Sudden Silence

Chapter 5: Miss Me?

I almost didn't recognize him. The last I had seen him he was little boy. I have foggy memories of him chasing me and Ethan up and down the hallways of my childhood home. Where did the time go?  Now he has a slight shadow of facial hair on his face and he towered over me at least a foot. Corbin fiddled with his watch just as my father did. That is when I noticed the way his eyes held dark circles and how his hair had been ran through by his hands so many times that it had become completely disheveled.

"Uh." He chuckled as we both realized that we had just been starring at each for a while as the rest of the house busied around us. He walked up to me and finally spoke. "Well didn't you grow up." A smile crept on his face and I did something that I never thought I would do again, I hugged my brother. Even though my ribs continued to scream at me, I wrapped my arms around him and squeezed him tight. He hugged me too, I guessed he missed me too. "I-I missed you, Corbin." I coughed out, unintentionally breaking off our hug. "I missed you, too." 

"So uh what's going on down here?" I say, once again trying to straighten my ratty clothes to my sore body. He spun his head around, surveying the room. "Well, I guess your kinda hot news around here." He said, his hand rubbing the back of his neck in some sort of emotion I couldn't read. "Someone leaked that the request for you to stay with Aunt Grace had been denied." His face still an uncomfortable, unreadable expression. "And we are working out everything, trying to decide weather or not we should make a statement or something." He began to straighten out, like talking business was his strong suit.

Josefina turned the corner holding a tray. "Evie! Honey I was just about to bring up some food and-" she turned to Corbin, lowering her voice realizing he was there. "some pain meds... for your uh... pain." Her face distorted into a should I have said that, I don't really know what to do now sorta face.  The touchy subject we have all been avoiding. Corbin's eyes grew a thin layer of water that you could just barely notice. "Do you want to eat upstairs or-" "Upstairs." I cut her off and begin to walk upstairs, a million thoughts running through my mind.

I haven't been able to eat much. Most of everything I try to eat I throw up, I don't know if I'm sick or just exhausted. I wondered about Ethan and the rest of my brothers. Where they were and if the purposely are trying to avoid me. Corbin seemed to miss me but, I had no idea that I was supposed to stay with Aunt Grace. I vaguely remember hearing whispers of the doctors and everyone else that filled that bland hospital room I had stayed in about my "housing arrangements", as they put it.

I looked down at the food in front of me and then the faint imprint on the comforter from where Josefina had sat before I had rushed her out of the room. I was alone. I have a feeling that the loneliness won't leave. I made sure that the hall was empty before placing the tray of barely eaten food in the hall outside my room, no longer wanting to try to eat without becoming nauseated. I stepped out of my pants, careful to not injure myself further, and slipped into a pair of pj pants my Aunt Grace my me and managed to put on a large t-shirt of my mother's.

They bed sheets felt cold and stiff but, I didn't move from my position. I didn't want to close my eyes. They stayed plastered to white ceiling, watching the ceiling fan make it's rounds. My body screamed at me. Let yourself sleep, it said, and it took me god knows how long to finally give up my battle.

~

"Mom!" My throat scratched. "Mommy!" I was back in my house, my bed. Faint symphonies of an old school record came from her room and I fought through my covers. I ran through the short hallway, carelessly hitting each creaky board in the floor.  I cut open the door. "Miss me?" she said before grabbing a piece of metal that wasn't there a second ago and driving it through her chest. A waterfall of metallic red grew from the white of her shirt.  I screamed and broke the imaginary chains that had been keeping me at the threshold, waking myself up from the nightmare. Except unlike before I wasn't alone.

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Hey everybody! Thank you so much for reading Sudden Silence.

Who do you think is with Evie when she opens her eyes from her nightmare?