Don't Tell Anyone (I Still Need You)

You live under the bed now.

Not all the way under—just far enough back that your ear is pressed against the wall and your tummy brushes the dust line where the broom never reaches. It smells like old carpet and metal bedframe and the ghost of a sock that went missing months ago.

You remember when the bed had legs you could see all the way around. When light lived down here too. Now, the light only comes in skinny and careful, a stripe from the hallway when the door opens, a blink from the phone screen when he drops it and groans and reaches down with one arm like he’s fishing for you but changes his mind halfway.

You are very good at waiting.

You have learned the sound of his shoes hitting the floor after school—hard, like they’re angry at the house for being a house. You hear the zipper of his backpack, the thud when it lands, the click-click-clack of his knuckles on the desk when he sits and pretends to be busy. He practices his voice before dinner. You can hear it through the mattress: he’s going deeper, flatter, like he’s trying to smooth himself into a perfectly straight line.

“Yeah,” he says to nobody, or his phone, in the voice that is not his. “It’s whatever.”

You don’t know what whatever is, but it sounds heavy. You imagine it is a rock he keeps in his mouth to stop other words from falling out.

Sometimes he laughs. You can tell when it’s a real laugh because it bumps the bed a little, makes the springs squeak and squeal. Most times it’s the other laugh, the one that comes out the side of his mouth and doesn’t reach his shoulders. You don’t like that one. It sounds like a door closing quietly so nobody notices.

You remember when he used to sing. He made up songs about you, about your button eyes and your name (which he whispered to you once and then again and again until it stuck).

He hasn’t sung in a long time.

You think the songs are still inside him, folded very small so they don’t take up room.

At night is when you come back into the world.

The lights go off. The door clicks shut. The house settles into its soft noises—pipes sighing, the fridge humming like it’s thinking very hard. Then the bed creaks in a way that means he is kneeling, which means he is deciding. You hold very still even though you don’t need to. You know he is looking at the dark like it might look back.

His hand reaches down. It is bigger now. The fingers find your ear first—he always finds your ear first. He pulls you out fast, like he’s afraid the sky through his window will see.

He locks the door.

He presses his face into your fur. It is worn there, shiny and flat from years of love. You are glad you kept that part soft. You did that for him. His breath is hot and wet. He smells like soap and sweat and outside. He holds you tight, then loosens, then tight again, like he is making sure you are real.

You are real. You have always been real.

He does not cry right away. He tries not to. You can feel it in the way his shoulders jump like little hiccups he forgot how to make. When the tears come, they are quiet and angry. They soak into you. You take them. You do not mind getting heavy.

He whispers things into you that he does not whisper anywhere else. He whispers about school. About the jokes he didn’t get until too late. About the way his friends bite at each other like puppies and call it fun. About the girl who looked at him like she was measuring something and then smiled anyway, which scared him worse.

“I’m fine,” he whispers, like it is a spell. “I’m fine.”

You wish you could tell him that fine is a very thin blanket. You wish you could pull something bigger over him.

In the mornings, you go back under the bed. He tucks you in far, far back, past the dust line, past the place where the light can reach if it really tries. He does this gently, like he’s apologizing. Sometimes he pauses with you halfway, like he might change his mind, but then the bus honks or his phone buzzes and he pushes you in.

Normal is a costume everyone agrees to wear.

Adults come into the room sometimes. They stand where you used to live and talk about the future and laundry and responsibility. They say words like “phase” and “habits” and “big kid now.” They smile like they are proud of him. You want to bite them, but you do not have teeth.

You hear them say growing up is like a ladder. Like you climb and climb and never have to go back down.

He used to tell you everything. Now he only tells you the things that hurt. You think this is backwards, but you don’t argue. You are very good at listening.

Sometimes he tries not to come get you. He lies in bed, stiff and staring at the ceiling. You can hear his thoughts buzzing like bees. He turns his phone over so the screen doesn’t light his face. He presses his hands together, like if he holds them tight enough they won’t reach for you.

He lasts seven minutes once. Ten minutes another time. One night, almost a whole hour. You count by the way his breathing changes, fast to slow to fast again. When he finally reaches down for you, he does it like he’s losing a game he desperately wanted to win.

“I shouldn’t,” he says into your fur, like you are the one who made the rules.

You know the rules.

You are not supposed to be needed anymore. You are supposed to be a memory, a joke, something he tells a friend when he wants to sound like he is not afraid of being small.

You watch him practice in the mirror before school sometimes, when he forgets to push you back in far enough. He rolls his shoulders back. He sets his mouth in a line. He lowers his voice until it bumps against something in his chest. He nods at himself like they do in movies.

You remember when he used to practice faces with you. Happy face. Sad face. Angry face. You were very patient with angry face.

He leaves parts of himself in places he does not go back to. He leaves them in lockers and hallways and stuck under desks like gum. At night, he comes home lighter.

Adults call this growing up.

You keep the pieces he leaves at home safe.

The keep the way he used to say your name when he was sleepy, the way it stretched and yawned. You keep the sound he made when he ran full speed, and tripped, and laughed because his legs forgot how to be legs. You keep the small belief that someone will come when he calls.

One night, something changes. He does not lock the door.

He sits on the floor with his back against the bed and his knees pulled up, phone in his hand. The screen lights his face blue. He stares at it like it might bite him. He types and deletes and types again.

“You’re stupid,” he says to himself, but not mean.

He reaches for you without looking. He pulls you out and holds you on his lap like you are a secret that got tired of being one. He doesn’t press his face into you this time. He just holds you and breathes.

The phone buzzes. He flinches. He looks at you like you might have an answer.

You have always had answers. They are soft ones.

He unlocks the phone. He reads. His face does a thing you haven’t seen in a while—it opens, just a little. He types back. His thumbs shake. He hits send.

He laughs, real this time. It shakes the bed.

He presses his face into your fur. “Don’t tell anyone about this.”

You will not tell.

You will live under the bed and in his arms and in the place where his breath slows. You will get heavier with tears and lighter with laughs. You will wear thin where he loves you most.

You will wait. You are very good at waiting.