To save a friend

If you were to ask someone where they met their brother, they’d look at you like you were stupid and give you a response like “At the hospital” or “At my house”. It’s a good thing that it’s such a rarely asked question because I’m not sure if anyone would believe them if I told them where I met mine. 

I’d always wanted a brother; someone who I could play football with, someone I could sit and watch TV with, someone with who I could share my computer games. I never got one. My parents said they didn’t want any more children. I hung around alone at the park every day, and that’s how I found Kylo.

I was playing on the swings at around 6pm on a warm summer's evening. I can still remember exactly how the air felt, blanketing my body with a calming warmth that made me feel all cozy inside. I don’t remember exactly what happened- one minute I was swinging back and forth, basking in the last few rays of sunlight before it slipped below the horizon again when I felt a strong hand press firmly against my mouth, a gentle shushing no louder than a summer breeze sounding in my ear. I couldn’t scream. Whether that hand had been clamped over my mouth or not, I couldn’t scream. I felt like my insides had been turned to stone, my vocal cords seized and froze and my heart was heavy in my chest. 

Then, there was darkness. I was vaguely aware of the fact I was being carried, but where I was going was a mystery to me. My mind couldn’t make sense of anything that was happening. I felt like I was drowning, submerged in this sea of black and I was sure this was it. This was death. I was going to die.

When I awoke, I was in a house. I was in a bed, but it was not my own. This bed was much nicer than my own. The duvet covers were soft and clean, and laying on the mattress was exactly how I imagined it’d be like to take a nap on a cloud. As my eyes adjusted to the light I took immediate notice of the large television set on the wall, accompanied by more games than I could count.

For a moment, I thought I really was dead. I thought I’d died and was now in heaven.

Then I heard a faint shuffling from the other side of the room, the side of the room I was facing away from. I turned over and saw a boy lying in the other bed, the sunlight falling perfectly onto his face and illuminating his features.

Kylo.

I suppose he must’ve felt me staring at him, seeing as just a few seconds later he opened his eyes to look at me, “Good morning.”

I blinked stupidly, not quite knowing what to say. The way he said it so casually confused me. I was sure we didn’t know each other.

“Where are we?”

He frowned at me, and then laughed. I didn’t know what was so funny. I was in a strange house, in a room with a boy I didn’t know, and he was laughing at me for asking where I was. 

“Take a look around”

I didn’t want to take a look around. I wanted to curl up under the covers and wake up from whatever nightmare I was having. I wanted my own bed back, as old and uncomfortable it was. Even so, I swung my legs out of bed and took one cautious step forwards. The walls were covered in pictures and they were moving. 

The pictures were moving. As I watched them more closely, I realised these were not pictures. These were my memories but they weren’t as I remembered them. The boy was in them. There we were, playing football together, eating ice cream at the beach. This boy I had never seen before was somehow in my memories.

“This is all in your head.” 

I turned to look at him, “I’m dreaming?”

He shook his head, his features softening as he took a step closer towards me.

“You’re inside your head”

What was this boy talking about? What had happened to me? Where had I been taken? 

“You don’t remember me at all?”

“Should I?”

“Look at the memories.”

I looked. I looked, and I looked, and I looked but nothing happened. I felt nothing but confusion, there was no familiarity with this boy. 

“Who are you?”

“Kylo.”

Kylo.

Kylo.

It was like a flip had been switched. The memories made sense. It was Kylo. The boy I’d grown up with, the best friend I’d always considered my brother. The boy who I played football with, the boy who I played games with, the boy who my parents treated like their own son.

How did I forget him? How did I keep the memories in my mind, but with him erased from them? This didn’t feel possible.

“You need to wake up.”

“How did I forget you?”

“You need to wake up.”

Wake up? Wake up from what? He said I wasn’t dreaming.

“But, you said-”

“You’re not dreaming. You’re dying.”

I laughed. Of course, I laughed, it sounded so absolutely ridiculous. I was dying? There was no way. 

“You’re dying and you need to wake up.”

“I am not dying. How would I be dying?”

“You don’t remember anything?”

He steps closer to me, his eyes changing to a look of desperation and fear. I was suddenly scared. That look in his eyes shook me through to my core. That was not a look someone could fake.

I desperately searched through the wall for any memories that would help me remember what had happened but nothing. There was nothing. I collapsed to the floor, squeezing my eyes shut as tightly as I possibly could and just thinking. What was the last thing I remembered?

The park. The hand over my mouth. Being taken here. 

The harder I concentrated, the clearer things became. I was at the park, but it was not a warm night. In fact, it was freezing. I felt warm inside because of the drugs I was taking. The only hand that had been near my mouth was my own when I took the final pill which sent me into an overdose. 

Oh God, I was dying. I was going to die. I had to wake up but I didn’t know how to. 

I felt Kylo’s hand on my shoulder and everything became crystal clear. He had saved me. He had been watching over me since the day he died himself. It was a car crash- he was the only one in his family who didn’t make it. I could remember attending his funeral, and then the memories of him stopped.

“I couldn’t protect you out there.” 

Kylo had died to protect me. He’d died in preparation for this, for the day I’d try to take my own life. Kylo had given his life to one day save mine. 

“We can both go back but you need to wake up”

I sobbed into my hands as pure anxiety flooded every inch of my body, “I don’t know how!”

“Open your eyes to the real world. Focus on what you can really hear out there. Focus on what you can smell, what you can feel. Focus and you can save us both”

I strained my ears, listening for the slightest of sounds and although distant, I could make out the beeping of a heart rate monitor, the sirens of an ambulance, the hushed whispering of people around me. I was terrified to open my eyes in fear that I would still be inside my head, that I would die and neither I nor Kylo would ever walk on Earth again.

But I did it. I opened my eyes. My senses kicked into high gear and everything rushed into my body; the sounds, the smells, the sights around me. My parents were crying in relief, the nurses were hooking me up to different machines, the heart rate monitor was beeping quickly, the air smelt sterile and cold. 

I was alive. But-

“Kylo?” I choked out from under the oxygen max which was pressed up against my face, my eyes wandering all over the ambulance searching for my best friend.

“Kylo is at his house, sweetheart. We didn’t think you’d want him to see you like this.” My mother said, stroking my hair out of my face. She remembered him. She remembered Kylo and that was the biggest relief out of all of this.

I’d saved him, and he’d saved me.

Life is so much better with Kylo in it. He is truly the most amazing person I know. We see each other almost every day and every day it feels like the best day of my life, even if we’re not together. Because I know he’s there, I know he exists, and I know we will always save each other.

He is not only my best friend but my brother. So to answer the question ‘Where did you meet your brother?’ My answer is in my head.