Laying on of Hands

LaVieEnRose

I know this sounds so weirdly specific—and trust me, it did to me too—but one of the first things they teach you in ASL classes is not to throw pieces of paper at a Deaf person to get their attention. It became a running joke with me and Brian, long before I had lost enough hearing to warrant special attention-getting techniques. He'd throw something heavy and dangerous at me and then be like, “Hey, it's not a piece of paper,” or he'd actually throw paper at me and I'd give him some over-the-top horrified, “Brian, no.”

So the reasoning is that a piece of paper has edges and could theoretically catch you in the eye, and maybe that sounds kind of paranoid, but Deaf people are really, really protective about their eyes. Way more so than their hands, and probably the first thing you think of when you think about signing is hands, but there are ways around that. Hell, if anyone knows about being Deaf with a fucked-up hand, it's me. But if you're Deaf and you can't see someone signing at you, that's kind of an issue. And it's not that there aren't solutions for that too—Deaf-blind people exist and aren't all that uncommon, and there are whole adaptations of sign language and interpreting for working with them—but it's obviously a pretty major deal. And it's really, really isolating.

We never really stopped making fun of the paper rule—though nowadays Brian mostly throws socks at me, which means I haven't worn a matching pair of socks in years, because of course after he takes off his own sock and throws it at me he steals my nice matched pairs—but we did get kind of collectively nervous about eye stuff, the way we get collectively nervous over most things we can't control. Mostly it just meant Brian bitched at me every time my allergies were bad and I had the audacity to rub my eyes.

Which brought us to where we were at the start of this story, which was standing in our bathroom a couple days before my twenty-eighth birthday, Brian with a bottle of eye drops, me with my head back and one hand holding a tissue under my nose and the other sloooowly inching up towards my eyes, because maybe if I was subtle enough—

Stop.

I glared at him, blowing my nose. We'd had a warm, wet winter, which was giving way to an early, pollinated spring, and I was doing about how you'd expect with that. Our health insurance was back in the saddle or whatever, so I'd gone to the allergist earlier that day and come home with a a couple new medications, including these prescription eye drops that I'd been trying to psych myself into using for the past ten minutes before Brian finally snatched them away and said he'd do it. Sue me, I've always had a thing about sticking things in my eyes and I'm a little extra nervous about it after four years of scaremongering!

He said, Okay, think you can go without sneezing for a ninety seconds?

No.

Well, I have the utmost faith in you. Head back.

I pinched the tissues around my nose with one hand and gripped the counter with the other while Brian pried my eye open and squeezed out a few drops. I flinched when the first one hit my eye, but managed to stay still after that. He moved to the other, working quickly, and I stood there with my eyes closed, trying to keep the drops in, and felt Brian run his hands up and down my arms. I blinked eventually, and my vision swam and focused on him, standing there looking so fucking hot in his white tank top and smarmy smile.

Better? he asked.

I don't know. Stings. And they made my nose run.

Everything makes your nose run. He kissed me between my eyes and gave me a little nudge. Shower, come on.

I don't want to.

The steam felt good on my sinuses, and Brian's hands were gentle and sure. He'd been really careful with me since the whole health insurance fiasco, and it was sort of weird but also nice. He washed my hair, shielding my itchy eyes from the shampoo. We ought to shave your head again, he said.

No.

Pollen gets caught in your hair.

I tried to argue but sneezed instead, and he sighed and pulled me into his chest.

You'll feel better tomorrow, he said. Meds will help.

That, friends, is what he call dramatic irony.

**

There's also just some regular old irony, which is that it turned out I was really allergic to my allergy eye drops. One of these days Brian's going to return me to the pound. I woke up in the morning feeling this awful heaviness in my face and my chest, and my eyes were burning like they were full of smoke.

And also I couldn't see.

My eyelids were so swollen that I couldn't even do more than crack my eyes open, and when I did that my vision was super blurry and it hurt so much that I automatically slammed them shut again.

I couldn't fucking see.

Um. Okay okay okay.

I groped around next to me for Brian and grabbed him by the arm and squeezed really hard. He flinched and pulled his arm away from me, and I said, “No I can't see I can't see I can't see.” And look, I'm used to talking without being able to hear at this point, I'm used to it, but it's still fucking weird, and really the only way I know I'm making sound is I see Brian react to it, and without that it was like...I had no proof. Nothing.

His hands were on me, sitting me up, and I held onto him for dear fucking life. It was fucking me up that I couldn't even prove that it was Brian, and like, that's fucking stupid because he felt like Brian and he smelled like Brian and also, you know, who the fuck else would it be, but I couldn't prove it.

His fingers brushed under my eye, and it stung like crazy and I flinched away. “No no no, it hurts, don't.” I had this vague thought that I might have been totally ugly as shit right now, with my eyes swollen shut. And I know Brian and I are way past that shit, and I've looked like total crap in front of him on basically innumerable occasions at that point, but, you know, still. I like to look nice for him.

And obviously that didn't fucking matter right now because I couldn't fucking see so we kind of had some more pressing issues at hand, but I think I was so fucking freaked out by that that I was looking for anything else to think about, I don't know. Like how I was grabbing Brian and I was for some reason super aware of the little hairs on the backs of his wrists and wondering if I was pulling them, if I was hurting him. And these sheets were kind of scratchy, we should really get new ones, and I could feel a little bit of a breeze on my skin and that better have been the fan and not Brian opening the windows when I was already fucking allergic as shit, I mean for God's sake my fucking eyes were swollen shut and I couldn't fucking see—

I felt him brush my hair away from my face, then the bed shake as he got up.

“No no don't go! Brian—”

His hands were back on me again, hesitating, and then he grabbed my hand hard and fit it around his, and I felt his thumb sticking through his fingers, his hand shaking slightly back and forth. Bathroom. Smart, my Brian, so goddamn smart. Okay. Okay.

I said, “Okay, um, can you hurry, can you come back because I can't see anything, I don't...”

He kissed my cheek, and then his hands were off me, and I felt just...bereft. Lost at sea. I pulled my legs up and hugged them, and it felt like so damn long before the bed sank back down and he put an arm around my shoulders. He manipulated my fingers into a W and then tapped them against my chin. Water. Okay. I nodded, and he put the cup in my hand and I drank. His hand rubbed up and down my back, roughly, firmly.

I felt two of his fingers swipe in a cross on my upper arm—hospital—and then he did that one-finger scratch into my palm. That's hard to translate to English, but you put it at the end of questions sometimes. Usually if you're kind of nervous about asking it, but here I think it was just so I'd know he was asking, not telling.

Which was good, because I was not going to the fucking hospital. I shook my head hard. There was no fucking way I was going to be around a whole bunch of hearing people with a whole bunch of drugs when I couldn't even fucking see what they were doing. No way. No fucking way.

All right, he signed on my chest, and then he hugged me. I felt his breath on my temple, and I twisted my hands in his shirt until he pried one free. Medicine, he signed onto my palm, and he handed me a few pills, different shapes and sizes. Fun fact: medicine is the same sign as poison. I guess there's that irony again.

I hate, hate, hate taking meds and not knowing what they are. You don't grow up with a million drug allergies and feel okay doing that.

I tossed them down my throat and held out my hand for the glass.

**

Brian brought me out to the living room and sat me on the couch, and I scratched anxiously at the leather every second he wasn't touching me until I felt the floorboards move and then he slapped my hands. He sat down next to me and guided my head into his lap, and I flinched when a cold cloth came down over my eyes. He spread his palm over my chest. My heart was beating like a fucking hummingbird, and he rubbed over it like it would slow it down.

I said, “This is...um. This is pretty scary.”

He rubbed his hand in circles. It could have been please, but I think it was just comforting. It kind of reminded me of back when...I don't know, when we were new, and the only way Brian fucking knew how to communicate was through touch. I used to lie in bed with him after we'd had sex, waiting for him to kick me out, fucking dying of joy every time his fingers brushed my hair.

But that was a long time ago.

“I'm not handling this well,” I said. “In case you were thinking that maybe, you know, okay, this is probably something pretty freaky for Justin but he's handling it well, I am not handling it well.”

He didn't do anything for a minute and I cursed myself for overwhelming him, too much too much too much, I was too clingy and too pathetic and he was going to leave and I would have nothing and I couldn't goddamn see, I was going to be left here alone and I couldn't fucking see—

But then he kissed my forehead.

“It's temporary,” I said. “It'll go away.”

He made my hand into a fist and rocked it. Yes.

“Okay. Okay.” I tried for a deep breath. “I'm tired,” I said. “It's the dark, I think. Maybe the panic a little bit.”

Medicine, he said on my palm again.

“Oh. Benadryl?”

Yes, he had my hand say again. He fingerspelled something into my palm, but it was long and I didn't get it at all. I shook my head, and he ran his fingers along my hairline.

I shivered. “Don't you have to go to work?” I wasn't even thinking about my work. God, if Brian's going to take me back to the pound, God only knows what Marie's going to find to do to me at some point.

He pinched my fingers together. No.

“Okay. Um...don't leave the apartment, okay? Just...just until this gets better, can you...you don't have to hold my hand the whole time or anything, just...if you could be here if I...fuck. Fuck. I'm suffocating you.” I tried to slow my breathing down but I couldn't, and I clung to his leg. “Christ, I'm so goddamn fucking pathetic, I just...I feel like I'm not even talking right now, I feel like I'm not fucking existing.”

He folded my hand into a Y and pushed it down firmly. Stay.

“Okay,” I said. “Okay. I'm sorry.”

He kept rubbing circles on my chest until I fell asleep.

**

I woke up still on the couch, and I automatically tried to open my eyes to nothing but pain and blurred colors, and I winced and poked at my swollen eyelids. Jesus. I had to look like a fucking ogre.

Brian wasn't there, as far as I could tell, anyway. For all I knew he was sitting right next to me on the couch and just not touching me. Jesus Christ, this was fucking ridiculous. I didn't fucking know anything.

Also I really had to pee.

I got off the couch and felt my way over to the bathroom, and it was scary as shit but I know my apartment and I had a moment of okay, maybe I can get through this, maybe this is manageable, except then my fucking allergies remembered that goddamn blinding me just wasn't enough, and I sneezed and tripped on the rug and ran into the side table and the next thing I knew I was on my ass on the floor and there was some kind of sharp pain in my palm.

I jumped as hands grabbing my shoulders and my arm, but obviously it was Brian, first of all because why would it be anyone else, and also because, all panic aside, I think I could lose a few more senses and I'd still know Brian's hands. “Hi,” I said. “I fell.”

He squished my fingers into a D-handshape and shook my elbow. Where?

“Where did I fall?”

I didn't need to see his no, you idiot look to feel it.

“Oh, where was I going? Bathroom,” I said. “I think I hurt my hand. The other one.”

He picked it up and turned it over, then helped haul me off the floor and to the bathroom. He planted me where I hoped to God was in front of the toilet and then guided me to the sink, and when I was done washing my hands he took my left and bandaged it up.

“Glass?” I asked him. He probably would have told me already, except the sign for glass is touching your teeth with your fingernail and gross, I didn't want his fingers in my mouth.

Yes, he made my right hand say.

“Great.”

I felt his fingers lift my chin, hesitantly, like a question, and I knew. I nodded a little, hoping I didn't look as desperate for it as I was, and then he was kissing me, and God, it was so nice, soft and gentle and sweet. I rested my hand on his chest and his hands massaged my scalp. He used to do that a lot when I was losing my hearing, when I was dizzy and scared all the time.

“I must look like a fucking nightmare,” I said.

Yes, he made me sign, and I groaned and covered my face. He hugged me.

I love you, I signed, and he tapped his fist against mine.

**

I ended up lying back down in bed because I don't know, it was closer, but one thing about not having any hearing or vision, aside from the complete goddamn terror of it, is that it's pretty fucking boring. It's not like I could read or watch TV. Brian brought me my iPod, and I cranked up the sound on that, but in the past year I'd stopped being able to hear that at all, even the low frequencies, even as loud as I could make it, so it didn't really do much. Brian was next to me with his laptop, but he had to work so he couldn't really keep entertaining me, and I felt bad enough about being this fucking needy as it was. He gave me a can of Play-doh to mess with and every once in a while would change out the washcloth over my eyes. I flinched every time.

“Can you get me a sleeping pill?” I asked Brian eventually. “I just want to be unconscious until this is over.”

He didn't respond for a minute, probably because he was just finishing whatever he was typing, but it gave me such an eerie feeling, like he was mad at me or he'd gotten up and I didn't know it or like I thought I'd spoken but I really hadn't, but then he squeezed my hand and I felt him get up. He sat down on my other side a minute later and gave me a pill and some water, and took the glass back when I was done.

“I miss you,” I said, without really meaning to.

He took my hand and shaped it into a Y, shook it back and forth. Me too.

**

I slept for some undetermined amount of time, but I woke up with this distinct sense of dread before I even consciously realized that something new was wrong. And then I tried to swallow, and I couldn't, and breathe, and I could, sort of, but something was really not right here, and probably I should have figured out before then that a reaction bad enough to literally swell my eyes shut was likely going to have some more effects, but look, I was not at my best.

Especially not right that minute, because I couldn't exactly breathe that well.

“Brian?” I sat up and immediately felt really, really lightheaded, and my stomach dropped like I was on a rollercoaster. Shit. “Brian?”

Nothing. Fuck.

“Brian! Brian, this is bad, I need...shit!”

My heart was going so goddamn fast, and I felt like I was going to throw up and I didn't know if that was the reaction or the fact that I was freaking the fuck out, but either way it certainly wasn't helping the feeling that I was about to fucking die sitting here in my bed. I felt around desperately at the nightstand and the bed next to me, because maybe if I could find my phone I could figure out how to call him.

Nothing.

“Brian! I screamed, and I knew it had to be loud because it hurt my throat, my throat that was fucking swelling smaller and smaller by the goddamn second. “Brian, I fucking...Brian, where the fuck are you, you said you would stay, Bri—”

And then he was there, grabbing my hands, slamming one of them against the other. Stop.

“No, something's wrong, I need—”

He forced my hand into a C and moved it in a circle in front of my face.

“What do you mean you're...” Fuck, I couldn't breathe. “You're looking? You had the Benadryl this morning, you know where...Brian, come back, I can't breathe, Brian. Brian!” I folded up and pushed my face into my knees. “God, fuck. Fuck. Can you please hurry, can you—” I tried to take a breath and it got stuck somewhere in my chest. “Um, I think this is bad, I think maybe I need—”

His hands were on me again, suddenly, yanking down the waistband of my sweatpants, and before I could process what happening pain shot through my thigh and down my leg.

“Fuck!” I said, but already I could breathe easier, and my head felt heavier, and I thought maybe I actually wouldn't die in the next two minutes. I held Brian's wrist in place. “Count to ten, then take it out.” His other hand rubbed up and down my calf. Fuck, he'd never done this before. I wouldn't even have been sure he knew how. My mom gave me an epipen once as a kid, but besides that I'd never had anyone do it but me.

After ten seconds, Brian took it out and rubbed the spot on my leg. He nudged me over gently and got up on the bed beside me, an arm around my shoulders. His lips brushed my ear, and I felt him say something out loud.

I nodded and said, I'm okay. I'm okay now.

He crushed me against his collarbone and kissed the top of my head and stayed there for a long time. I could feel his heart pounding underneath my cheek. Just as fast as mine.

**

The next time I woke up, Brian had his hands on me, shaking me, so at least I knew where he was. But I also felt really shitty and really, really just wanted to go back to sleep.

I had no idea how long it had been. This whole ordeal could have been going on for three hours or three days. I didn't even know if it was day or night.

I felt, very simply and undramatically, like I was losing my fucking mind.

He sat me up, and I said, “Stop,” but he didn't. He put socks on my feet and pulled a hoodie over my head. “No,” I said. “No no, I'm not going anywhere.”

Doctor, he signed on my wrist.

“No! I told you no.”

He took my hands and I thought he was going to sign something, but instead he just laced them together and brought them up to his face, and I felt his lips and the stubble on his chin.

Begging.

Damn it.

“Okay,” I said. “But don't...let anybody look at me. And if you let go of me at any point I swear to God I am going to lose my shit. Loudly and publicly.”

He kissed me next to one fucked-up eye and pulled my shoes on.

I held onto his elbow on the way out of the apartment, only running into our furniture twice, and hid my face against his shoulder on the elevator as soon as it stopped and we didn't get off because that meant there was someone around who wasn't Brian, and I didn't want them to see my fucked up face, and I didn't want them to see any part of me when I couldn't see them, just like I don't like people who aren't Brian hearing my voice. I thought he might get kind of annoyed at that and shove me off, actually—Brian has this big problem with me being embarrassed about medical stuff—but he put his hand on the back of my neck and kept it there. I must really have looked bad.

My hay fever started acting up again once we were outside, just to add injury to injury, and it took us a while to get in the cab, so there was plenty of time for me to take a level up in misery. Brian stuffed some tissues in my hand, and I spent the car ride hunched over blowing my nose and trying to stop myself from panicking that my throat was going to close up again. Brian's hand stayed on my back.

“I hate this,” I said.

I know, he signed on my temple.

“I want to go home.”

He rubbed my back.

“I'm mad at you for this,” I said. “I agreed to this because I love you so I'm trying to not die for you, but I want you to know that I'm not happy about not just staying at home alone and dying there.”

I felt his hand stutter on my back, and I knew he was laughing. Good.

“I really don't want to do this, though,” I said. The car stopped, and I felt Brian's hands on my cheeks wiping off tears I hadn't realized were there. “Just allergies,” I said, which honestly might have been true, I had no idea. My body was clearly just doing things without asking me that day.

He pulled my hood down low over my face.

Thank you, I said.

I spent the ride up in the elevator trying to figure out what doctor this was, if this was my allergist or the GP or we'd come to some urgent care thing, but I couldn't piece it together. It smelled like the same antiseptic they use everywhere, and I'd never paid enough attention to the layout of anywhere to know it well enough. I never paid attention.

Jesus Christ, what if this wasn't temporary? What if underneath the swelling I'd really, really fucked up my eyes, and I hadn't been paying attention?

I pulled my feet up on the chair in the waiting room and put my face in my knees and cried for a while, and Brian sat next to me filling out paperwork and running his fingers over my shoulders. Everyone was probably staring at me. Brian got up to turn the paperwork back in, and it felt like he was gone for a million years, and when I felt a hand on my shoulder I jumped. He did his name sign on my temple, and I nodded, trying to slow down my breathing, but my chest felt all tight again and I was really scared the reaction was getting bad again.

I can't breathe, I said to him.

He took my hands and fanned out my fingers, drawing them together in front of my chest. Scared.

No, something's wrong, I can't...I want to go home. It's not safe here. I hate this. Please can we go home?

He put his arm around my shoulders and drew me into his chest.

“I'm sorry,” I whispered. “I'm sorry, I'm so goddamn fucking pathetic, I'm so fucking useless.”

He squeezed me a little too hard. I can recognize a “shut up,” from Brian without words, so I did. He probably didn't need me rehashing the exact thoughts he was already having and trying as hard as he could to shove down.

After a while he gave me a little shake and stood up, pulling me up to my feet with him. I clung onto his arm with both hands as we started walking, and I counted steps, five six seven eight nine, feeling like I was falling the whole time, wondering how far away the exam room could possibly be, fourteen fifteen sixteen, and then someone, someone not Brian, bumped into my shoulder,

“Fuck!” I said, and I put my arms up to protect my head because that is what I do, I wonder why, and Brian's hands were on my shoulders, bracing me, and I could almost see his face, that hard look he gives me, the you're okay, that leaves no room for debate, except I couldn't, actually, see him, and the terror felt like something goddamn physical, like something crawling from my stomach up to my throat.

We were moving again, and Brian took my hand and put it on the exam table and I climbed up onto it, feeling him settle in beside me and pull my hoodie over my head. There was a blood pressure cuff fastened around my arm, and I flinched—I hadn't realized we weren't alone—and tucked my face in Brian's arm. He held onto the hair at the back of my neck. I rested my fingers at the base of his throat and felt it vibrate as he talked to the nurse. I should be doing it. I could talk. I was sitting here fucking useless and making him do everything, but I could explain what happened, I should be doing this, I should—

Stop, Brian made my hands say, suddenly.

Okay.

**

The doctor's appointment was categorically awful. It was gloved hands on me, cold and clingy and unfamiliar, and Brian doing shit like squeezing my jaw to tell me to open my mouth or tapping my chest to tell me when to breathe when the stethoscope moved on my chest. When the doctor—and remember, I still had no idea what fucking doctor this was (it was my allergist, if you care)—pried my eyes open and it felt like someone was breathing fire into them, I scrambled against Brian, signed Make them stop, as frantically as I could, and tried to make out anything but blurry, painful colors. I was getting wheezy again from crying so fucking much and having the allergy attack from hell, and Brian fit my inhaler into my palm.

I'd barely finished using it when I smelled alcohol and felt a cold swipe against the top of my arm. I grabbed at Brian. “No.”

He took my hands and held them tightly.

“No, I don't want, I don't know what it is—“ I gritted my teeth as a needle sank into my shoulder and I said a lot of prayers I'd mostly forgotten that this was a safe drug, that Brian had cleared it first and hadn't messed up and I wasn't going to fucking die in on an exam table.

Brian dabbed my face with a tissue.

Can we go home now, please, I said.

He signed something on my chin that felt like Soon, but it turned out there was another shot first, and then more of them talking, and looking at me, and touching me, and then we got back into a cab, and when we got out there was this horrible moment when I figured out that we weren't home yet, that this was somewhere else, and God, I don't know when the last time was I felt the kind of up naked hopelessness that I did when I realized that. Medicine (poison) Brian signed on me, and he made my hands say chair, stand, which one? and I said chair and let him just leave me there, because I was so fucking tired and everything hurt and I wanted to ball up as small as I could and never, ever exist again. But as soon as Brian wasn't touching me, I regretted it, and it was everything I could do not to just start fucking screaming for him in the middle of the fucking pharmacy. Every time the air changed, from someone walking past me or standing close to me or doing whatever the fuck people here were doing, how the hell would I know, I felt this swinging sense of dread in my chest, and I was so on edge waiting for Brian to grab me again, telling myself not to freak the fuck out when Brian grabbed me again, that it was all I could think about. I tried counting again, like I did for the steps in the doctor's office, but it didn't help. Nothing was helping.

The shots hadn't helped. I still couldn't open my eyes. I still couldn't see through them when the doctor had forced them open.

What if this wasn't getting better?

And I'm not proud of myself for what I thought next, or for the things I had said already and the things I was going to say soon. This is not the kind of person I want to be or the way I want to think about disabled people. It goes against fucking everything I believe about the value of disabled lives. My only defense is that I was scared. I was really fucking scared.

Because I sat there and thought: if this isn't going away, I am not saddling Brian with this. I will do whatever the fuck it takes to push him away.

I'm not proud.

There was a little tap on my cheek, next to my mouth. My name. I lifted my head and felt Brian fit his arms around me, a paper bag in his hand.

And I thought, oh God, I will do whatever the fuck it takes to keep him, and I was so confused and so guilty and I've spent a lot of time hating myself but I don't think I've ever hated myself like that.

And it wasn't even over.

**

I fell asleep as soon as we got home, and when Brian woke me up some indeterminate amount of time later he made me eat a banana and drink some water. He gave me a bunch of pills and I rolled them around in my hand. “What are they?”

He fingerspelled into my palm, but as hard as I tried I couldn't get it. It's not like we'd practiced this.

“Again?” I asked, and he did, over and over, but I couldn't figure it out, and eventually I just gave up and took them, even though it made my anxiety spike right back up again.

He squeezed my shoulders, and I found his waist and held him for a little while. I felt him take a deep breath, and then he was tilting my held back and his fingers touched my eye.

I pulled away. “What are you doing?”

He put my hand around his, and I felt a tiny bottle and no, hell no.

“No.” I scrambled back on the bed. “No no no, we're not.”

He took my chin and pushed my head back again.

“Brian, no!”

He grabbed my hands and signed, Different.

“I know they're different, that doesn't mean they're safe!”

Help, he signed on my palm.

“The last ones were supposed to help and look what happened! What if it makes it worse, no, you can't, I won't let you.”

He bent one of my fingers into a hook. Need.

“No!” I said, I tried to get away but he grabbed me by the jaw and tilted my head back again. I pulled back as hard as I could and crashed onto the floor. My heels skidded on the floor as I tried to get back up, but Brian was fucking sitting on my legs.

So I started hitting him.

“I said no, let me go, let me go!” I yelled, but Brian pinned my hands with his elbows and pried my eyes open and it hurt so goddamn much and I screamed and sobbed while he put drops in my eyes. It burned like I can't even describe, and when Brian got off of me and let me go I just stayed where I was on the floor and cried for a really long time.

He signed a few things on me—Sorry, know, scared, but eventually stopped touching me. But I knew he was still there.

“How the fuck do you stand this?” I said, when I could breathe again. “What the fuck is wrong with you, why are you here? What the fuck kind of masochist are you to stay here with me? What's goddamn wrong with you?”

I tried to imagine the look he must have on his face, and I couldn't, because I'd never said anything like this before.

So I kept going.

“I'm fucking useless!” I said. “I'm a pathetic worthless goddamn excuse for a person, I'm fucking nothing, all I do is suck everything you fucking have out of you, I take from you and take from you and I give you nothing, and now you can't even talk to me, I can't even fucking cross a room by myself, I won't even just be a goddamn man and take my fucking medicine, I'm fucking shit! Why are you here? Why haven't you fucking suffocated me with a pillow and just goddamn been done with it, what the fuck is the matter with you? What are you fucking waiting for? Do you think I'm going to be less of a fucking disappointment someday? Do you think I'm ever going to be anything more than a fucking complete waste of goddamn space? Give up! Fucking give up, Brian!”

I tried to get up, and he caught my elbow, and he was shaking.

“Brian?” I put my hand on his chest.

He was crying. Fucking...fucking really crying, like I was crying, sobbing crying, and in the ten years that I'd known Brian I'd never seen him do that.

Not that I was seeing it now. I felt it in the heaving, shaking breaths, in the way his head was bent and his shoulders shook, how he fell into my hands when I brought them up to his face.

“Oh God,” I said. “I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.” I must have felt so goddamn fragile to him, and here I was screaming on the floor like he was torturing me because he was trying to give me my fucking medicine, Jesus, could I fucking possibly be worse? “You didn't hurt me, okay? I'm okay.” I got up on my knees and kissed his cheeks over and over. “I'm okay. I'm okay.”

He nudged my cheek with his nose until my mouth was on his, and I gave him easy kisses and whispered, “I'm sorry, I'll get better, I'll do better.” He shook his head and took my hands like he wanted to say something, but he kept starting things and then stopping and I swear I could almost hear his frustration, so I said, “It's okay,” and kissed him some more and he gave into it, and because we're us we were out of our clothes pretty quickly, and he had me back on the floor with his hand underneath my head, his tongue working circles on my neck.

I felt lube on me, cold, and his hands squeezing the hell out of my waist, but right when I was expecting to feel him thrust into me and God was I so fucking ready for a touch I didn't have to figure out, a touch I knew like I know his face, he paused, and it took me a second to figure out why.

“Yeah, it's okay, it's good,” I said, and he pushed inside me and covered me with his whole body, and for the first time in some goddamn unknown stretch of time I felt safe.

**

It was light when I woke up next.

It was light.

It was light.

**

I got out of bed and went to the bathroom. Everything was a little blurry, like there was some kind of film over my eyes.

I looked at myself in the mirror and grimaced. My eyes were still red as shit, and there were hives on my left eyelid that still kept me from opening it all the way. I squinted at my watch until it came into focus: just after five. PM, judging by the quality of the light outside. Who the fuck even knew what day it was.

I splashed some water on my face and went back to the bedroom, wondering if Brian had noticed I was better and gone to work, just as he appeared in the bedroom doorway from the living room.

He stared at me, then hesitantly signed, Sunshine?

“Sunshine,” I confirmed, and he breathed out and leaned his forehead against the doorjamb. His eyes looked swollen, too, and there was stubble on his cheeks like he hadn't shaved in days, and he was beautiful.

How are you feeling? he asked me.

“Okay. Kind of out of it, maybe. Am I due for meds?”

He nodded and pointed to the nightstand, and I took Benadryl and the second day of a pack of prednisone and put the eye drops in myself, because, I don't know, I needed to prove something, I guess. Brian stayed where he was and watched me.

I'm going out, he said abruptly.

“Yeah, okay,” I said. What the fuck could I say? He was clearly a second away from coming apart. How the fuck could anyone be okay after what I'd just put him through? How does anyone survive that?

But that didn't mean I wanted him to go. None of this did.

I came out into the living room when he was almost at the front door. “Brian?” I said.

His hand paused on the doorknob.

“Is it, um.” I felt so stupid asking. “Is it my birthday?”

He turned around. His eyes were completely blank.

Yesterday, he said. Your birthday was yesterday.

“Oh,” I said. “Okay.”

He left.

I slept a little more, and then ate my first actual meal in God knows how long and settled into catching up on my work email and letting my mom and Gabe and my friends know that I was functioning again. It turned out Brian had been keeping them all pretty updated. Brian texted me around one to say he was staying over at Daphne's and to remind me to do the eye drops again before bed. It was just easier not to have feelings about that, so...whatever. I went to bed alone, woke up to an empty apartment with my vision pretty much back to normal, and went to work. Afterwards I couldn't stand the thought of just sitting around at home waiting to see if Brian would show up, and I didn't feel up to covering for him to Gabe, so I ended up at Emily's apartment in Sunnyside. She made tea and macaroni and cheese and we watched old seasons of Project Runway.

I tried blindfolding myself, after Brian told me, she said, while we were washing dishes. I lasted about twenty minutes before I thought I would fucking die. I don't know how you lasted three days.

I didn't really have much of a choice.

She winced. I'm like those people who say they don't know how we stand being Deaf, aren't I?

Trust me, I've been dealing with that same kind of guilt. There are happy Deaf blind people out there, and I'm sure I could adapt to it if I had to, but...God, I don't know.

You know what we should do? she said. Volunteer, put in some time helping out Deaf blind people. Learn to interpret for them or something, I don't know.

I put down the plate I was doing. That is fucking exactly what we should do. Jesus Christ. That's the first thing that's made me feel somewhat okay in four days. Thank you.

Just wait for the party I'm going to throw you this weekend, she said. Then you'll be good as new.

And just like that I was doom and gloom again. God, every year I think my birthday can't get worse. Was all fucking depressed for my twenty-sixth, Brian's mom's funeral was on my twenty-seventh, and then I fucking miss my twenty-eighth.

You didn't miss it. We just delayed it.

Yeah, well, this weekend might not be delayed enough. We'll see if Brian's even talking to me.

He can't seriously be mad at you for this, she said.

He's not mad, he just...this commitment stuff is still a lot for him. The idea of me being dependent on him, it's a lot. He feels suffocated pretty easily, and it's this delicate dance all the time not to make him freak the fuck out, and I wasn't exactly being delicate. I shook my head. You should have...God, the way he cried when I told him I was a useless shit and he should leave me. It's gonna fucking haunt me.

She studied me.

What? I said.

Well, what does that have to do with commitment and stuff? Crying during that?

Because he felt overwhelmed and he wanted to bail on me and he hated himself for wanting to bail on me and there I was putting everything he was thinking and didn't want to be thinking into words?

So Brian's secretly been thinking a whole lot of ableist crap about how you're a burden? Doesn't sound like a guy whose best friends are all Deaf.

Then why? I said. Why else would he have been crying?

She gave me a look of exaggerated patience. How about because someone was saying really mean things about the person he loves more than anyone in the entire world who was scared out of his mind and trying his best, and he couldn't tell them they weren't true?

Oh.

**

Brian was on the couch with a beer when I got home, and he looked so goddamn contrite that any anger I had for him drained right out of me. And let's be honest, it wasn't that much. He pulled his leg in to make room for me and I sat down beside him. He stretched his arm casually over the top of the couch, like some shy guy on a first date, and I rolled my eyes a little and tucked myself into him.

He took a swig from his beer. Do we have to talk about it? he said, not really looking at me.

“No.”

Okay.

We watched the basketball game he had on for a little while.

Don't be that miserable again, he said suddenly. I don't like it.

I smiled a little. “Okay.”

Okay.

I swallowed. “And I'll...I'll try not to be so hard on myself.” I flicked my eyes up to him. “Okay?”

He kept looking at the TV, running his thumb around the mouth of his bottle.

Good, he said after a minute, still facing forwards, and I caught the beginning of a smile on his face. Do that.

I could have looked at him forever.