To Break Her Heart

Chapter 28 ~ "What other air am I supposed to breathe?"

Chapter 28: "What other air am I supposed to breathe?"

Seth, Marie, and Carly were coming in two days, as soon as Seth could get off work. I called Dad, and I called his secretary, and I called his boss. He never picked up, and his boss and secretary refused to tell me what happened to him, even after I told them that his wife was dead.

That was the man who had planted his sperm three times inside my mum's body, slowly killing her more and more each time. If you asked me, he was at fault more so than anyone else. He loved her? Okay, then where the fuck was he?

I was so done with that man. Technically, he was mine and Theo's only guardian now, and if anyone ever told the authorities that he'd left us, I didn't want to think of what would happen. In fact, Seth had even called a few days ago to ask me if he could claim guardianship over us. I'd be eighteen in a few months, and I didn't want to risk anything, so I agreed. 

Meanwhile, Luke, Randy, and Leo had taken it upon themselves to keep me company. More like "keep an eye" on me if you ask me. But what with school, StuCo duties, and practicing for the musical, which would open in a month, I had more than enough shit on my plate. I was grateful for their help, but I didn't like to be parted from Theo during the long hours of rehearsal. The only thing that cheered me up was Luke. He was my rock.

The three of them - Luke, Randy, and Leo - practically moved into my house after I had blatantly refused to move into Luke's house. I didn't care that Rita was my mum's best friend. I had no business coming into her home when she had nine mouths to feed - eight if you counted Luke being my issue for now.

One Saturday, I rocked Theo in my arms, trying to get him to stop crying. He'd been at it for the last half hour. "Honey, what's the matter?" I cooed, bouncing him up and down. I'd just fed and burped him, he'd already had a nap, what else did he want? His nappy was clean, I'd just checked, so it couldn't be that either. "Randy, toss me the binky, will you?" I asked tiredly as she walked into my house, using the spare key I'd given her after realising that she would forcefully break through the windows if I tried to keep her out.

Randy gave me a look. "You've been with him for the whole day, haven't you?"

Since I'd brought Theo back from the hospital, I'd hardly gotten any sleep. What with expending most of my money on things for Theo and then poring through all the baby books I'd bought beforehand, I was close to collapsing. That was in addition to everything else I had to do.

But doing all those things meant limited attention to Theo from me, so I took whatever opportunity to stay with him, regardless of how tired I was. Randy may have been my best friend, but Theo was my responsibility, and I needed to stop dumping him on other people whenever my schedule was inconvenient.

I didn't look at her when she asked me that, because she already knew the answer. I didn't know why, but I was extremely overprotective of Theo because of our limited time together, so much so that I wouldn't let him out of my sight when I did have him. No matter what my friends tried to do, I didn't want to burden them. They'd done so much for me, now I had to deal with my own problems.

"Give me the little patootie," Randy said, reaching out for Theo.

My eyes widened, but I was so tired that I let her to pluck my brother right out of my arms. I watched my best friend cradle my baby brother gently in her arms, and his squeaky screams were all I could hear.

"Oh, stop giving me that heartbroken look, I'm not gonna steal him away from you," Randy scolded me, rolling her eyes. "Now you go get some rest, you deserve it."