All the Lies I've told

28 ; Chapter Twenty Eight

song of the chapter is Sucker for Pain by Lil Wayne, Wiz Khalifa & Imagine Dragons w/ Logic & Ty Dolla $ign ft X Ambassadors

It was three days after the truth came out before I returned home. Three days of hiding in Freddie's bedroom and being called into the police station so many times to be questioned that I thought I would never be able to leave.

The police couldn't understand how Jake had managed to kill her, move the body and dispose of the evidence, all without anyone realising what he had done, especially since three other people had access to my home. I tried to point out that he didn't live with us at the time so him not being there or seeing him was not unusual. It was like when I found the page Freddie had made about me all over again. I felt like a suspect in a case I should never had anything to do with.

The house was normally quiet but when I entered it, it felt even more silent that usual. I had barely started to feel like my life was finally continuing without Pandora when this was coming out and now I was being forced to comprehend that my own brother had murdered her in our house. I felt dirty and guilty. I felt like I was the one who killed her. How did I not notice the clues? How did I not notice that the reason that the letters didn't sound like her was because she never wrote them?

Jake was an amateur writer, but creating new letters and using it as a storyline was different even for him.

I could have stopped this if I had of just watched him. Jake was unravelling and I never even noticed it. He was spiraling ever since he raped her because of the guilt. I wanted to feel no emotion for him but deep down I knew that although what he had done was totally unforgivable, I still pitied him.

I wandered into the room in question. All the furniture had been moved and everything felt wrong. The decanter was gone, something that I was grateful for. Knowing that I had walked past it almost every day and not once noticed that the lid was missing was disturbing. I felt cheated out of my memories because I knew almost as soon as I unlocked the front door that I would never, ever be able to enter the house without thinking about Pandora and what Jake had done. My childhood was ruined and I wasn't sure that this was the sort of thing a person ever got over. I would never forget.

A cold chill swept up my spine as I stood near the fireplace, the memories of three days previous flooding back to me. I could almost hear the pained grunt he made when I smacked him with the poker. The sound of his heavy footsteps chasing me out of the room. The sound of the door hitting off of the wall as I forced myself through it. The fall. The gunshot was ringing in my ears making me feel uneasy. Seeing all the blood spouting from his arm. I hated myself for knowing I wanted nothing more than to help stem the flow as I watched him lying behind me, gripping his arm in pain. He was a murderer and a liar and he didn't deserve any sympathy.

Truthfully, Jake's lies would forever hurt me more than Pandora's ever could. Sometimes I wondered if Pandora was the monster in my nightmares, manipulating me into doing things I wasn't sure I wanted to do. But now I realise that all along it was Jake. He was a wolf in sheep's clothing.

My head felt heavy as I stumbled out of the room. I made my way upstairs and slammed my door closed before reaching under my bed and pulling out a duffle bag. I didn't even think about what I was doing until I was doing it. I tore into my wardrobe and grabbed what I could, filling up the bag until the zip barely closed. I took my schoolbag and emptied it before grabbing whatever else was lying around that I wanted.

My gaze landed on the family photo from a couple of Christmases ago. I couldn't bring myself to take it. I wanted to love my family but I didn't think I could any more, at least not right now. I needed to get away. I didn't care about my upcoming exams or my graduation. I was going to fail anyway. Pandora's death had taken up too much of my time to even consider revising. My life was not an episode of Skins. I was not going to end up like Tony and get hit by a bus but still pass. That wasn't how real life worked.