I walked into the house, smiling and releasing a sigh. It was the start of my next two days off from work, a pizza place that I invested way too much of my time into. Having a part time job at a pizza joint doesn't sound too hard, but I'm always just a couple hours below full time, and I do practically everything there. Depending on how the day was going, I could be on delivery, serving people, cooking, cleaning, ringing up orders, or some days I would do all of the above. You need to be a certain kind of person to be able to work with the public, especially while they're hungry. Patience is usually key, other times it's self control, but honestly, just being nice gets you pretty far, too. However, kindness, patience, and self control are hard to constantly maintain, and I was starting to reach the end of my fuse since I had not relaxed in about a week and a half.
Being home felt so great, I was actually comfortable and relieved as I kicked my shoes off. I was beyond ready to celebrate my day off with anybody I could find first, so I stood at the bottom of the stairs and listened for a moment. I could almost always tell who was where, the two younger girls were light on their feet, my little brother was always practically dragging, and my older sister was either not home or sleeping so it wasn't hard to figure out when she was up and about. We're an active bunch, too, so it was really rare for the house to be quiet.
As I waited to hear a sibling upstairs, a silence hung over the whole house. No talking, no creaking floors, no bathroom sinks, no doors closing. I couldn't tell you the last time my life had experienced an actual moment of pure silence. Probably just to hear something, I ascended the stairs.
"Is anyone home?" I hesitantly called out about halfway up the stairs.
"SPENCER!"
That scream still haunts me to this day. It was a gut wrenching, dreadful, straight from the soul scream, the kind that cuts right through you, that dulls your hearing, that makes you freeze in place because you know whatever is happening, it is bad. Right in that moment, I was scared for the first time since I thought I was going to die half a year ago.
But, that was my little brother up there, and he was living whatever was happening, and it was my job to keep him safe.
"Shawn?" I yelled back, basically flying up the rest of the stairs. Hearing him walk, I dashed to my older sister's room, heart pounding, stomach twisting, mind racing to a billion and one worst case scenarios.
Coming in through the open door, I saw Shawn backed up against a wall, staring at my sister's bed. My head snapped toward it as I kept walking in, but I immediately stopped, just for a second.
"Stella?" I said, looking at my older sister laying on her bed. There was blood trickling out of the corner of her mouth, she was pale, and she wasn't moving. I'm pretty sure my heart flat out stopped beating for that moment I saw her.
I rushed beside the bed, touching Stella's face. "What happened, Shawn?" I asked, looking back at my brother who was staring at me, practically shaking out of his clothes. Her skin was cold, twisting my stomach into a knot.
"I-I don't know," Shawn replied quietly, now looking at our sister. "I just came in here, I don't even know when she got here, Spencer."
My gaze went back to Stella, taking a closer look at her. Seeing blood on her pillow, my own ran cold. For the first time in my entire life, I did not know what to do. I had no clue, potent anxiety clutched my brain, stopping me from even trying to think of a possible solution to this unbelievable situation. Maybe if my parents had actually parented any of us, I would at least have something to go off of. We hadn't seen our parents in days, as usual, so I had to bullshit my way through this and try not to let Shawn know I was fucking terrified.
"I need you to get the phone and call 9-1-1, can you do that?" I asked my little brother, looking back at him again.
Shawn let his gaze slide toward me. "What do I tell them?"
"How about this," I said, facing Stella, "you bring the phone up here. I'll talk to them, you just have to bring the phone."
Footsteps chipped at the silence as my brother quickly left the room. I stared down at my older sister, pushing some blond hair out of her face. Looking close, I could see a bruise on her cheek. I have never been more angry in my entire life than I was in that very moment, picturing somebody punching my sister in her face. Red hot rage flushed through me like a tidal wave, I wanted to punch walls, break chairs, and hunt down the sorry sack of shit that laid their soon to be broken hands on my sister then seemingly leaving her for dead.
I did not know what I was going to say when Shawn gave me the phone. Nobody was home when Stella somehow got here, we have no idea what happened to her. All I know is she was bleeding from her head and mouth, and not responding to anything. That leaves much, much more questions than answers because I did not even know if she took a drug or not, which could be important in the decisions of how to help her. There were too many horrific possible outcomes, and it was starting to get overwhelming.
Shawn came back into the room as I was coming down from the peak of rage. "Thank you," I spoke quietly, slightly turning and taking the phone from my brother's hand. Allowing myself to breathe for just couple seconds, I struggled to clear my mind. However, the time was ticking, so I dialed for an ambulance.
