The Unknown Road

68 - Tessa

EIGHT WEEKS HAVE GONE by since Matt was killed, and it's a week before I have to go to university. But today is the day Archie is finally coming home.

The funeral was five weeks ago, where all our school friends and family came, and we've been showered with sympathy flowers and treated to sympathy baked lasagnes for just as long. Mum came home as soon as Dad called her and the two of them have been staying with us ever since. She's due to go back home when I head off for university, but having her here has been really great.

Mum and Dad have been so strong through this entire ordeal. I've seen them break down, as was to be expected, but the two of them have been absolutely incredible. I, on the other hand, have been a massive puddle of tears the entire time. Losing my brother has left me broken. Every day I wake up hollow, like I'm missing half of my soul, and the fact I even get out of bed is a miracle sometimes. I've barely spoken to anyone, other than Mum and Dad, and the fact Archie is shutting me out has broken my spirit beyond all repair.

I knew not being able to go to the funeral would kill Archie, but how he was behaving has been hard on me as well. Hard on everyone. Apart from the one day last week where he allowed me to spend the entire day with him in his bed, tucked under his arm, he's been distant. He's there, but he's not really there. His spirit is broken, and the sparkle behind his eyes is dull, and slowly, I know he's pulling away from us.

Being in and out of surgeries has left him grumpy and in pain, which meant his mood has been dark and dreary, and with him not letting any of us in to help cheer him up, it means his mood has got more and more worrying. A fact that became worryingly obvious when he opted to remain in hospital rather than at home for these last two weeks.

Dad had tried to change his mind, but he wouldn't have it. And when he found out Mum was staying with us, it made him even more sure. The guilt coursing through him was tearing him apart, I could tell, but there wasn't anything any of us could do about it. None of us blamed him, of course we didn't, but apparently there was no convincing him of that.

But today he was being discharged, so he had no choice but to come home. He said he wanted to get the hospital to take him home, but Dad put his foot down and convinced him it was okay for me to take him... so here I was.

Part of me didn't want to be here, because I knew he didn't want me here, but then the other half of me was happy to get any kind of contact I could, even if he was making it difficult.

As hard as it was to say, Archie wasn't the same person anymore. My best friend, my boyfriend and the person I thought I could depend on most in these times had let me down, and that's what I was most disappointed in. We'd been there for each other through everything; with Dee, through what happened with his dad and then his mum leaving, even through the stress of Mum's wedding where I turned into a complete Bridesmaidzilla... and then now, when we really needed him, he's shut himself off. I get why, I absolutely get why, but we're all feeling the same thing. We've all lost the same thing, the same someone. I know we're stronger together, we always have been, yet now he wants to be alone...

If it was helping, I would be all for it, but it's not. The person who's been sitting in that hospital bed these last few weeks has been an imposter. A bizarro, angry and even more emotionally damaged imposter.

Walking up to his room, the nurses all greet me from the station as I walk past, giving me kind smiles as I head onto his corridor. When I get to his room, looking in the window before I knock on the door, I panic to find the room empty. I open the door quickly but I'm relieved when I see Archie's bag on the chair and hear the sound of him in the bathroom. Previously, before the accident happened, I wouldn't have hesitated to join him in there, but now I wouldn't dream of invading his space.