Since You

Here’s a fact: my life is a lie. Only recently I discovered the truth. I used to believe my life was a fairy-tale. It’s far from that now. My life has become days of haunting quiet and nights of horrific nightmares. I hide myself under the covers of my bed—a blanket of despair. Let the darkness suffocate me, consume me and eat me whole. There’s no light, no sound, no touch, no smell. There’s nothing, now that he’s gone. What is a sister without a brother? A person with their good half, gone? I cover my ears and let out a shrilling scream, trying desperately to rid of the eerie quiet. The quiet that’s letting me hear my own harrowing thoughts. I scream again. There’s no one to hear me. I’m alone in the house. Just my thoughts and I. I will the pain and emptiness that gloats around the rooms to leave. But there is only staying. He didn’t stay. Elijah abandoned me. Now I’m on my own.

My legs are soft rubber as they move me almost robotically down the driveway of my house. The sky is greying. I’m trampling over the violets and roses Elijah and I had planted last summer. My mind doesn’t even know if I’m doing it on purpose. But I step on them, kick them. Hurl my emotions all out. They’re wilting and dying, howling out in agony. I don’t care.

Earlier that day, my stepmother came into my room.

“Althea, I know this isn’t easy,” my stepmother sits on the edge of my bed, hand on my shoulder.

I want to shake it off and shout at her. No shit this isn’t easy. My brother died and left me on my lonesome.

“But would you please do something other than sit here in your bed all day?” Silence replies for me. A conversation followed by no replies then advances on for another hour. “Mrs O’Brien asked if you’d like to babysit the twins tonigh...

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...Later, when I slip out of the house, I feel lighter. I know I won’t be able to let go of Elijah anytime soon, but all journeys have a beginning. I have a feeling mine has just commenced.

The star studded skies open up, and tell me all their secrets—of love, of happiness. The warm rain sprinkles down and I tilt my head back, letting the droplets fall into my mouth. It tastes sweet. I start walking to my house and think of my time with the twins today. I realise that my lips are upturned. I am smiling.

Here’s another fact: love has its own lifeline—there is no limit. They say that eventually, everything goes away. Disperses into ashes and dust. They are wrong. My love for my brother is immortal, unbreakable, eternal. But I needn’t show it to the world in a negative sense. No one can take that love away from me apart from me. I chose to keep it, close to my heart.