Never Alone

7 : 4 8 | P M

"Elliot, I just agreed to open up to you. That's not something people like me just agree to. It...it's a big step for me so...so use your questions wisely, okay?"

"Okay...okay. Let's start basic. Let's see...family, that's always an easy place to start. Complaining about siblings is always a brilliant way to spark up a conversation...do you have any siblings?"

"No...I...I don't, actually. It was always just me and...and dad...and sometimes mum."

"Sometimes mum?"

"She was...away... a lot."

"Is that all I'm going to get?"

"For now...maybe I'll expand in more detail once I feel more confident with you. Right now, as much as I enjoy talking to you, I wouldn't say that you're much above the level of a stranger so...I...I think I'll wait until I know you a little better...perhaps. Do do you have any siblings?"

"As a matter of fact, I have enough siblings to fill about a thousand essays."

"You have a lot of siblings?"

"No. Only two, but they're both such pricks that it would take a thousand essays just to describe one irritating factor about them."

"They're that bad?"

"Oh god yeah. They drive me up the wall. They seem to think that, just because I am the youngest, it is necessary to refer to me as 'kid' all the time."

"That doesn't sound so bad. I wouldn't mind a bit of teasing if it didn't mean being alone all of the time."

"What do you mean?"

"I...I mean, sure, my dad was there for me and everything. Like, he was a really really great dad but it...he couldn't be two parents at once, you know? Whenever mum wasn't around, which was a lot, he would pretend that everything was okay. He would pretend that he could cook, which he couldn't. He would try to be mum but it...it wasn't the same and sometimes...sometimes I wonder what it would have been like to go through that with someone else. To...to have a sibling who understood your family problems and had gone through stuff with you."

"Trust me, Isabella, family tragedy doesn't bring siblings together."

"It...it doesn't? But...but if you've gone through something together then surely it makes you closer. Surely...surely you'd want to share your grief together."

"It's not that simple...personally, I agree. Yes. Yes, we should talk about what happened as a family because it was an awful...awful thing but...I guess they don't want to do that. My brothers they...they just kind of pretend it never happened."

"But...but how can they do that?"

"Quite easily, actually. Jacob, the oldest, is a lawyer so he just pretty much vents out all of his frustration in cases and...and attempts to get the justice that couldn't be served before when...when..."

"..."

"Jacob just dives into his cases, I guess. He spends so much time worrying about other people that he has no time to worry about himself...or me...or mum...or...or Noah. Not that Noah wants anyone to worry about him, of course. He'd much prefer to be an arrogant little prick whose grades are dropping like crazy and won't even admit why."

"..."

"They're just so goddamn ignorant. The both of them. How the hell can they not see that their own mother is quite literally hibernating? How can they not see that? Their own other won't even leave the house anymore and they just do nothing. They do nothing. Absolutely nothing. Because, apparently, it's perfectly alright to leave the person they call 'kid' all alone to grow up by himself in a house where his mother, our mother, suffers alone. Because they refuse to bloody acknowledge the fact that bad stuff happened. How bloody hard is that to bloody admit? They're so bloody caught up in their perfect bloody lives that they forget they have a family. A family which is struggling to pick up the pieces they left behind."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"I...I'm sorry, I...I really got into a real good rant there, didn't I? I...I it just really pisses me off, you know? Them just leaving us to deal with the stuff they left behind like that. I...I...once I start talking about it I can't seem to stop."