Oh Brother (Completed)

House of Memories

My insomnia for the next week or so had me up to the latest hours of the night, and sleeping through most of the morning. Most of my time was spent with Nix, being that he was the only one that seemed to be awake with me, but I could see the worry that he and my brothers shared over my new sleep schedule.

The second of July I wandered out of my room early morning, having had the closest to a full night of sleep in a long time. I'd dozed off on Nix's bed, and when I woke up this morning the sun was already bleeding through the window and over his body, casting over him with an angelic glow. The door, wide open to satisfy my brothers, beckoned me to step outside of it. Fixing the blanket beside Phoenix, I slipped out of the room and started down the staircase, I stopped on the fifth step down, right before the curve of the stairs leading down to the living room.

A family photo printed on a large canvas hung askew off a nail in front of me, this one including Phoenix and Damien. It was the biggest I'd seen in the house, and it took every ounce of willpower I had not to tear it off the wall. The memory was furling a knot deep in my stomach. It'd been taken only days before Mom had thrown all our stuff into a suitcase and my small Minnie Mouse backpack, and I'd been dragged aboard a plane with an entire month of summer left.

My parents, once so in love they couldn't see straight, looked as if the very thought of being near each other was going to destroy them. My mother was wearing a thin smile, so tight it looked physically painful. Her eyes, the kind, loving blue eyes that'd spoke a thousand words were nothing like I'd seen them before. They were dark with fury, no sign of the nurturing woman who'd raised me in them. Her blonde hair had been tied back in a loose ponytail, resting on her left shoulder. My father stood to her right, jaw clenched tight, hazel eyes lacking any emotion. His chestnut hair had grown a few shades lighter that summer, being out with the boys instead of holed up in the house had left his hair so light that it was almost the same shade as our mothers.

Then there were my brothers. Phil, fourteen, stood to my father's left, just beginning to grow into the tall, Stringbean like frame puberty had recently graced him with. A fresh red welt was on his right temple, a small detail I'd been able to see with the 4x6 copy of the picture I had at home. To my mother's right was thirteen-year-old Buckley, who unlike Phil, had not just spouted up, but began to fill out as well. Giving him the appearance of a seventeen-year-old; it was the boyish braced smile that hinted at his actual age. Eight-year-old Aden stood directly in front of Buckley, a big gap in his teeth. He'd just lost the top one a few hours before the photo. Then, directly in front of Phil was Sam, blue eyes hidden behind a pair of thick rimmed black glasses, his lips in a thin depressing line as he crossed his arms over his chest.

Finally, the Holts were in the forefront of the picture. At Sam's feet was Nix, crouched in a position that in no way looked comfortable. Somehow, as usual, his smile lifted what would have otherwise been a depressing and dreary photo. But his eyes weren't on the camera, and I knew my mother would have had a huge problem with it if she'd bothered to look at the photo. Because Nix's eyes were trained on me in between my parents, eyes as bright as the smile that lit his face. In front of Aden was Damien, in the same position as his older brother, but his eyes were trained on his brother, expressing one of longing. Then there was me, in the middle of the photo, in between my parents and encased by my brothers and their friends, and I easily took the award for looking the most miserable, and that was saying something considering Sam and Damien came in a close second.

My eyes hair had been pulled back into a tight ponytail, giving clear view of my flushed face. I wore the tight smile my parents had insisted on, but my eyes glistened with tears. The memory itself was fuzzy, but I remember the pain in my chest like it was yesterday. I'd felt as if the world around me was caving in on itself, that with my parents' war, pieces of myself were breaking and crashing into the sand beneath my feet.