sixteen
Evan
I’m burning up.
Sweating.
As I blink, trying to take in my surroundings, my gaze falls right on my twin brother. Huge as ever, playing some game on his phone. I’m stunned to see him and overly confused. I now know why I’m hot, though. He puts off so much heat, which is why we never shared a bed growing up. Owen must have felt me looking at him, because he glances over, our eyes locking, and his lips perk at the side.
“Hey, how’re you feeling?”
I rub my face as I try to get my bearings. All I remember is waking up to Jayden freaking out on the phone with my dad. Once my dad arrived, he promised he had me—not that he needed to; I knew he did. He took me home right away, and since I’d left most of my meds at their house with the belief I wouldn’t need them, I took one of my as-needed pills and slept off most of the day.
“Jesus Christ, I passed out in front of Jayden Sinclair.”
Owen doesn’t snicker or tease me. He actually slips his hand into mine, holding it tightly. “Why didn’t you tell me you stopped taking your meds?”
How did he find out? Did I tell my dad? I don’t remember. Shame floods my senses. I close my eyes to hide the tears. “Because I’m better.”
“You are, but you can’t go cold turkey like that, man. You know better.”
I do. “I didn’t want anything clouding my responsibilities.”
“Evan, they help manage the anxiety that eats at you.”
I know this. I do. And I don’t know how it happened, honestly. I missed them one day, then it turned into three, and then I didn’t fill my prescription because I had some left. I tried to get back on them, but then I ran out. I felt okay. I felt like I was handling things.
I rub the back of my neck with my hand and then let it fall beside me. “What are you doing here, Owen?”
He raises an eyebrow. “Um, making sure you’re good.”
“You could have just called.”
“Eh. You needed me.”
I do. Fuck, I do. I clench my eyes shut, squeezing his hand in mine. “I gotta learn to live without you.”
“Fuck that,” he says, almost as a laugh. “We’re twins, brothers. We don’t have to live without each other. But one thing is for sure—we can’t be lying to each other.”
“I’m sorry.”
“We learn, and we grow from it, right?”
I swallow past the lump in my throat. I don’t know how many times his fiancée Angie told me that. “Right.”
“Good. You wanna take a shower? I’ll go make you something to eat.”
I nod and squeeze his hand once more before rolling off my bed. I feel his eyes on me, watching me, and I know he’s worried. It’s one thing to disappoint my parents, but feeling less than Owen is the worst. We’re a team, he and I. Neither is better than the other, but when this kind of shit happens, I know the truth. I may have gotten his smarts, but along with them, I took most of his anxiety. Probably some that Shelli and Posey left behind, too. Shit, probably some of my mom’s as well.
As the hot water hits my body, I relish it, and then I allow myself to unload. I hate crying, but the shower is the best place to do it. I know I’m crying, but I can’t feel the tears. To me, it’s almost as if I’m cleaning off the sadness, if that makes sense. Mom used to say, after a nasty sickness, we’d have to shower to wash away the germs and illness. I guess I carried that thinking into my mental health woes. My body shakes with my sobs, and the embarrassment not only of Jayden seeing me like this, but my brother having to fly in to comfort me, eats away at me. I haven’t cried like this since I got back home, but I’ve also been medicated and not overwhelmed by all the new changes in my life.
I’ve made some poor life choices lately.
Once I feel clean, I get out, drying off and then heading to my room to get dressed in some sweats and a tee. I dry my hair before throwing the towel over the door and heading to the kitchen. Thankfully, only my parents and Owen are in there. He’s made me a sandwich with chips as a layer beneath the cheese. Just how I like it. As I sit down, Mom smiles sweetly at me and then rubs my neck.
“Feeling better?”
I nod. “A little bit.”
“Good. You gave us quite a scare,” she admits, kissing my temple. “It’s okay to be medicated, Evan Michael. I am. Dad has to take meds for his arthritis in his knee. It’s okay.”
“Lord knows if I don’t, I can’t walk,” Dad admits, and Owen brings me a can of soda.
“And Angie is on all kinds of shit for her ADHD and her mild depression, and guess what, I still think she’s awesome,” my brother adds, and I nod. “And you’re super awesome.”
When Mom sets down my four pills, I swallow hard. She cups my neck once more, dropping her lips to my ear. “Taking these doesn’t make you less of a man, my sweet boy.”
I meet her gaze. “Mom, you can’t call me a boy and a man in the same sentence.”
She raises an eyebrow. “Yes, I can. I do what I want.”
“It’s true, she does,” Dad says, smiling at me.
I look away, and I want to roll my eyes at the excessive amount of affection from my family, but maybe I need it. I reach for the pills, popping them into my mouth. “Angie called your therapist. She didn’t tell us anything,” Dad promises when I look up at him, terrified. “And they want you to get back on your meds since you know it can take up to fourteen days to kick back in.”
Another reason why I gave up taking them. I didn’t want to wait, figured I could just cope.
Owen clears his throat. “They want you to take the other pills as needed.”
I shake my head. “I’ll be fine. They’re too strong and make me tired. I’ve got things to do.” When they all look at one another, I groan. “What?”
“Maybe you should take a bit of leave?” Mom suggests softly, her eyes blinded by love for me. “Just until everything evens out.”
“Absolutely not. I’ve got a house to take care of, I’m supposed to start volunteering at the autism center, and then the girls have their first meet tomorrow. I can’t miss any of that. I’m fine. Really, I’m fine.”
Owen taps my arms. “It’s okay, Ross. We hear you,” he says, teasing me with a character from Friends. We used to watch it as if it was brand-new when we first moved to South Carolina. “I totally hear you, and I’m down for whatever, but I need you to scale back a bit until, as Mom said, it evens out.”
I shake my head. “You don’t understand. This is an isolated thing. Really. I was good. I was coping and trying not to be crazy. But then one of my boys got accused of sexual harassment, and then my sister’s vagina ripped, and to me, that means she’s dying since she needs a fucking vagina.”
Owen cringes. “Is Shelli’s vagina okay? Oh my God, I never thought I’d ask that.”
“This is your fault,” Dad says, shaking his head at Mom.