the sunday needle

I've felt so angry and worried lately that I constantly feel the need to vomit.

Last night I had a dream that Milo came to my house to see Johann after his surgery. I was in bed watching videos about Esperanto and he came in to talk to me, he said he was sorry but instead of listening I got up and punched him in the face and dragged him to the kitchen by his scalp. And he started crying and I screamed at him and then I also started crying.

Woke up to the stench of gas because Johann bumped into the downstairs oven knob when he got in from work last night. The gas was on for upwards of 7 hours and the only reason Pinwheel isn't dead of carbon monoxide poisoning is because Mom always has the windows cracked open to avoid buildup. I don't really trust him around Pinwheel anymore because he clearly doesn't like him very much and he's so air-headed that he's bound to hurt him by accident someday. The other day Pinny ran upstairs and Johann came bumbling after him and grabbed him so hard I could hear him yowling from several rooms over.

Sometimes I wish petty revenge on Milo, things far too violent for me to type here, but then I remember how miserable and alone he is and I know I've gotten my revenge before I even realized I wanted it.

I texted Milo about a month ago, airing out my anger with him. He responded just last night with the most clinical, heartless manner of speaking. He was never an emotional person, but seeing the way he was talking makes me think that his therapist put him up to it as a way of “making amends”. He didn't apologize really, he just tried excusing his behavior with variants of “I was encouraged to do this so I followed what I was told.” And then he ended it with some nonsense about how he hopes I live a happy life and that “I was once told that some people you meet aren't meant to stay in your lives forever.”

Basically, he only had a modicum of concern for the situation and was just responding to me so my text wasn't needling at the back of his head anymore.

I got emotional reading it, of course, and mom saw me crying. She got pissed off when I said I didn't want to talk about it. And she said that there were some things said about me that she hadn't told me because she didn't want to make me more upset than I already was. I read her his response in exchange for her telling me about the dirt put on me.

For context, I was writing a novel a while ago about a boy who is sexually abused by his older brother as a part of the primary conflict. I never finished it and it's been on the back-burner for the past three years. My mom and stepdad have always encouraged my creativity and are also aware that I have a functioning moral compass, so it wasn't a cause for concern. Milo, when he first abandoned us, used my “incest” book as an excuse as to why he apparently felt uncomfortable around us. He later confessed that his discomfort had been completely fabricated and he was just grasping at whatever sounded disturbing enough to justify himself leaving. When I heard this I busted out laughing and said “What a fucking pussy. I'd rather be euthanized than have to live in his head for more than two seconds.”

Anyway, I wake up this morning to Johann and mom fighting about his family wanting to see him on the day he goes in for his prostate surgery. He wants them there and she does too, but she refuses to talk to them because they're inevitably going to bring up Milo and the townhouse drama. It's in a month. Goddamn, I'm kind of excited.