Saving Angelo

Prologue.

Prologue.

Death.

Death. A five letter word. Three consonants. Two vowels. A full stop at the end.

That's all it is.

Death.

The point when someone must die. One moment they're sitting next to you, asking how your day was, making dinner, tucking you into bed, and laughing at the way your hair sticks up in the morning. The next, they're lying 6 foot under the ground.

That's what I thought, as I sat cross-legged in front of Mary Greene's gravestone, on the 12th anniversary of her death.

Which also happens to be my 18th birthday.

Mum never liked the colour grey. There is no colour more discarded than grey, she used to say to Charlie and I, as she painted over our grey walls in our room, with a bright blue.

"Grey is not the colour for an artist like you, Angel!" she said, handing me a paintbrush and lifting me up onto the step ladder. "Paint whatever you want, baby. These walls are the canvas of your imagination,"

She had said the same to my brother, but nothing could stop Charlie when it came to his racing car posters.

"Mummy, why doesn't Charlie like painting like we do?" I had asked her, one night as we were drawing the jungle on the back wall of my room.

"Your brother isn't very good at painting, Angel," she replied, grinning at me and wiping some green paint off my eyebrow. "Don't tell him I told you this, but his self-portrait really did look like a gorilla scratching its bottom," she laughed.

I replied to her with a loud giggle, which was interrupted by the front door slamming loudly, indicating he was home.

I shook my head violently, not wanting to relay what happened next that day, so many years ago.

The point was, even though my mother hated that colour, her gravestone was painted a deep grey, courtesy of my father. I had tried to get him to change it, but of course that didn't end well.

My hand absentmindedly travels to my upper arm. I still have the scar from that mistake.

I lean forward to place the lilies I bought with me in front of the stone, forgetting about the deep cut on my abdomen, fresh from last night. My mouth opens silently in pain, and I lean forward, pressing my hands fiercely onto the wound. I shut my eyes, as they begin to water from the agony.

"You weak, human being. Why can't you be a normal kid, huh? Do as you're commanded, Angelo. You useless piece of shit. It's all your fault. It's all your fault."

It's all your fault.

His words echo around me. What am I doing here? It's my fault she's dead. It's my fault Charlie left. It's my fault he's dead.

My eyes scrunch up in pain, but it's not from the wound on my stomach. I look up solemnly at the gravestone, as silent tears flow down my face.

"It's your fault they're dead Angelo. Stop fucking crying and be a man. It's all your fault."

I choke back a sob, scramble up from the ground, and run out of the graveyard, my vision blurred.

It's all my fault.

© 2015 Saving Angelo, (rebelsymphony). All rights reserved.