point, this is the only thing that’s going to land him in a good school, a good school for exceptional young men like him.
Mom wanted him to get into a good school. The schools she liked. Mom was always right about which schools were good. She wanted Bruce to be impressive, more impressive than Brian, more impressive than her friends’ kids. She already thought he was, she wanted him to live up to it–live up to his potential. It’s the least Bruce can do in her honor, now that he’s at the big age of seventeen, sitting on the floor with his application papers spread out before him. It’s not good for his eyes, people keep telling him that, but having one prominent small light rather than multiple large lights canceling each other out is the only way he can focus on what’s in front of him–else, his eyes would wander, ears buzzing slightly with the sound of overused electricity.
I’m going to be better, he tells himself. I’m going to do everything that he couldn’t do.
He can’t be like his father if he succeeds at the same points in life that the other failed in. Because by then, the apple hasn’t fallen–the branch it was hanging onto has been grafted onto another plant entirely.