half life /pollux

[gamemaker kelsier]

p o l l u x   f o s s e
89th year

Castor's been dead two years, I blow out the little candle that Wolf shoved into the side of a beer can and then chug said beer because I'm not a bitch. It's weak anyway. The bubbles pop against the back of my throat but at this point it's so numb that it doesn't matter.

Castor's dead two years tonight and nothing's ever felt quite right since.

I guess it's not supposed to when you lose someone but they never really explain just how much it changes things. My whole day is different, water tastes wrong on my tongue and sometimes when I see the sun rising it doesn't feel quite real. Sometimes nothing feels real, kind of feels like I'm living in this bubble of time and I'm just waiting for it to pop. It's like I'm living in a different reality and there's no way back.

I don't think I'm myself anymore.

"'Lux, wanna smoke?"

When I see my reflection in the window, I see the same Pollux as always, just a little taller than I used to be with dead, bleached hair pulled up into a pile on my head.

"Pollux."

Maybe I look a little sad. I think that's to be expected though. Maybe I'd look weird if I didn't look sad. That'd be odd right? Dead brother and I turn into a party animal.

But what else am I supposed to do? Cry? I've done that, a lot of that. I knew Castor was dying my whole life but it wasn't supposed to be like that, I was supposed to have the chance to say goodbye, to hold him as he went, to tell him it was going to be okay. I never got to tell him it'd be okay.

And I'm half a person now, half of a whole, I was mad at him once because he caught a cold the day before our eighth birthday and Mom cancelled the party. She sent a note to school and didn't let me leave the house for a week becuase I could bring more germs home on my clothes and make Cas worse.

Seems stupid now. I told Cas stories through the floorboards all week and at midnight on the Tuesday I told him happy birthday and he told me happy birthday at the same time.

I haven't read a single book since he died. I don't think there'd be anything on the pages, what's the point of telling stories if Cas isn't here to hear them? I'd read for him because he couldn't. I used to search for books for him, used to go to Mulligan's Books every day after school to beg an old torn paperback off him but now there's no reason to.

I don't have dreams anymore.

Someone shoves a cigarette in between my lips, already lit. Mint-flavoured smoke fills my throat, down my lungs, back out and I cough. "Wolfgang fuck off," I growl. I don't know why he's trying to get me hooked. There's something about shit beer and shit cigarettes though. It makes me happy somehow, heat running through me with each drag, like feeling again.

It's like feeling anything.

They don't tell you about the apathy that comes with grief. Being free of Castor should've been good. Don't gotta give up any more kidneys, be his blood bank. Mom and dad even finally stopped pretending to love me when Castor died. The only thing that annoys me about this whole runway lifestyle is that mom is probably milking the drama. She loved to moan about Castor and his illness to anyone who would listen.

I hope that she tells people I'm dead.

I stand on the balcony and smoke the last little bit of Wolf's menthol. He's already gone back inside and I watch my friends all sat around the little coffee table through the glass door. I can't hear what they're laughing about, can't even hear their laughter. I just watch their shoulders shake and their smiles crack them open, splitting them in two.

To ache like that again.

I turn around and lean against the balcony railing. I don't think I can go back inside. I don't think I can pretend to be okay anymore. People move past the memory of Castor like he was nothing and I guess to most people, that's true. He was my world, not theirs and no matter what I do, I can't move past his loss.

And sometimes when I look at my friends I can see this look in their eyes. Not pity or anything, we don't do that, we can't do that.

Should have been you.

My mom's voice echoes through my head and I drop the last of the cigarette. It lands in the garden below, "Fuck," I mutter.

How could you let him volunteer?

Guess I got to go down there and get it. I hook my leg over the balcony railing and Wolfgang opens the door.

"Hey, get in here idiot, it's fucking freezing."

I look down at my hands. The tips of my fingers are a blueish red, almost purple. I try and curl my hands into fists but they're so cold, I can hardly squeeze them.

"Hey,'Lux," Wolf says and his tone is all gentle, like he's trying to coax me in.

"Yeah I'm coming," I tell him. "I'm just- I lost something."

"I know," Wolf says.

"Get inside."