( crossfire! )¹ ─ ᵗʷᶤˡᶤᵍʰᵗ ✓

chapter twelve.

( CHAPTER TWELVE )
BEFORE: PLAY THE ROLE

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11 MAY 1999

JOSH STEELE WAS NOW SIXTEEN-YEARS-OLD. His sister Carter was only a month away from turning eight, while his youngest sister Cassie was barely one-year-old. Almost two years had passed since the incident with Mr. Bateman―who had mysteriously disappeared a month after it occurred―and he thought of the old man's words every day. They still made no sense to him. He didn't understand what could have driven the already batshit crazy man more batshit crazy. Though, recently he had noticed that things were starting to look out of place with his family. His parents were more secretive, keeping Carter close by and in their sights at all times. They didn't even seem to trust Josh alone with her anymore, let alone without any supervision whatsoever. They hovered and began to shelter her all while she was oblivious to it. Josh didn't understand why they had grown so protective and why their protectiveness was solely focused on Carter instead of all three of their children like he thought it should be. Instead of his parents being the ones to take care of Cassie, Josh found himself doing it more often than not, even waking up in the early morning hours on a school night when she cried and their parents were sleeping like the dead or, for some reason or another, were out of the house completely.

Because of Josh having to play the role of being a parent, he found the center of his worries and his focus beginning to become Cassie; always fearing that something was going to happen to her while he wasn't at home to take care of her. His grades dropped and during school he found his behavior worsening by always talking back to the teacher, refusing to do the assignments given, getting into fights with other students, etc. So many detentions began piling up for him that eventually all of his teachers had given up. He never showed up to the detentions anyway, not even after the principal and the superintendent spoke to him about how he had to serve his time―they talked about it as if it were a prison sentence. Obviously, as per protocol, a letter was sent to his home to let his parents know about the detentions and how Josh was doing in school. All he received was a stern "don't do it again" from his father and a disappointed look from his mother. Josh found it all completely ridiculous.

Walking into their home after being at school all day, Carter immediately ran up the stairs to her room to change before dinner started in an hour while Josh made his way to the kitchen. He sighed when he noticed only his mother was at home, watching over Cassie with an annoyed yet worried look on her face. He was about to speak when Cassie began crying in her high-chair, having dropped the bowl of gummy bears she had been eating on the floor. Josh rolled his eyes at the groan that left his mother's lips before walking forward to pick up the bowl and the spilled gummy snacks. He threw the rest of the (now dirty) snacks away and put the bowl in the sink as Cassie continued to cry in the background. With four large steps from the sink to her high-chair, Josh put on a wide faux smile for his baby sister's sake and made a small gasping noise that had Cassie calming slightly upon having her attention grabbed. He continued to make funny little noises as he carefully lifted her out of the seat and placed her on his hip. He began bouncing up and down with her lightly, keeping his faux happiness up in front of her, though a part of him did fill with warmth when he made the small child laugh and giggle.

"Josh, can you please take her out of here? I'm trying to think." Julia grumbled, her hands splayed out on the granite counter top of the kitchen island and her eyes squeezed shut as if she were in pain. Josh resisted the urge to roll his eyes at her, turning on his heel and walking out of the kitchen to his bedroom down the hall that led to the basement. He use to have a bedroom upstairs like his other little sister and his parents. But after Cassie was born, their parents had kicked Josh out of his old room and put him in the basement, turning his old bedroom into Cassie's new room. Meanwhile, Carter continued to have her own bedroom and, of course, his parents kept their room. He felt silly about acting bitter towards a bedroom situation change that he had already come to terms with, but when it had happened it had felt like he was tossed aside like an outcast in his own home. The phrase "out of sight, out of mind" often came to the front of his thoughts whenever he thought of it and how his parents basically acted as if he, and even Cassie, were invisible. Though Cassie, thankfully, still got some loving treatment from them every now and then, so she wasn't completely tossed aside since she couldn't even properly talk yet. She knew all of two words and was constantly saying them in mumbles when she wasn't distracted; those two words were her nickname for Josh ("Bubba") and "food." Josh had taught her how to say them a little better and he hoped to be able to teach her more words in future.