Kookaburra (formerly untitled) Ch.NINETEEN

I wake slowly, bright lights dancing in front of my eyes. I blink again, and a killer headache rushes into my brain. “Ow,” is just about the only coherent syllable I can push out.

That’s when I hear the yelling.

“What the fuck, Bert? He’s my little fucking brother, he’s only sixteen for fuck’s sake!” That would be Callum, then.

“So were you when you started!” And that would be Bert.

“That gives you no right to fuck him up too! How the Hell could you do that, after everything I’ve done for you? Does it mean nothing? Six fucking years I’ve put up with your bullshit, I’ve fucked a thousand different people just so you could get your fucking drugs, been arrested every single time it should have been you, I’ve done everything, and this is how you repay me?”

“Dude, chill. I’m grateful and everything, but it’s just a bit of K, there’s no harm in it. Besides, when you-“

“Get out.”

“What?”

There’s the slap of flesh on flesh. “I said GET THE FUCK OUT!”

There’s the scrambling of urgent footsteps. The shouting has suddenly stopped. I concentrate on taking in my surroundings, trying not to be scared for myself, for Callum, for Bert, for anyone at all. I realise that I’m lying on Callum’s bed.

And then suddenly Callum’s crashing into the room, striding over to me on the bed, grabbing onto my collar, pulling me off the mattress, screaming in my face.

“How the fuck could you listen to him? Did you just forget everything I told you? Well?” He pulls a hand up, and it flies through the air, connecting sharply with my cheek, making me gasp, part out of shock, part out of pain, as the sting spreads across my face. “Fucking answer me, Scott!”

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, my mind reeling, thoughts not making sense.

“Sorry isn’t enough, Scott. I just want to know why? Why?” I can feel the hurt, the anger, the bitterness in his voice, shown all over his face, and it kills me that I don’t have the answer he wants. He stares at me a few more seconds, gaze never faltering. Then he speaks again, his voice quieter, words sharper. “Dad was right about something, anyway. You are a worthless shit.” He drops my collar, and my body falls back into the bed, head banging into the mattress. My eyes snap closed with the shock. When I open them again, he’s gone.

There’s a silence crushing down on top of me. My breathing is shallow and ragged, pushed out from deep in my chest, a vague measure of the fear and panic engulfing my entire nervous system. Callum’s never hit me before. My arms and legs are shaking, fingers twitching with adrenalin. When we were little, he wouldn’t even pretend to wrestle with me like the other boys did with their brothers. He was scared of hurting me. I brush a hand across my face and feel the stickiness of blood lining my cheekbone, and I can taste metal in my mouth. I must have bitten my lip when my head slammed into the bed.

A sound interrupts my inspection of my injuries. It’s the ringing of a telephone. I shut my eyes and pray for someone to answer it. When it’s rung three times and no-one’s answered it, I stumble off the bed and into the living room. Neither Bert nor Callum is anywhere to be seen.

I mean to press the ‘decline’ button, but before I know it, the receiver’s pressed up against my ear and I’m mumbling ‘hello?’ into it.

“Is this Mr Scott McKenzie?”

“What?” I mutter, recognising my first name and Scott’s last name.

“We have a Mr Kaden McKenzie here, wishing to talk to Scott McKenzie.”

“Who is this?” I mutter.

“This is the hospital.”

Fuck.

“Put him on the bloody phone then…”

***

“I’m sorry.”

I rub my eye with my hand, staring at the plastic floor of the hospital room. “Why are you sorry, Kaden?”

“Because… I let you down.

“You haven’t let me down, Kay. You let me down by not telling me.” God, I sound like Dad.

“I have let you down, though.”

I look up at him then. “How?”

“I let you down ‘cause you wanted for this to work, just to prove to yourself that it could, just to prove to yourself that you were right. Because you, Scott, always need – always have – to be right.

“Kaden, you’re just tired, you’re-“

“Oh please, Scott, tell me what’s wrong with me. Please. Because I haven’t gotten that enough from the social workers or police or any of them.”

Silence for a few minutes. His heart monitor is just as I remember it, beeping every few seconds. I wonder if it annoys him. I almost ask, but then remember we’re not on that level anymore, the kind where simple questioning is understandable and important to both parts. No. We’re somewhere high, high above that. We’re far away, and the distance is getting bigger. If I reached out with my hand, I think I’d probably just touch his, but I won’t. I can’t.

“So what’s happening now?” I ask, finding it a simpler question.

He does that annoying, sort-of shrug again. “I don’t know. They’re carting me off to some place that’s basically a prison hiding under the pretence of helping people with mental problems, and then… who knows? I reckon three options: surgery, recovery, or mortality.”

The last word hits me like a stone of reason, and thoughts flood back into my head. I gulp, trying to push them back out, the useless products of an overactive imagination. Despite myself, I let one spit out.

“Which one are you going to choose?”

He looks away from me, pinching and teasing out the bed sheet between his fingers. I want to grab his hand, force him to look at me and scream into his face that this is important, fucking important. We’re talking about his fucking life here. But I can’t, because he just shrugs and says, “whatever’s easiest.”

I breathe. Hold it in, I tell myself, you can’t get mad now. “So you’re just going to give up?”

He shrugs again.

“Fuck, Kaden, come on! This is your life, you’re only sixteen for God’s sake!”

“Fifteen,” he mutters quietly. I throw my hands into the air.

“You’re fifteen! Why throw all that away?”

“Because there’s nothing else,” he says, barely loud enough to hear.

“There’s everything else, Kaden. Everything.” Then a thought hits me, making so much sense I have no idea why I’ve never thought of it. “I’m going to show you everything else, Kay. I’m going to break you out.”

He looks at me, eyes wide. “What?”

“I’m fucking breaking you out of here. Where are your clothes?”

“You can’t be serious.”

“I’m deadly serious, Kay,” I say, opening and closing cupboards, looking for his stuff. “Can you honestly say you hadn’t considered this at any point?” I open the closet, and find a bag and folded pile of clothes. Success. I throw them down on the bed at Kaden’s feet. “Get changed and we’ll go.” He looks at me, grinning wide. “What?” I say, “Jesus Christ Kay, you wanna look any more demented?”

His hand reaches up. I flinch instinctively, but he only touches my cheek softly. “I’m so glad you figured it out,” he says, voice gentle, before pulling me down and kissing me.