Living in Denial

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"Hey, are you two alright?" My brother said as he walked down the stairs.

By then we had retired to the couch. I was sitting with my chin laid on my knees and my mom's head was on top of mine, her arms around me. The only sound besides his voice was the news splattered on the television.

"Yes, did we wake you?" My mom retorted turning away from the TV to look at him.

"Yeah, but I needed to get up anyway." Denny took a seat beside her and I saw him nudge his head towards me.

When I looked over, I saw the off-white cast that was still wrapped around his hand and concentrated on his knuckles. "You're supposed to be resting. How is your hand, baby?"

Denny said, "I can rest just fine from here. What happened to Day?"

Taking a breath, I whispered, "Daya's just experienced an emotional breakdown and had a tiny panic attack, but yeah, she's fine." I put my head farther in between my legs and wrapping my arms around them tighter.

"Yeah, you sound like the pinnacle of fine," Denny said to me.

I sassed, "So, do you."

"Kids, I know things are tough right now, but I know they'll get better," I felt my mom's soft hand lather my shoulder.

Denny probed in a way that seemed condescending to me. "Do you ever get tired of saying that or is it just second nature to you now?"

A sigh escaped my mouth. I just wanted all of this to be over. "Dennis, you're tired or hungry or whatever it is, but I need you to be patient."

"I can't be the only one sick of this at this point. It's been months. Patience hasn't gotten me anything but broken knuckles," he slammed his uncasted hand on the couch cushion.

"Son, I believe you got those from being the opposite of patient. God, you're so hotheaded sometimes like your dad. I see so much of him in you and it worries me."

Back and forth, words were being spewed between the two of them. After a few minutes, I tuned it out and could only hear the low rumble of the TV.

Then, that went away too. I was looking at the TV and my eyes started hurting, so I looked down at the natural angle my pupils wanted to, my feet. They were tiny and pale and I probably needed to cut my toenails, but at least they were there.

Dennis exclaimed, "Everything sucks, and we just have to sit here like dogs and deal with it!"

Sound started to come back to me. I didn't want it to. I wasn't ready for complete sentences to enter my ears again. Sometimes it's nice to sit in silence and not have to hear other people's thoughts all the time.

"I know you don't want to hear this, but there is nothing you can do." My mom tried to reason with him.

I wasn't ready. I clutched my ears and began hammering in a rambling sound at them. "Listen!" I bellowed which resulted in the silence I so urgently sought, minus the small screen.

"Please, stop... listen to yourselves." I felt the couch shift around me.

Slowly, I lifted my head and took in my surroundings. I felt a hand touch my back. I jumped for a second before turning my head to look in that direction. It was Dennis.

"I'm sorry, Day." I nodded my head, and leaned on his shoulder, taking deep breaths.

"How about breakfast?" Our mom asked us as if a reset button had just been pushed.

Denny effused, "Sounds good."

"Yeah, I'll help. It's more like a late brunch, but it's never too late for French toast, eggs, and bacon," I said smiling. I giggled while I was whipping the eggs in a small green bowl.

My mom was watching the bacon sizzle on top of the stove. Denny was complaining about how long the toast was taking. Usually one of us cooks while the others are in a room by themselves doing whatever. Typically it was mom cooking, but we can ignore that part. It was still charming to have all of us doing something together for a change. It also went by faster.

Once the chow was ready we sat on the couch and ate. For a moment, I wondered why, and then I saw Denny glancing at the chair. No need in wondering why now.

I attempted to distract him. "Dennis, I'm pretty sure you burned the toast a little bit."

"No, Little Miss, I only burned yours a little bit." We laughed together and continued eating. It was nice. Can almost make a person forget the ruinous things going on in their lives. Almost.

I declared, "When school gets out I'm going to see Jay."

"You must hate spending time with us," I heard Denny murmur with food still in his mouth.

"We might have gotten in a fight yesterday. It was kind of blurry, so I don't remember. Still probably best to go see him." He probably understood. I was... am going through a lot.

Mom cooed, "That's fine, baby. I'm sure things will go over well with you two. It always does."

"How could it not with that positive attitude Little Miss," Dennis pointed his fork at me.

"How about we talk about you then Denny? Have you talked to Michelle or gotten that phone fixed?" Dennis looked at me with a slight smirk on his face.

His look was dripping with smugness. "You don't want to do this with me, especially not now."

Smiling, I simpered, "I can unquestionably take you on right now. So much emotional baggage I bet you wouldn't want mom to know about."

"I know I have more on you, but we can call a truce, for now." We both chuckled under our breaths.

Mom said, "Okay, am I missing something?"

Later on, Dennis and I took a stroll. "Why did you want to come out here? It's cold." Denny and I were walking to... well, I didn't really know where, but it was pleasant.

"I needed to get out of the house. It gets stuffy in there with all the emotional unavailableness," I joked.

"Don't forget the years of shared trauma, hidden hostilities, and oh, the heater," Denny pulled his beanie over his ears.

I chuckled, "How could you leave out the heater? I'm pretty sure it's the source of all our emotional unrest."

We laughed together. Dennis had a different sense of humor than me, but we always flow well.

He queried, "Did you have something on your mind?"

"I guess I just wanted to focus on someone else's problems for a little bit. Come on. Let me in. It can't be shared trauma if you go through it by yourself," I elbowed him in the side as we kept walking down the street.

He had a whole rogues gallery of emotional baggage I could inquire about. "What do you want to know about?"

I pretended to think. "Hmm, let's start with something easy. How are you taking the break up with Michy?"

"Whoa, starting a little too easy, huh? Don't want to know about why I've always hated the snow," he stated in a sarcastic tone.

The snowy landscape was all around us. Way too much to be ignored. "Well, I figured snow trauma would be too overwhelming for you. I saw her at school and she asked about you," I searched for his eyes but he wasn't trying to make eye contact with me at all.

He kicked a pinecone down the sidewalk. "I can't tell if it was a breakup. We just... I don't know how to explain it."

"Cheating got too difficult for you," I said not trying to sound too judgmental.

"You didn't say anything to her about that did you?" He wasn't even trying to deny it anymore.

I didn't answer right away. "No, I wanted to though. It sucks that you did that, but at least you broke it off."

He looked surprised. "I didn't even tell you. How did you find out?"

I half-heartedly laughed, "Didn't you know I have eyes everywhere? Yeah, all girls do. I think mom calls it intuition."

He did a terrible job of hiding it. Michy didn't want to believe it so she hid in her denial. "So, you felt it deep down in your heart that I was cheating. You had a freaky vision or something."

"Let's just say you have the same sneakiness level as Swiper from Dora. Why did you do it? I thought you two were great together and she has always been so sweet and she-" I cut myself off before I started rambling and just wheezed out.

"Relationships just aren't my thing," Denny said to me.

I looked at him knowingly. "Maybe you just haven't dated the right type of person yet?"

"Maybe, but we all can't fall in love at two," he matter-of-factly stated as he glanced over at me with his peripheral vision.

My face scrunched up, "If the two-year-old you are referring to is Jay then you're seriously mistaken."

He scoffed, "You can't live in denial forever." He bumped into me, knocking me off the sidewalk.

"You have no jurisdiction to say that," I joked getting back on the sidewalk beside him and nudging him over. "You have no jurisdiction to get back on this sidewalk," he countered.

"That's also something you have no control over. And there still is a Liv-sized elephant in the room. And even so, I'm not in love with him. He has a girlfriend. He - they seem happy together and I can't come in between that," I half-skipped slightly and looked up at him.

Bluntly, he said, "Don't let her get in your way. It's a new relationship, not a forever relationship. He probably just wants to sleep with her and move on."

I shook my head, "No, he isn't like that. Plus, if he was then I definitely wouldn't want to be with him. I'd much rather be friend-zoned forever than to have him that way, for him to use me and it's over."

Dennis wrapped his arm around my shoulder saying, "Well, you have a good head on your shoulders after all." He squeezed my arm and I put my arm around his back.

"Thanks for talking to me bro." We continued walking down the sidewalk in this position, blissfully conversing.

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