#anyway. jst had to get this down as a kind of.... update on wats goin on / where lanas been the past 2 weeks | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

lanamemories · 6 years

Text

toy soldier | self para

“He didn’t have many things with him. Do you want me to leave you alone in his room for a while, chicken? Or I can stay. We can have biscuits. Whatever you want, sweetheart. Whatever you’re up to.”

Sifting the tips of her fingers over the foot of the hospital bed, Lana pressed the pad of her index harder against the indented letters he’d grooved there with the sharp blade of a deconstructed razor.

G-O-N-E.

Once, she’d gotten a phone-call from the nurses to say he’d smuggled it in underneath his tongue.

She’d sat down for ten whole minutes wondering why he thought it would be worth the risk, how he thought he’d avoid nicking the sensitive sinews beneath the wad of pink muscle there, until she realised he probably didn’t care either way.

Because that was the point. He didn’t care what happened to him anymore.

“I, erm… I know you said you didn’t want me touching his things, so I didn’t, really. I just laid them out, so they’d be neat for you to find. Things… Well.” The nurse’s eyes dipped down towards her lap, thumbs fretting against one another before she smoothed out the fabric of her hastily ironed skirt. Her name tag read ‘Wendy’ in pale, neatly emblazoned letters against a brown background. She’d been Caleb’s favourite, even if he’d never said so. Lana could always tell these things. “Things got a little messed up, chicken. I didn’t want you to have to pick things off the floor, you know? That didn’t… That didn’t seem right. I’m sorry if--”

“—No, it’s fine,” Lana interrupted, corners of her lips twitching like the limb of an old corpse reanimated with a prong of electricity. Brown eyes flitting up to meet the moss green of the pair blinking in careful assessment back at her, Lana nodded softly, still holding onto the foot of Caleb’s bed like if she let go a sudden breeze might carry her away and land her in the soil somewhere distant.

For the past two days, she’d felt far more dandelion seed than girl -- far more anything that wasn’t human, really.

“I, um… This is the box, then?” Staring down at the bloated piece of tubberware, Lana resisted the urge to kick herself for how pointless of a question it was. Instead, she simply pried her fingers off the bed frame and slowly stepped around it, reaching out to sift fingertips over the lidless container.

It felt far too small to carry everything that was left of him.

“That’s the box, yes. Do you--... Do you want me to stay? I thought your parents might... Well. I have the afternoon free, so it’s really... It’s no bother, Lana. I can be here, alright? I can be here with you, honey.”

“No, um... It’s fine, really. I’m fine,” came with the flash of a signature smile, the kind that would win any pot bellied conservative an election no matter how rancid his policies. “I’m really fine, it’s... It’s no big deal. Just packing. Kind of like he’s, um... Kind of like he’s going on holiday and he just doesn’t have the time to sort his suitcase, right? I just... have to help, that’s all. Because he’s... going away.”

You’ve always got your head just... somewhere else, Lana.

He’d said it with Call of Duty on a pause screen in the background, half packed bong jousted aside so that he could pay her his full attention. This was back when he still shaved. Back when Tommy was still alive, before they both enlisted. Back when the future wasn’t a gaping space but a bright one furnished by even brighter things.

You know? You’re just... You could be so great, if you just let yourself be. If you just accepted that you are already. You’re great, Lana. Don’t you get that? I wish you’d fucking get that. God, come here, you absolute mess.

That was what he always did when she started crying. Scooped her in like the dictionary definition of family, lips alight with a teasing laugh as he ruffled at her hair and she inevitably shrieked in garbled protest. After a while, though, she’d always start laughing, too.

It was only at the sudden jolt of a hand tenderly touching her at the elbow that Lana realised where she was: standing in a hospital room, Wendy shadowing her with a face etched full of concern, Caleb’s things neatly folded across the bed linens like old memorabilia from a dusty attic much in need of a yard sale.

“Lana...” trailed off with the telltale mark of a heavy swallow, eyes swimming with a foreign shade of sympathy that Lana wasn’t quite used to. At first, she wasn’t even sure what it was. It took time. “He isn’t going on holiday.”

“I know that,” she barked back far faster than her tongue knew how to process, eyebrows knitting slightly as she tugged her arm further away, evading the gentle pandering of the nurse’s fingers against her jacket sleeve. Chin jutting fiercely so her eyes could find the blanket, Lana started to attempt to order things.

The back issue Cosmopolitan magazine she’d brought him, unearthed like an ancient relic from the pits of lint beneath her bed.

The pair of slide on slippers she’d splashed out on like he cared at all what was on his feet.

The journal with a grape tub label torn clean of its box and slapped haphazardly across the front. She’d brought them to him on her first visit. He hadn’t eaten a single one.

“We’re allowed this?” Lana uttered gently, turning the leather bound pages between her hands so delicately that it was as if she thought one wrong turn would send it crumbling into ash.

“Well, I... There was a lot of mixed opinions,” the nurse admitted, clearing her throat before she continued to study her. “Technically, we have to keep it on file. Pending... investigation, you know. Because this sort of thing shouldn’t really happen in here. In... In our care. I’m... I’m not meant to be discussing this, really, but--...”

Trading an anxious glance back at the door that was an inch cracked ajar, Wendy turned back with a glimpse of a nervous smile broaching her lips.

When she next spoke, Lana could have sworn she heard her voice trembling.

“I just didn’t think it was fair. I just really... I really didn’t think it was fair that you shouldn’t get to have it. It was his, you know?”

Was.

Ignoring how promptly a knot swelled up inside her throat, Lana stared back down at the journal in hand.

Was. Was. Was.

“Do you think...?”

As if she’d read her mind, Wendy shook her head.

“I’m sorry, chicken. No, I’m sorry. We... We checked it. There weren’t any new entries. There wasn’t... any note.”

“Oh.”

Silence filled the room like the water from a leaking faucet, dripping up to the brim until Lana was sure she’d drown in it.

Then, in as bright a slither of light as she could manage to shine on the situation, Wendy cupped a tender palm around her shoulder and forced a mute smile.

“I’m going to leave you to it, for a little. I’ll... I’ll be right outside the door, alright? You only have to call. I’ll be right there.”

Listening to the soft tread of her polished white flats against the linoleum, Lana waited until the prolonged creak of rusting hinges notified her of the door being pulled to once more, quickly letting out a breath she didn’t realise she’d been holding.

Sinking down to take a seat on the edge of his bed, she flipped the front cover.

June 22nd.

Journals are shit. Journals are fucking stupid and I hope you know you’re stupid too when you read this. Can’t even fucking read my writing. Good. Fuck off.

Corners of her lips aching with the urge to smile, a wire short-circuited inside her head somewhere as she failed to follow it through.

Page crinkling in protest, she turned to review the next.

June 23rd.

Lana came today. She brought all this shit like I’m supposed to know what to do with it. I wish it was as easy as shoving a few grapes in my mouth. It isn’t.

June 24th and 25th were blank.

June 26th. Each letter became more frantic than the last.

This is a waste of time. This is a waste of time. This is a waste of time. This is a waste of time.

June 27th.

All that she found on that page was a patch of paper that was so profusely scribbled over, it had nearly torn straight through. Yet even through all of the black lines, the furious tangles of Biro ink that he’d inevitably forced out through a heavily clenched fist, teeth grit with the strength of his anger, she could make out the letters he’d been trying to cover.

Tommy.

Letting out a ragged breath that, nonsensically, verged close to laughter, Lana reached up to quickly swipe at the wet brimming along her lower lash-line, fogging up her focus until she was sure something would drip down and cause Caleb’s ink on the page to run.

It was ironic, really.

Since Tommy died in combat, Caleb had never actively spoken about him once. Lana always had to try and lure him out like a mouse with a cube of cheese and even then, even when he tentatively latched onto her string of bait, he would never say his name. She’d only really heard him shout it out in his sleep when the night terrors were at their worst, when he’d wake up drenched in sweat, eyes wild and seeking, combing the dark corners of his bedroom turned battle field for the mangled limbs of his best friend and the coordinating pieces of the land mine he’d unknowingly set foot on.

The closest she’d ever got was the first summer after he’d been discharged, when she’d found him sat out on the back porch clutching his walkie -- a cheap, novelty toy he and Tommy used to play with as kids, crawling around in the long grass and letting it tickle their shins as they squatted low and pretended they were soldiers awaiting news of a raid.

Every so often, it would crackle. It turned out it was just a few neighbourhood children messing around with walkies of their own, tuning into the local frequency, but every time the static whirred his knuckles would glow an ebb paler as his fist clutched tight, half expecting to hear Tommy’s voice down the line.

Eventually, when Lana tried to gently pry the toy from his hands so she could give him a hug, he’d choked up so suddenly that she almost tripped over her feet.

“He was my best friend. He was... He was my best friend, Lana. He was my best friend.”

Thumb etching feather light along the violent impressions his pen nib had left, a fruitless attempt to hide all that grief beneath all that rage, Lana was barely even aware of the fact that her cheeks were wet by the time her lips finally parted to let out a soft whisper, emptiness of the Caleb-less room large enough to swallow her entire voice whole.

“I know. You were mine, too.”

#self para #suicide tw #mental illness tw #self harm tw #grief tw #loss tw #death tw #dissociation tw #only rly vaguely #um i think thts all of them #jst a forewarning this self para.....is VERY depressing #truly jst.... welled up a bit writin it #fackin dabs my EYEBALLS #anyway. jst had to get this down as a kind of.... update on wats goin on / where lanas been the past 2 weeks

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