Chapter Fourteen

The Gravity of Austin

TWO WEEKS CAME and went. Dr. Hu came by and checked my vitals and cleared me to go home. A nurse came and detached me from the many machines I was hooked up to. I was no longer an octopus. Mom signed off on my release, and Austin helped me out of bed and into a wheelchair.

“Finally free from this prison, love,” he whispered in my ear, “and soon you’ll be in love jail with Kangy, where you’re going to get all better.”

Sean poked his head in.

“How you doing, Elijah?”

“Better, Sean.”

“Good to hear, sport.” Usually I’d hate a nickname from someone dating Mom, but Sean was different. Sean was becoming like family. Mom glowed around him.

“Is it okay if he stays at my place, Belinda?” Austin asked. “My parentals and I wanted to celebrate his birthday.”

Mom chewed on her lower lip. Sean came up behind her, putting his arm around her shoulders. “I think it’ll be okay, Lin. Promise to have him back tomorrow? We would like to have him home.”

Austin smiled. “Yes, I promise.”

“Then have a good time,” Mom said.

A few hours later, I was propped up in his bed, arm and leg in casts, sunlight filtering in the picture windows overlooking the Verdugo mountains. Ocho tucked under my arm, Meow-Meow and several other stuffed animals arranged on my lap.

Austin turned on his record player slipping “Violator” by Depeche Mode on. Then he ran downstairs to get us mango ice cream and lemonade. We lay in his big bed eating ice cream and listening to the music. My heart pounded. My anxiety crept back.

“It’s not darkness, as you call it,” Arnulfo told me when we had our first session in my hospital room. “You are suffering from an anxiety disorder.”

“A what?”

“Anxiety. You have anxiety.”

“So, I’m nuts, then?”

Arnulfo shook his head. “Anxiety is a normal thing. Mental health is important, Elijah. Don’t diminish it by calling it names.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Arnulfo said. “How long were you following that schedule of your Mom’s?”

“Four years.”

“And when did you come out?”

“Almost a year ago.”

“And you came out to three hundred of your peers?”

I nodded.

“And you spent the most time with your dad in years? And you fell in love with your one and only gay best friend?”

I saw where he was going with this.

“That is a lot.”

“Did you have any time for yourself?”

I laughed. “Come on, Arnulfo, my family is “richer than God.” We don’t have time.”

“You’re not your family. You’re seventeen. Still a boy.”

“I may be a man.”

“Yes, you are becoming a man. But the pressures you’ve been feeling are not normal. You don’t need to carry the burden for your family. Your mom can do that. And she knows that now.”

“I mean…”

“No, Elijah. You are seventeen. You can start living your own life. And that means you can do whatever you want. Well, maybe when the boot is off and the cast.”

We laughed. My eyes opened. I was in Austin’s room. The record player hissed. I looked around. It was dark outside. Where was Austin?

“AUSTIN!”

I heard something outside in the hallway. A song. It sounded familiar. The door opened, Austin’s face glowed from the light of white candles on a white frosted cake. He sang “Happy Birthday” to me in Cantonese. His parents beamed from behind him.

I blushed.

“Happy Birthday, love,” Austin said, setting the cake down on the table he pushed over next to the bed.

I started crying. His parents looked at each other. Austin said something to them in Cantonese. They nodded and left the room. Austin stood over me, rubbing my hair with his hand.

“Let it out, love,” he said over and over again, softly and gently.

Austin was, in essence, the blue ski parka he bought me when it got really cold last fall, durable on the outside, warm and soft on the inside. When I stopped crying, he sat beside me. “Tell me what’s going on, love.”

“I’ve been doing too much for too long and it caught up with me, Kangy.“

“No kidding.”

“When my powers were taken from me, I sort of lost who I was…and I guess a part of me pushed myself to be a winner.”

“What do you mean?”

“I figured that if I won Academic Decathlon and made the Olympic team and won the race I would finally be someone. A boy who had a purpose. I wanted recognition that I was someone.”

“You did win.”

“I lost the race to Disney Studios.”

“You tried though,” Austin said. “Besides, you have a purpose. To be you, that’s all. Elijah Delomary.”

“What do you mean?”

“You do everything for everyone else, without question. You followed your Mom’s soddin’ plan and that daft brand of hers. You sacrificed time to spend with me. You were there for me when I was confused about what it means to be who we are. You helped me come out. You tried so hard to be the perfect boyfriend. And when everything you did caught up with you, when the Còngréhassa found out about what Boxey was doing so we could be together, you accepted punishment to save Boxey. That showed me who you really are. You know what is right in every fiber of your being. You love deeply, Elijah. And I feel that love. And I love you.”

I looked at Austin, sort of speechless.

“Elijah,” Austin said, “I believe in you. I see you for who you are. And to me, you are a wonderful boy. The boy who, even without a plan or a brand, is everything I need to be happy. Just you. That makes Kangy happy.”

“I’m happy with you too, Kangy.”

Austin wrapped me in a big hug.

“Kangy, I have anxiety.”

“Okay. A lot of people do.”

“Arnulfo calls it an anxiety disorder.”

“Okay, well, it can be treated?”

“Yes.”

“Good, then I will help you.”

“Kangy…”

“You are a wonderful, kind, and loving boy,” he said. “You give everything to everyone else. Your family, that soddin’ Alliance. Even that slag, Devlina. You listen to her even after everything she did to you.”

“I trust too easily.”

“You see the good in people…monsters. Remember the M’ma you let go from the backyards? How many Encantreinus would spare a monster in their own backyard?”

“I mean, it didn’t do anything wrong. It was hungry.”

“See?” Austin said. “You know right from wrong, you see beyond titles and roles and do what is fundamentally right.”

“And you pushed yourself to become a Coaugelo. You didn’t just give up. You never give up. You are brave and strong, and I see who you are, someone who sees past all the others have covered you up with, and that is the boy I love.”

“Kangy, I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“I have a broken arm and leg and ribs. Maybe I should have given up.”

“No way,” Austin said. “It’s not in your DNA.”

“Arnulfo explained that I’m having panic attacks caused by severe anxiety over the last year. I call them the darkness. I’m afraid that you might get—”

“Eli,” Austin said, taking my hand, “I am here for the good, the bad, and the ugly. Got it?”

“But the panic attacks. I’ll keep you up. They happen at night, mostly,” I explained. “I freak out and can’t sleep. Start losing my shit.”

“That’s what I’m here for.”

“But I don’t want you to suffer.”

“Aietto,” Austin said, “I am here for you. Everything. You can wake me up, and we’ll deal with the panic attacks together. I am here for you, no matter what.” Austin then added, “I have nothing to do really.”

“School!”

He shrugged. “Without my best mate, my love, with me at school, it doesn’t really matter, yeah?”

“Kangy, I don’t—”

“I want to help you, Eli.”

“It’s terrifying, Kangy. The darkness, the panic attacks”

He rubbed my head. “I’m here for you. I want to help you through this.”

I sighed, and I cried again.

“I don’t deserve you.”

He shook his head. “Stop saying that, Eli. You are a beautiful boy,” he said. “We deserve each other. We found each other. I love you, Eli.” I leaned on his shoulder.

“Have some cake. It’s devil’s food cake with vanilla frosting.”

“My favorite.” I sat up and watched the candles flicker.

“Make a wish, then blow them out, love.”

I knew what my wish was. It was coming true. Like a cherry blossom unfolding as winter receded and Spring arrived. And then, in an instant, anxiety barreled at me like a speeding train in the old sepia tone silent movies at the Million Dollar Theater in Downtown LA. My arms and legs were tied to the tracks. It was coming. I closed my eyes. I couldn’t stop it.

Austin’s mom made chamomile tea and came in, and she sat next to me and she chanted softly. Slowly my heart began to beat normally, and the numbness in my arm went away. Austin held my hand the whole time.

After a while, Austin helped me downstairs to the family room. We sat in front of a roaring fire.

Austin Sr. and Cecilia sipped wine and listened to a famous Cantonese diva on the stereo. They were talking shop, about their day tracking down a new coven in Newhall. Serving a cease and desist letter from the League. Having to battle with the not-so-happy Àzmadus in the new coven. Almost being sucked dry of their life force.

“Good thing we brought along fluffy,” Austin Sr. said. Fluffy was their new feline assistant, currently curled up in a random box in a corner near the fireplace. Monsters didn’t like cats. “Once she appeared, they all started getting hives and sneezing and easily gave up.”

They laughed. Austin laughed. I laughed. I battled new monsters, in my head.

Austin Sr. talked about the night Austin was born. A meteor shower glowed over Hong Kong. It was a good omen. Cecilia shrugged. “I was in labor for twenty hours with him; not so good.”

Austin commented, “I didn’t want to leave your womb, Mum. It was so comfy.”

We all laughed. As the fire began to burn low, and the wine bottle was empty, I realized I had to go to bed soon. I felt a jab in my stomach.

“I’m scared to sleep,” I whispered in Austin’s ear.

He nuzzled my face.

“I’ll be with you.”

Austin carried me upstairs. I couldn’t take a shower with my arm and leg in casts, so Austin helped me to wash my body with a washcloth and shampoo my hair in the sink.

“I’m scared, Kangy. Sleep is the worst.”

Austin knelt beside me as I sat on the toilet seat, my hair dripping down my neck.

“What happens at bedtime, love?”

“I don’t know how to sleep anymore.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s like a door. I can’t figure out how to get inside to sleep.”

Austin stood up to dry my hair with a towel. “Fortunately, you have thousands of years of evolution on your side, love.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your body is built to sleep.”

“But I don’t know how to sleep anymore.”

He kissed me on the top of my head. “You will.”

Afterward, Austin helped me brush my teeth. (Technically, I had a hand to brush my teeth, but he offered, and I was following Arnulfo’s advice, allowing myself to be taken care of.)

A few minutes later, we were in bed. I lay there as he breathed softly, already on his own voyage into the land of Nod. My heart pounded; my head felt warm. My throat closed up.

“You should consider taking anti-anxiety medicine, Elijah,” Arnulfo had said at session. “I can talk to your mom.”

“No,” I said. “We don’t take medicine in our family.”

“Why?”

“We’re Delomarys.”

“What does that mean?”

“We have an image to uphold,” I said. “Nunma in viacadeimo. I’m not a victim.”

“Surely some of your family take medicine.”

I shrugged.

“I’m scared of taking medicine, Arnulfo,” I explained. “I pore over side-effects, and I’m convinced that something terrible will happen to me.”

“That’s part of your anxiety. I think you’ve spent so much time worrying about bad things happening and this ‘brand,’ as your mother calls it, ‘becoming tarnished’ that you’re always trying to predict things. But you don’t have to. Let’s be positive. Medicine could help you. Help us work on treating the root of your anxiety.”

I must have fallen asleep, but then I woke up, my heart racing.

“AUSTIN! AUSTIN!”

Austin sat up rubbing his eyes, “Eli?” he whispered. “Are you all right, love?”

“AUSTIN! My heart—it won’t stop pounding. I’m going to have a heart attack and die.”

He wrapped his arms around me. “No, no, you are not, Eli.”

He sat up and leaned against the wall. I laid my head on his lap. He held me.

“Close your eyes, mate.” And he sang to me. “Sometimes I feel like my only love is Eli Delomary, my Eli Delomary. Lonely as I was, together we fly.”

“That’s…ama…zing.”

After a while, I fell asleep.