Long Lost Brother

Chapter 13 : The first day

I went over, and shook his arm gently.

"Riker."

"AHHH!"

Riker grabbed onto my arm, and his eyes were wide. He looked terrified.

"Riker, are you ok?"

"I just... Yeah..."

"Nightmare?"

"Yeah..."

"It's ok. I know what it's like."

Riker went to sit up, and I could clearly see he was still in pain.

"Riker, lay down on your stomach. Let me see if I can help your back."

I sat down on the edge of the bed, and started pressing on different areas of Riker's back and shoulders.

"Does it feel any better?" I asked after a few minutes.

"I think so..."

Riker sat up a little more easily this time.

"Yeah, definitely a lot better. Thanks," Riker said, stretching his arms.

"No problem. My roommate at my old school taught me how to do it. I'd come back to school in pain from sleeping weirdly, and he'd help me feel better."

"What do you mean, sleeping weirdly?"

"Riker?"

"What?"

"Can you keep a secret?"

"Yeah, of course."

"I don't know if mom told you, but my old parents used to hit me. It could get really bad sometimes. And... My parents did other things too. And one of their favorite things to do would be to lock me in closets. I'd have to sleep on top of shoes, and I wasn't able to stretch out. So..."

"Are you serious?"

"Yeah."

"I want to kill them."

"Riker, they're in jail."

"Aren't you mad at them!?"

"Of course I am, but I've let it go. I live with you now."

"But they hurt you!"

"I know. But I let it go."

"I don't see how you can let something like this go so easily."

"They can't hurt me anymore, Riker. It's over. And I won. They're in jail."

Riker shook his head.

"I can't believe they hurt you..."

"Kids! Breakfast!" Mom yelled.

"Come on, Riker. Let's go eat."

Later...

Riker POV

After we'd had breakfast, mom said we could do whatever we wanted to. I wanted to explore the outside a little bit, so I took Jeff along with me. There was a path in the backyard which we were now walking down.

"Ok, there's 2 paths. Which should we take?" Jeff asked.

We'd come to a fork in the path. We could either go left or right.

"Um... Right?"

"Ok."

We went right, and within about a minute, the trail ended, and it had brought us to a lake.