Pure Innocence Is Dead and so is He

Ghost Room

Time had been moving extremely slow these past few weeks. It's almost as if Becca hasn't moved since the day of her brother Drew's funeral. She jumped in and out of sleep, with the reminder of seeing her brother lying in the casket, but instead crimson red ruining is favorite suit. Every time she managed to close her eyes the slightest she saw him standing in front of her queen size bed dripping from his several deep stab wounds. Not only does she vision him but recently she's been witnessing his death over and over again as if she was in the movie GroundHog Day. Except movie was terribly funny, and her movie was a never ending reminder of how her brother died painfully, and most importantly tragically. She barely receives any sleep now a days in order to properly function at her job, let alone take care of herself. Her mental state was deteriorating by the second and there was nothing she or anyone else could do about it.

Becca tried to stay clear of his room, but somehow she was pulled into it digging through his belongings trying to find a missing piece to his death or of him. Deep down she knew this was not logical since he had not been home for three years, and will never be home again. As she entered his room for the thousandth time she sat down at his beaten, scratched up wooden desk that he never used. She pulled her sweatpants that she stole from him up and tries to get comfortable in his broken down wheelie chair that used to be their fathers. She always liked this chair no matter how uncomfortable it was, let alone a hazard to any butt that sat in it. She admired how torn up and ripped it was, almost like Drew leaving a mark of his past life. She found it comforting to be around his

belongings, even if it might be a trigger to her gruesome nightmares that had been haunting her each night.

Becca begun to look around the cubbyholes of the top of the desk, going through each and every useless item lying around. The funny thing about this desk was it used to be hers when she was younger so some of her old school supplies were in there almost untouched except for everything being messy and disorganized. Being extremely messy was Drew's M.O. As she shuffled around, she found something she never ever wanted to see again but once again it was back to torment her of her brothers troubling pass. The item that fueled his addiction, his pipe. His last crack pipe that he had ever owned and used. This pipe was most likely one of the last things he touched before he was incarcerated, and she clung onto that memory even it if was a bad one. Any memory she would keep in her heart. She decided instead of destroying this one like she had done to the past ones while he was in several rehab facilities she grasped it with a gentle touch as she slipped, into her baggy sweatpants pocket. She decided to keep it as a reminder of him, but also to remind her to never become who he was. It would keep her strength to continue living on without him and to stay healthy and positive.

She believed that even though this was his door to prison, it was also something that kept him kicking all of those years, which was sad but also understandable. She had been battling on relapsing and ending it all, but she cannot do that to Drew. She made a pact with him before he was dragged away in sterling cuffs to never do drugs, and not to fall back in to my cushion of self-harm.

She would keep this promise, with the help of this small piece of glass. She started to cry softly so her mom would not hear her. She slowly walked over to his hammy- down bed that smelt like rotten food, but also of him. Yes, she never liked how he smelt but it was another thing she could cling onto. Scattered on the floor on the side of his bed were condom wrappers, which she automatically laughed at. She was at least glad that he was getting laid even if the girls were trash in her opinion, but he did better than Becca was doing. She had a strong urge to pick them up and throw them in the waste basket but she did not want to change anything about his room. She wanted it to stay the exact same way he left it before attending court the next morning.

As she sat on the bed she noticed crumbs and got up quickly since they had been there for god knows how long. "So disgusting" she thought to herself with a slight chuckle. As she stood there she started to circle the entire room trying to prevent herself from having a panic attack. Becca's eyes sparkled with tears streaming down her natural face, with this she ran to the bathroom and closed the door. She could not look anymore, her mind was filling with thoughts of him was too overwhelming for her to handle. She sat on the cold tile floor with her back against the bathroom door that never closed properly. As the tears stream down her face like a mini waterfall she's paralyzed with fear. Fear about the unknown, how to continue, how to breath, how to be okay. Becca begins to sing the only song that can calm her down. She's not belting it out like normally but mumbling the words as if it was barely hearable. Fifteen minutes past... she slowly rose from the ground and opened the door to find a surprise on Drew's bed.

It was her mom sitting there in tears, as she was holding one of his pillows. Hugging it as if it was magically him on the other end, but it was not.

"Mom? What are you doing down here? You haven't been down here since his funeral."

Her mom immediately stoped crying out of shock that Becca was down here as well.

"I just miss him so much. I don't know what to do know. I don't know what to do with all of his things."

"Mom, I don't know either. I think we need more time to think about it. We will figure this all out together. I promise, I'm not going to leave you like this."

Becca slowly walked over to her devastated mother and gently removed the pillow and put it aside her, after she took a deep breath of his pillow for his scent. As Becca began to cry again she spoke with a gentle, soft voice:

"It still smells like him... and it stinks to high heavens"
Her mom let out a little chuckle due to the fact being that it was true. Drew rarely wore deodorant let alone showered.

Becca went into give her mom a much needed hug. Unfortunately a hug could not fix the broken no matter how many or by who; Drew is was dead and nothing would bring him back.

Both decided that it was time to go back upstairs to the family room, and watch some television to occupy their minds for a bit. The creaking of the old wooden stair case then reminded both of them when he would storm down the stairs, slam the door to the garage door and vanish in an instant with no way of stopping him. It broke, their hearts which are already so fragile that if one more thing were to happen it might just kill their spirits with no way of coming back from it, sending all of them into a spiral of infinite darkness.

Becca tried to focus on the television but her mind wondered back to the basement where her brother's room was. She remembered the last time she was in there, when she was home over Easter break. She had made a habit of snooping through his things since he used to frequently do it her while she was out. Becca never really found anything special besides for a few of her "lost items" that he had stolen for his own. It would mostly be a charger, or a brick, or headphones, or a lighter from her collection he would then use to fuel yet another disgusting habit of his, cigarettes. She always got so pissed off that he had violated her room with his hands, but now she wished it would happen again. She remembers going down to his room with him to roll a blunt. Their mom never was fond of the stench of weed, but since it was now his room in the basement she no longer had a say in what happened down there. Drew did not mind the smell in fact he savored it as his sister did. Sitting at the wooden desk with a piece of printer paper underneath to catch the fallings of what came out of the blunt while rolling it. Drew also thought she was not a good roller, but they both knew that he wouldn't know where to start so he kept his snarky remarks to himself for once.

Becca would have done anything in that moment to hear him call her an ass or a bitch but that wouldn't happen.