I’m not very good at this.
At what?
You.
You’re very good at me. Maybe the best of all.
How his heart aches.
GREG GETS stronger as Mike gets weaker.
It’s surprising, actually, just how quickly he begins to build up his muscles. It’s explained to him that the cryogenics used were similar to those used by NASA for planned space missions. Mike perks up a little in the back of his head at the idea of missions to space, but it’s a fleeting thing that’s gone almost as soon as it arrives.
“Stasis,” one of his physical therapists tells him as he grunts through each and every painful step he’s taking while supported by parallel bars. “Frozen almost completely solid. A gigantic popsicle. That’s all you were. It’s not perfect, not an exact science, which is why you’re going to be walking funny for a little while. Just four more steps, Greg, that’s all I’m asking for, come on. Four more steps. You can do this. Don’t wuss out now!”
He’s exhausted every night when the lights finally dim. It overwhelms him, the sheer weight of it settling heavy on his chest. He can hear Mike most times, feel that twinge that’s wrapped around their heart, but that’s all there is. Mike doesn’t talk to him. He doesn’t try and talk to Mike.
At first it’s because the thought is ridiculous, so far beyond his comprehension, that it seems safer (and saner) to not. He shouldn’t be having conversations with imaginary voices in his head, no matter how real they sound or how real everyone else seems to be convinced they are (“Who am I speaking to today? Is it Mr. Hughes or Mr. Frazier?” It’s always Mr. Hughes. Always).
He sees Dr. King more than Dr. Hester. She acts as a therapist. She wants him to think of things like recovered-memory therapy and Do you blame your mother for the way your father acted? He wants to laugh at her, to tell her he hasn’t blamed his mother for anything in a very long time, but that might not be true. There’s still that old, familiar anger he gets at her for not grabbing him by the hand and dragging him out of that house as soon as she was able. For not taking care of the both of them. For staying with the man who beat her. How dare she? How dare she do that—
“Are you angry?” Dr. King asks him one afternoon.
“I used to be,” Greg says, in what is perhaps the most truthful thing he’s said in a long time. “I could control it, though.”
“You had to control it?”
“Don’t we all?”
Mike laughs somewhere in his head.
IT’S MAYBE three weeks later when Mike speaks to him again.
Greg’s reading, since there isn’t a TV in his room. He never had much time for TV anyway. The book is… strange. He doesn’t know where it came from. Just was on the table next to his hospital bed one day. Lord of the Flies, it’s called. One of those classics he knows he was supposed to have read at some point in his life. Like Huxley’s Brave New World or Orwell’s 1984. He just never got around to it. In his old life, he didn’t have time. He was too busy failing at just about everything he ever did.
Mike says, “We’re all on an island, don’t you think?”
Greg stops. The words came out of his own mouth, but it wasn’t him speaking. It’s an odd feeling, a dissonance he’s not sure he’ll ever be used to. He’s felt Mike in the background, lurking, but it’s getting fainter every day. There’s a pang in his (their) chest at the thought, but they can’t stay like this forever, can they? He’s Greg Hughes. He’s always been Greg Hughes.
“Except when you’ve been Mike Frazier,” he mutters.
“When is a door not a door?” Mike asks. “When it’s ajar.”
“When is a Greg not a Greg?” Greg asks. “When he’s a Mike.”
“We read that book,” Mike says. “In our book club.”
“I know,” Greg says. “I remember.”
“Do you?”
“Some of it,” he admits. “Not everything. It’s like watching an old home movie. You can remember the memory, but not the specifics.”
“I remember,” Mike says. “I remember all of it.”
“It wasn’t real.”
Mike laughs bitterly. “It was more real than anything you’ve ever had.”