Together With You

Unmasked/Unconcealed

“Hey, guys, what’s for breakfast?” I said in a cheery tone. One of us had to keep it together and as the eldest, that responsibility fell on me. 

“Cereal,” mumbled Ed with a mouthful of food sputtering bits in Amity’s direction.  Seeing this Amity stopped eating and pushed her plate away. 

“That’s gross Ed,” she grumbled. I see she will be ignoring my existence this year too. 

“Ed, Amity doesn’t need you giving her your food so please keep it in your mouth,” I said hoping that would earn me a laugh but it didn’t. At least not from Amity. Ed on the other hand started choking on his cereal. “Seriously, Ed.” 

Amity mumbled something under her breath while I handed Ed a glass of water. “What was that?” I asked. She was actually talking to me today. That was progress, right? 

Amity turned to look at me with hate-filled eyes “I said you got rid of Hunter and now you’re trying to get rid of Ed. Was that clear enough for you?” Of course not, she still hates me. 

“I didn’t get rid of Hunter he left on his own,” I said keeping my voice even. That was not the right thing to say because Amity just looked twice as mad now. 

“You did get rid of him! He could have come to visit us or maybe we could have visited him but you had to ruin that!” she shouted in anger. I couldn’t even be mad because I knew she was right. If it hadn’t been for me maybe we could have continued being friends even if we didn’t get to see each other every day. But at the time I was just so angry. 

Amity continued her angry rant and I didn’t stop her. I motioned to Ed to let her get everything out in the open. She had been holding on to so much rage for all these years and I knew that I deserved this for being the cause of her rage. If I hadn’t been a selfish child I…we would still have our best friend. Besides, there’s nothing that she could say to me that I haven’t told myself. 

“And you know what is the worst thing of all? That you didn’t even care he was gone.” Wait what? Didn’t even care? “That day there was nothing anyone could do to get Ed to stop crying. I was so upset that mom and dad went out of their way to get me to calm down and you. What did you do? Nothing, you just went up into your room and locked yourself there so you wouldn’t have to listen to us cry. I always wished that you were the one that left and not him.” 

“Wow, hey Amity, that's not okay,”  scolded Ed. I appreciated the gesture but he didn’t have to worry about me. I deserved this and more. Thanks to me Amity had lost someone very important to her. 

“No, it’s okay Ed. I’ll just go so you guys can finish up your breakfast in peace. I’ll meet up with you in school.” I said walking out of the dining room I heard him protest but I ignored him. I just wanted to be alone for a while.

I didn’t end up going to school and instead found myself walking aimlessly through the streets of Boonesborough. Even though I didn’t mind Amity telling me how she felt her words still hurt. I wasn’t mad at her. If it hadn’t been for me and my big mouth we could have still had contact with Hunter. Still, I didn’t know she thought I didn’t care. From the outside looking in, I guess it would look like I didn’t care. She was right that I never cried in front of her and that on that day I went and locked myself in my room. Though either she didn’t notice or maybe she forgot that the following day I tried finding Hunter but he was already gone. That’s when the full weight of what I had done started to settle.  I wasn’t able to get in touch with his family either and that sent me into a depression. I locked myself in my room for days before our dad broke down my door. My mom even pleaded with Hunter’s mom to let us see him one last time but it was already too late. There was nothing she could do.