Unconditionally Bae

1. Answered Prayers

I was beyond ecstatic when I got my college acceptance letter.

Never in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine that I, Curtis Thaddeu would get accepted at such a prestigious school. It was one of the two best private universities in the country.

I had one person to thank for that, Clare, my eldest sister. She had brought it to my attention but I was sceptical about it. The only reason I applied for the scholarship program in the first place was to prove to her that the system was rigged but I couldn’t have been more wrong. In true older sibling fashion, she couldn’t stop waving the ‘I told you so’ banner to my face.

I was the second child in a family of five children and I was blessed to have them. Clare was the oldest and the sole bread winner after mom got bed ridden. As I said, I was the second and eldest son. Cynthia was the third and in her final year in high school. I had a brother, Cyrus who was Cynthia’s twin but he and dad died almost ten years ago in a car accident.

Caitlyn was the last of us. I guess she was the only one of us that hadn’t spent time with dad or Cy. She must have been two or three when they passed on but she was always asking about them. She was currently in the seventh grade.

Before his demise, dad had been the sole bread winner. Back then we would have been classified as upper middle-class. We all went to a very expensive private school and we always got whatever we wanted. My mom stayed at home and took care of us.

Mom had to take up the role and with only a high school diploma to her name, she could only get different odd jobs to feed us.
From what I heard, it was her idea to give us names that start with the letter ‘C’. Her reason was that since her name was Catherine and dad’s name was Collins, it was only logical to go down that road.

My parents’ relationship was something I looked up to. They never argued infront of us and they always looked like they only had eyes for each other. There were times it felt like mom didn’t love dad as much as he loved her.

It wasn’t lost to me that dad had a mean temper. He never hit us when he was angry but he would smash the item nearest to him against the wall or use his fist against said walls.

Dad was very hands-on and took time to know us. He knew our likes and dislikes and was keen to nurture talents he saw in us. He was our biggest critic but he was just as generous with compliments where they were due.

The Thaddeu kids were known in school for being smart. We were always top of the class every year but we were also different on our own way. Clare was a born leader. She led the four of us everywhere including towards trouble. She would also take the fall every time and that was why I was never scared to join her everywhere she asked me too.

Everyone around me said I was more empathetic towards others. I honestly think that’s not a talent. So what if I went out of my way to help out those that needed it that’s what normal humans did. Yes, I'd rather get two hours of sleep than watch my sisters struggle with their schoolwork. That wasn’t a talent that was just being a brother. In short, I didn’t have anything that set me apart and that set me apart from them.

Cynthia was curious by nature. She would dismantle things just to see how they worked and then fix some parts on others just to see if they would have the desired results. There was a time she almost caused a war at our house when she took apart Cyrus’ remote control toy car and Catlin’s talking doll just to see it the car could talk like the doll.

Or the time she almost burned down the house. The fuse box exploded from the electric surge. Mom was about to turn her into a zebra with a switch but dad stopped her. He then built her a shed at the back of the house where she could do whatever it was she wanted and all the safety items she needed.

Cyrus was the tactical one. The boy always had a game plan ready even when playing a friendly game. It may have come across as overbearing to some of the other kids but I always wanted to be in his team. There was always a high rate of winning when playing with him. One of his teachers had noticed this about him and encouraged him to take up chess.

On the night of the accident, he and dad were coming from a chess match that he’d won. He was to compete in the national tournament after that but that never came to be.

Cat was the artsy one. She loved drawing from a young age and dad always had her ‘masterpieces’ stuck to the fridge. Truth is she was good at it. She drew better than any of us ever did at her age.

As she grew up we realized that she wasn’t just good at drawing. The girl could dance and sing. She would scribble words and they would sound like poetry. It was a pity that dad never got to see her grow into her talents because he would have been so happy. He loved art in any form.

The tragedy changed our lives almost instantly. Shortly after their deaths, we moved in with mom’s parents and she sold off the house we grew up in to start a business which failed. I could say that’s when her health issues started.

We then had to switch schools from the private one we were in to a public one. Clare was in high school back then and since it was a public one, grandma just helped get her a bursary from the company she had worked in. It was also shortly after they died that Cynthia and I started getting sickly.

None of the doctors we went to ever found out what was wrong with us and one even suggested that we might have been faking being sick to avoid going to school but mom wasn’t buying it. I was never good at faking and she knew it. It was another doctor that suggested that she takes us to a psychiatrist and that’s how we found out that we were depressed.

I was very close to dad. He always said that I reminded him of his dad who I was named after. But I was even closer to Cyrus. The two of us had formed a team against the girls because we were outnumbered. Whenever we had to vote on something, the girls always won because it was always two to three.

Cyrus and I might have been different in every aspect but that’s why we complemented each other. I was the voice of reason when he went overboard and he could easily go overboard.

Cynthia on the other hand just refused to continue living as if everything was okay after losing her twin. Her curious nature also vanished and she wasn’t in the mood for anything, not food, not tv, not sleeping, nothing. It was two years after it all started that we were diagnosed with depression and prescribed with anti-depressants.

I could say that it was because of the loss that the four of us got closer. We drew strength from each other and we could tell each other anything.

It was when Clare was in her first year in Uni that mom suffered a stroke and was left bed ridden. I was still in high school so Clare dropped out to take care of the rest of us. Our grandparents had already moved to the countryside and left us the house we lived in.

After high school, I wanted to get a job and help Clare take care of the others, maybe get her to finally go back to school but she refused. She would look for scholarship opportunities and encourage me to apply for them.

In my final year in high school, she had encouraged me to apply to three of the top universities in our country. I got accepted into all three but they were far from home and I would either be required to cater for the transport for the one closest to home or cater for my living expenses for the other ones and I didn’t want to add on to Clare’s responsibilities.

When I got the email from Stateguard University, it felt like someone out there was listening to my prayers.