Skylar Miller
A girl who has been blamed but never seen as the victim in the story. She lost her best friends then she lost the people that she used to love. It felt like her life was breaking at every corner she looked.
"If you told me that going...
Standing up, I felt the bones in my legs creak and crack with the movement, before I sluggishly moved into the bathroom, where I ran the bucket under the shower, cleaning it out the best that I could, knowing that one of us would be using it soon. I didn't understand why we were all vomiting so much up, but we just were.
I watched it fill the bucket up, before kicking it over, and letting it run down the drain, just like everything else had. Our money, our house, our lives. It had all run down the drain and here we were, all crowded into a hospital room, with so much uncertainty buried within us, that we had no idea when we were going to get out of it all. How we were going to move on.
Hearing a small groan, I rushed to turn off the shower tap, and ran back into the hospital room, seeing movement in the bed that I had been stationed at for so long. Waiting and watching, I anticipated what could happen next. Once again, Riley wasn't here to guide me with what I was doing, and what to do in situations like these.
If anything, Shane would have just nudged me forward and said to do something, but I physically couldn't. This was my little sister, moving around in her bed, after her surgery that happened almost two weeks ago now. Pain covered her face, as I still stood there, unsure of how to help her.
Finally making my feet move, I slowly made my way to her, leaning down. Running a hand through her hair, I soothed her to the best of my ability, but I was no Riley. Riley would know how to do all of this better than I would. But, I continued to stroke my hand through her hair, in hopes of calming her down in some way.
Stirring even more, I never would have thought after what I had just witnessed, that I would be the one witnessing this. Seeing the eyes of my little sister, looking back at me, almost as if she didn't recognize me. I had a feeling that this is what it would be like. I had been told that sometimes the medication could do such things like this to people when they had such rare surgeries like my little sister had.
That's right. My little sister had had a rare surgery, that could take up to 18 months or more to recover from. That was all I knew about how bad her surgery could be. I wasn't part of the big boy group anymore, in the eyes of Jay and Rylie. They saw me as a small child, and I guess I still was, but today was my 16th birthday.
As most people call it, their sweet sixteenth birthday. Nothing was sweet about today, turning 16. It was the absolute opposite of being anything sweet.
My 16th birthday was being spent in yet another hospital room. Just like my 15th birthday was spent in the hospital room, waiting for results on Noah's broken wrist. My 14th birthday was in the waiting room, waiting for Skylar to come out of surgery on her ribs that had been punched badly by the girls at school. My 13th birthday was spent stressing whether or not Brayden had broken his foot.
I could go back further, making everyone feel pity for not having a birthday spent on me in almost 10 years. My 5th birthday was the worst, as it was when we were told that our parents were deemed dead. I had just turned 5, when all anybody could care about was whether or not our parents were out there, waiting to strangle some of us to death, only to find out that they were dead.
That day was when I felt like everything had been ripped out of me and pushed back where they shouldn't be. "Help" a hoarse voice spoke, and I looked down at my little sister, who was contorting her body every which way, as her eyes slowly opened. "It's ok" and everything was okay, knowing that my little sister was alive and well, at least for now.
"It hurts" she scratched at the bandage on her arm, but I pulled her hand away. "Don't touch" I murmured, pressing a gentle kiss to her forehead, as she stared at me. "It's ok" I spoke, as she clutched her hand around my arms, almost begging me to stay with her. I had stayed with her for as long as I could.
"Where's Rylie?" I should have known that she would ask for him and not me. Releasing a sigh, I pulled out my phone and scrolled through to Rylie's contact. I handed her my phone, as she shakily grabbed it with her other hand, still holding onto me. I heard the phone ring, but no one on the other end picked up.
I knew that that would happen. It was unlikely that Rylie would have picked up the phone for me. I knew that he had been comforting me just a week ago, but it was like something had switched in him, now that he was back in control. He wasn't the same as the brother that I had wished for years would come back and read me a story book before bed. That was back when I was actually a little boy.
I was no longer a little boy anymore. "Lu" she murmured, hitting me lightly with my phone when I had looked away from her. "Yeah?" I hummed in response, as she tried to show me the phone. I took it from her, putting it back in my pocket. "It's your birthday" just as she said those words, the door to the room opened, and I immediately stood up.
"Whose birthday?" someone questioned as they stood at the doorway to the room. I didn't get a chance to turn to Skylar and shush her, or stop the people that had started to stir and were looking between the two of us. "It's Lu's birthday" she repeated.
"It's your birthday?" the one person that I had hoped would remember, didn't, as I walked out of the room, and away from him. I had really hoped that he wasn't like I thought he would be. I thought that he had changed.
I thought he would have remembered.
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