I feel as Tom starts to shift towards me, but before I have a chance to stop him, the thing that I expected to happen does happen indeed…
„Damn it! Fucking chips!!“ he yelps so loud that I almost pour the whole glass of coke all over myself.
„What the heck are you doing?“ I snap back at him, stunned, and try to shift back into sitting position.
„Bloody chips, now they´re all over the bed!“ Tom curses and searches with his hand behind his head trying to turn the lights on. The atmosphere is gone. „Jesus, what a mess, that was such a stupid idea,“ my brother complains and attentively searches and eats all the greasy chips from the snow-white bed sheets. „I really don´t like to change beds,“ Tom whines as he is trying to pick up even the last remaining crumbs.
„If you tell me where the sheets are, I can do it,“ I say decisively, because I know very well, that the stupid idea was mine.
„Yeeees, that would be so nice of you, I really hate doing it,“ he smiles at me gratefully and immediately tries to find new sheets. Fortunately the pillows were not touched, we both had them bunched up behind our heads. Soon I finish changing the sheets and I jump back on my side of the bed.
„Would you turn the lights off, please,“ I ask Tom when he settles back in the bed comfortably. „Can I come closer?“ I ask him and I don´t even wait for his approval because I can´t see his face in the darkness, anyway.
„That tickles,“ Tom whispers into my ear when I put my head on his shoulder and slide my arm around his waist.
„Sorry,“ I smooth back my hair so that it doesn’t tickle his nose otherwise he might end up sneezing.
„What are you laughing at?“ Tom asks me when he hears my slight chuckle provoked by a thought of my sneezing brother. He always looks so funny when he does that.
„No reason, I just feel good,“ I lie not to disturb this nice moment.
Suddenly, gentle music starts playing in the bedroom. I haven’t even noticed that there was a music sound system hidden in here somewhere; what we can hear now is some romantic ballad.
„Do you like it?“ Tom asks me.
I just nod in agreement and listen silently.
„You have to tell me all about it, honey,“ I turn to Tom after a while.
„And where should I start?“ he asks.
„Perhaps you should start with telling me when exactly you realized that you loved me,“ I answer as he takes a deep breath.
„I can’t recall the exact moment, actually. It came so gradually, so slowly…“ he starts to speak quietly. „Wait, actually, yeah… I know. The first time I noticed that something was different, was when I saw one of your posters. You seemed like such a different person there. I don´t know how to say it, but… it must have bee that look in your eyes that got to me. I knew that you were a good actor and could pose like a pro, but this was something… how should I say it… something different. I suddenly saw you with different eyes. Finally I understood what all those crazy, hysterical girls saw in you. It was around the time when you changed your hairstyle. Suddenly, you weren’t the devil with bangs combed down over your eye, but someone completely different. Your eyes looked so incredibly erotic, that I got stunned. It was just a feeling, a fleeting moment and I didn’t think about too much afterwards but I remember when it had happened. That was the first time.
After that it just kept on intensifying. Those different eyes stayed with me and I started to watch you more closely. I began to notice your glances, gestures, how you walked, your smiles… the never-ending licking of your lips fascinated me. A lot of times it almost killed me. I loved it most though, when we were at home, where you were all relaxed and natural, you didn’t have to act. Maybe it also felt like that because of how you were looking at me. I didn’t know that you felt the same, but our mutual connection seemed to be working well. Maybe I got all that love channeled from you, right from your heart.“ He smiles.
„And then I started to have the dreams,“ Tom continues. „At first they were just short snippets of two of us kissing but it was enough for me. Before that, I had never remembered any of my dreams even thinking that I didn’t dream at all, but those ones got suddenly stuck in my head and started scaring me. They were more and more vivid, colorful and daring and I used to wake up in the middle of the night, covered in sweat. I was glad that we didn’t need to share the same room, because you would have noticed. I even demanded separate rooms from David whenever we stayed in the hotels. I blamed it on our different music tastes, but the reality was totally different. I think I must have been moaning in my sleep, because the dreams always ended the same way,“ he smiles as he reminisces.
„One time I even had to go and buy five new pairs of underwear because I often had to change it in the night… I remember we went shopping together and you helped me to pick them up. I remember how ashamed I felt in front of you, as if you could read my mind.“ He strokes my cheek lightly. I take his hand into mine and kiss his palm. I am rewarded with a kiss on my forehead.
„I was scared. I knew that it was something that would terrify everyone around us, but mainly you. If I had known that you felt the same, I wouldn’t have hesitated and told you, but I was sure that you wouldn’t understand, so I tried to deal with it by myself. All the girls who got to share my bed, were faceless. All I could see was you. It took all the strength to restrain myself from calling your name when lost in passion. You always talked about how you were waiting for your big love, but I would never have imagined that you were waiting for me. I wanted to suppress it in myself. I understood that it was love, but I wanted to get rid of it no matter what. That´s why I tried to convince everyone, including myself, that love didn’t exist, that I didn’t believe in it. And still, contrary to that, I was full of it.“ He strokes my hair and stays silent for a while.
„And then I failed for the first time… me, your big bro Tom… I failed to get it up in bed with a girl. It felt like I had been hit by a hammer. Fortunately she was tolerant enough not to go and blabber about it to everyone, but I started to realize that it couldn’t go on like this. It had been almost two years since I started hiding this inside me. You were avoiding me, you got terribly angry with me when I arranged for those separate hotel rooms and from that time on the things between us started to go downhill. We slowly stopped speaking to each other, you surely remember that,“ he ads.
„I got really desperate and I was thinking about it all around the clock. I was spaced out all the time and people around me usually had to shake me out of it. It was such a strange time. I was trying to cover up my lack of focus with funny quotes, but at times it got really awkward. Tom the womanizer went totally soft. I was afraid to bring a girl home in case it would happen again. At the same time I was afraid that someone would find out. I got scared that before I could summon some courage, you would find the love of your dreams and I would stay alone. I got gradually nervous and I was watching you everywhere you went like a hawk so that you wouldn’t have any chance to meet someone to fall in love with, I really started stalking you. Then you had a new tattoo done on your arm,“ he goes on.
„‚Freedom‘ and the year of our birth. It was supposed to symbolize our coming of age and everything we´d always longed for. Suddenly it was so close. Suddenly we were independent and free of our parents, but that made me worry even more. I felt as if you would let go of me. I was afraid. You could have moved away anyplace you wanted, you could have left for the other side of the globe and I had no means how to stop you. I made a decision back then that I would need to change that. I had been imagining that you would leave me for such a long time that it became almost certainty and I knew that I had to stop you, had to attach you back to me. That night of our birthday celebration was the last chance I had,“ Tom explains.
„Next morning you could have been already gone, that’s why I wanted to do it. My reasoning didn’t make any sense, I knew that the band was keeping you around, but my thinking had become illogical. I wanted to come clean to you about how I felt and suffer the consequences. I couldn’t care less if you refused me or condemned me. I was prepared for that. Anything was better than the uncertainty. Even the cruel certainty, I made myself believe in that you didn’t care for me the same way, seemed suddenly more tolerable. When we were smoking together outside the bar,“ Tom’s confession brings us back to that destined night, „I was already extremely nervous. We stood there all alone, I could have told you then, but suddenly I chickened out and I just couldn’t do it. I felt like such a coward. I sent you ahead back to the bar by yourself and I disappeared to the bathrooms to calm down.
When my hands had stopped shaking, I splashed some water onto my face to cool myself down. I was also talking to myself in attempt to gather courage and cheer myself up. ‚You got to, you got to, you got to tell him,‘ I kept repeating over and over again facing my reflection in the mirror. Then you walked in and I had to leave. I wouldn’t have recognized you even if you hadn’t worn sunglasses. I was totally out of it. You looked suspicious to me, but when I saw the state David was in, I forgot about it. I had more important thing on my mind and that was you, the-seven-years-younger you. I was not even able to drink to calm myself down.“
Tom stops talking and pulls the blanket over us. It is getting cold, it is dark outside. There is silence between us for a while, I don’t want to disturb him, but I have to.
„Continue, please,“ I whisper into his ear. He smiles at me and kisses my forehead as if I were his child, as if he wanted to protect me.
„You disappeared somewhere, so I just mingled with people and talked to random party guests here and there. I tried to down some booze, but it didn’t take effect. Then someone told me that you were nowhere to be found and I was to go and look for you. I knew that you were hiding somewhere in solitude as always, so I went and searched for you. When I came to the table you were sitting at I could see a change in you. I could notice that you had cried, but you seemed to be content. You sent me such a bright smile I hadn’t seen coming from you for at least a half a year.
You even put your arm around my shoulders for a while when we walked back to the other room together, and that totally threw me off. The change in you shocked me. I didn’t know what to think about it. Was it a good or a bad sign? Should I go for it or not? There was a whirlwind of thought in my head and I couldn’t pay attention to what was happening around us. I mechanically shook all the congratulating hands and kissed those faces, but only one person was occupying my head.
The last person in line to shake our hands was our mom and then the moment of execution was ahead of me. Actually, it felt more like suicide, because I was going to do it with free will. You were standing right next to me. When I turned to you, I spotted joy in your eyes, or was it love? I didn’t know what it was, but it cheered me up. I took the first step. A step into an abyss, from which was no return, but your hands caught me and I didn’t fall after all. You pulled me to you and pressed your beautiful body I have been painfully desiring for such a long time against mine.
I grabbed you with force, my arms around your waste as if I were trying to save you, but I was rather saving myself. I could detect your wonderful smell and felt the hands that embraced me and then I heard those three words, quiet and gentle, the most beautiful words in the whole world. My legs gave in and you had to support me so that I wouldn’t slide to the floor. I hugged you with so much power so that you would know I understood.
When we finally had to pull away, it seemed to me as if someone was separating us by force. I looked into your eyes hoping that you would able to see I felt the same. Your eyes reflected certainty. You knew, there were no doubts. You were smiling at me, giving me strength and encouragement. I tried to be subtle and I took your hand and squeezed it, but then we had to step apart. Two halves that finally merged together, had to divide again. It was killing me, but I knew we had no other choice. From that moment on we would have to hide; hide from the world, from family, from friends… from everyone who would ever try to separate us.“
