Lost Memories

Chapter 1 - A State of Numb

I sighed, wiping the sweat from my forehead as I stumbled into the kitchen. I slammed the fridge door open, searching frantically for a water bottle, my throat was screaming in protest as I shouted up the stairs. "GABRIEL LUCAS QUILL WHAT DID I SAY ABOUT TAKING THE LAST WATER FROM THE FRIDGE?!" I snarled slightly and sprinted up the stairs to pound on his door. I slowed when I saw his door slightly ajar, "Gabriel?" I questioned as I slowly reached out for the handle.

I suddenly caught a whiff of bile and stumbled back into the wall. I widened my eyes and regained my balance instantly and rammed into the room, I was panicking and I couldn't find Gabriel as fast as I had wanted. I slammed the bathroom door open to see my brother puking into the toilet.

I sighed sadly and went over to him, I started rubbing his back soothingly as I looked for his medication around the room, I opened the cabinet and found it sitting there, spilled across the shelf of the cabinet.

I closed my eyes and exhaled, I grabbed the medication and waited for him to finish. After about five whole minutes he leaned back against his en-suite bathtub. A single tear rolled down his cheek as he his bright golden brown eyes bored into my forest green ones. "hey, hey, hey... Gabriel it's okay, it's all gonna go away soon" I pulled him into me as he sobbed into my chest, my eyes welled up as I silently pleaded for him to look into my eyes and hopefully notice the sincerity.

"Gabe, look at me" I looked down to see him shaking his head violently "Gabriel Lucas..." I warned, it broke my heart being so stern with him in his time of need but I needed to get it through his thick, lovable skull. He sadly looked up and I frowned slightly.

"All of this will be in the past one day, you need to know that I would never lie to you..."

He eyes welled up again and he sniffled, for a fourteen year old boy he was very emotional. He was almost like a girl on her period but times that by ten, then you have my unstable wreck of a brother. "Promise...?" he whimpered, my stomach dropped as his frail voice cracked at the end and gave out.

"I..." I struggled, I loved my little brother and was afraid to let him down "I-I Promise.." I stuttered.

It was now around midnight and I was sat on the couch, frozen. I stared ahead thinking about everything that had happened today, I hurt me so much to see my brother in pain and I just couldn't handle it anymore.

When Gabe was only five years old he was diagnosed with BCCLL, B Cell Chronic lymphocytic leukemia. CLL is a disease that can last years or can be lifelong and that is the only thing letting me sleep at night, the slight sliver of hope that my brother may pull through... No, he will pull through because he is the most stubborn and hardheaded person I know.

CLL is a type of blood and bone marrow cancer, it is a very slow progressing disease that that spreads B-cell lymphocytes which take over healthy cells. Slowly deteriorating his body and making him less immune to disease, exposing him to the harsh world we all know today.

Tears started rapidly streaming down my face but I didn't care... I was numb, Gabe was one lovable little guy and I couldn't dare lose him, he was dead asleep upstairs so I know he couldn't hear me. Our 'father' was never around either and since my mother decided she was done with this family, no one could hear me, so I didn't care how loud I was sobbing anymore. Thoughts of my father suddenly flooded my mind and drowned the dark and deep thoughts of sweet Gabe. Our 'father' was always running out and whoring around with any girl he could get his hands on, young or old he didn't care as long as he got his 'fill' for the night.

He never came home and even when he did, he was a drop dead drunk, and when he was drunk he would do the most irreversible damage to us. I never exposed Gabe to him, he was never a father... Sperm donor fit him better, he never loved us even when our mother was around, he still continues to treat us like one of his whores he uses.

He would come home and hit me but I always hid it from Gabe, I said I got it at boxing practice. Obviously, he was young when I told him and still hasn't figured out that our father was a monster and what he did inside the walls of our own home was scarring.

I had marks all over my tattered body, I hid Gabe from him when I could and when I couldn't I always told him to go to bed, go study, go out and get milk for breakfast, etc. He never complained because he was the best younger brother I could ever ask for, he knew how much I cared for him and I had always looked out for him.

I had never given him an opportunity to not trust me and that quickly fortified our relationship walls like a castle, no one could scale them and penetrate the base.