I should be your Beta, not your Mate

39 - Brothers

He didn't like studying and if you wanted to explain something to him you needed to do that four times before he understood.

In the big picture he was hopeless.

My Christmas present – or more of a New Year's Eve-Christmas-present – was a good idea but most of the work came from Emily's side. She prepared the mistletoe and put a spell on it to make it fly.

I just requested it and hadn't moved a finger.

»Come on, you won't find anything here,« Naika said at some point and pushed her body away from the shelf.

Sadly, I needed to agree with her. I didn't find anything good here.

I glanced around to look for Caleb who I found at a shelf with disks.

»You're interested in disks?« I asked and leaned over his shoulder. He had even more bad luck than I because he was a few centimeters smaller than I. I pitied him a little bit.

Surprised he flinched and stared at me with big blue eyes before he breathed out and stepped aside so I could get closer to the shelf. Or better, because I shouldn't stand behind him, looking over his shoulder.

»Well...« he began and scratched his neck. »After you left, I was often in your room. One of your cabinets is full with disks, if you remember and next to the windowsill of your bay window is your record player, you know the one with the horn.«

I nodded slightly and looked further at the disks.

It wasn't like I wasn't interested in what Caleb just told me. But something inside me stopped me from looking at his face. Maybe it was my fear? The fear of seeing how he had suffered after I left.

»I know how it sounds stupid and dumb but when I sat in your room, listened to your disks and read your books I felt closer to you... And someday it turned into a ritual that I sat in your room in the evening. But Mom didn't like that after some time... She went crazy that I shouldn't mourn you and that I was responsible for your disappearance too... First, she went to get your record player and the disks, then your books. But that still didn't stop me... I was just in your room for hours and stared at the driveway, in hope that there would stop a taxi or something else and you would be here again... But you didn't come... My condition got worse... I refused to sleep and ate almost nothing. My days and nights I only spent in our room and stared at the drive way... I skipped school too... Elli forced me out of your room and handed me over to Kate, who took me to school... But when I came back home and wanted to go to your room, the door was closed. Mom locked your room and nobody was allowed to enter your room. Only on the day where you left, she cleaned our room and put everything back into its place and we were allowed to go into your room. It was almost like we grieved for someone who died every year... And the uncertainty of whether you're dead or not, tormented me every day... Not only me, but Cassian too. I can even say he had it worse and suffered more than I did...«

Caleb's voice broke with almost every sentence and his words came out haltingly. Even his voice sounded unusually deep and rough. Melancholic, I would even say.

»That...« I started, wanted to say something, but didn't know what.

What could I even answer my little brother? It was a part of our life that went pretty wrong. It made us see things clearer and broke our hearts. Both of us.

»You don't need to say anything to that. I don't give you the fault that I felt bad because you suffered more than I did. You could've died and then I would have lost my older brother.«

Finally I found the strength to look at him. His eyes shimmered treacherously and out of his left eye fell down a tear. His lower lips trembled and his hand was clenched to a fist while the other grabbed the shelf.