Living, Loving, Breaking

Chapter One

        Copyright © 2012 Elaine Harlington
         
    I am gone. They still talk to me, but I ignore them. I enjoy being in my own little world, away from it all. Police officers have started coming by, asking me if I remember anything to alert them immediately.

    It wraps me in it, swirling around and capitalizing my ears, begging me to listen. He sits, backboard straight, his muscles relaxed and almost harmless looking. Those handsome hands run delicately across the shimmering keys, creating almost a romance between the two.
    “This is music,” he says. I nod, and bow my head.

    “Deirdre, we really need your help,” the police officer tells me. I don’t want to come back, but their stares and concerned looks make me.
    I apparently have a rather large family. And all seven of my brothers and sisters are crammed into this little hospital room. Another random part of my life, I can’t seem to retrieve.

    “I’m sorry, I really can’t remember,” I whisper tiredly, trying to keep my head up. One thought keeps nagging me. Who was my shooter? I was too scared to ask, but I needed to know these answers.
    “Who shot me?” I ask boldly, and then blush and look down at my stomach wound. The whole room falls silent, very quickly, as they all look away, as if not wanting to answer my question. Stopping myself from commenting smartly, I play with my hair, straggly and matted-looking.

    “It was a female, from what they can deduce. But they managed to escape, alive,” my father finally gets out. My mother closes her eyes, and the older half of my family sighs.
    Not dead? Then where was she? I had so many questions. But my family seems to have wearied for the day. One of my brothers, tall and dark-haired, stands up impatiently and looks at his watch also. He turns apologetically to my parents.
    “I really must go, I flew in at the last moment. But since Deirdre is physically better, I am needed back at school,” he goes and kisses my mother, who even now is foreign to me, and my father.
    He glances at me, a sorrowful puzzled look and then walks out. This seems to create a reaction from the other siblings of mine. One sister, who looks around the same age as the brother, stands up also, pulling on her coat. She is fair-haired, unlike him, but I see many similarities in them.

    “Mother, Father, I am also needed back in New York,” She hugs the both of them, rather politely with no real sense of warmth, and all my siblings. She then turns to me, and bends down gently over me, her hair falling as a curtain between me and the rest of the world. The world I no longer can recognize.
    “Deirdre, don’t strain yourself, and get better soon. I long to see you running around again, excitedly,” she whispers, for my ears only, and kisses me on the head.
    When she pulls back, I am shocked. Did we have a close relationship? If so, why couldn’t I remember it? All the memories I had found before, had all left my grasp leaving me alone and lost.

    My head nods a little bit. I am tired.  Growing more tired by the passing minute, my eyes shut tight, sealing me involuntarily. The strain has been too much. So many questions bombarded at me, and none of them answered.
    “Good night honey,” my mother comes up to my bedside, recognizing the signs. She caresses my cheek, and I try not to flinch at the unknown touch. “Sleep well, and we’ll be here in the morning,”
    They all leave, one boy remains the longest, staring at me with an unreadable expression on his face. I wonder again, what my connection as a sibling is to him. Was I close to my family? Or not?

     I can still feel their burning eyes when I am alone. I stare at the forlorn hospital room. White upon white. No uniqueness to this place. And the smell is awful. The food is pretty bad here too. I look at the tv. Bored, I click it on, deciding to see if I could watch anything interesting before drifting asleep. Of all things to come on, a real-life murder show, appears. Angrily I flip through all the channels, but it seems death and murder are the only things I can watch at this time of night. My ears start to pound. The tv starts to flicker in front of me. I close my eyes fighting the memory, but it comes in anyways, unnaturally loud, and all-consuming.