Lonely Lost & Found

Chapter Twelve: Emotionally Damaged & Still Perfect

I had fallen asleep halfway through Adventure Time, and it wasn't even late. It was relax in bed time, but surely not late. Still, I had been exhausted from everything, rightfully so.

*"Tommy! Don't go! Don't leave!" I begged, crying when my father and mother had sent my brother back to the UK. Little did I know, my hero was going there to die. I don't think we knew at all, but we knew that he needed help. I wanted my big brother to get help here. I'm 11 and I'm completely alone. My friends at school don't get it. They don't understand why they can't come over, and I can't explain to them that my brother is fighting with everyone, destroying the house, throwing empty bottles everywhere. They didn't get that I hide under my blanket every night and hope the screaming goes away. It usually doesn't. I'm constantly scared of my brother, but he's my best friend. When he's sober, he's the best. Better than our dad even.

Tom looked at me with his bags in his hands, getting ready for his ride to the airport. He knelt down in front of me and put his hands on my shoulders, "Alexander, Little A, I left my guitar here just for you. I want you to keep it. I want you to play it. I left you my little wooden box of my favorite guitar picks. Learn it for me, yeah?" He smiled at me through tired, bloodshot eyes, hungover again.
I nodded and wrapped my arms around him, clinging to him like I was stuck there by superglue.

"D-don't go. Don't l-leave me Tommy." I sobbed into his shoulder. 
"Hey, little A. I won't be gone long. I'll come back to see you, I promise. Maybe mum and dad will bring you home to see me too, and our sisters. It'll all be okay. I love you so much my favorite brother, my only brother." 

I shook my head, "I don't even like them! They're too old for me! I want you Tommy!" I screamed, still glued to him, "Let me come with you! Let me come please, I'll be good, I'll help you!" I begged, my face was covered in tears, down my neck and soaking into my shirt.

Tom pulled away from me, "I love you Little A" and walked away, I couldn't see him in the bright light that shrouded my vision.

I sat in the dark once the light had gone away. I sat there and stared into nothing.
I heard screaming next. I heard bottles being smashed.

I'm 12, nearly 13 now. I have a new haircut and better clothes.

Then I saw my brother in a casket. Cold and dead. I screamed out loud and looked around to see a room of solemn looking people, none of which I knew, they didn't even have faces, just rows and rows of people in black staring down at the floor.

"MOM! DAD!" I screamed, "MOMMY SAVE TOMMY! DADDY PLEASE!"

No one came. I broke down on the floor, screaming at the top of my lungs. I found myself in my room this time. Tom was gone. My Tommy left me. I screamed and screamed, I couldn't breathe. All I needed was to hear him sing to me again. To sing me to sleep after the screaming stopped and he heard me crying. Drunk or not, he sang to me. I needed him to sing to me. I collapsed to the floor, pounding on it with my hands, just screaming. Endlessly screaming.*


I was woken up to shaking, "Alex! Alex wake up! ALEX!" It was Jack, while I was still screaming bloody murder. 
I couldn't control myself as I let it all out, realizing that I was awake now, sobbing hard and fast. 
I felt his arms around me, pulling me in. I turned my head towards him and sobbed into his chest.
"Alex, what happened? You just had a nightmare...It's okay Alex. It's okay." He soothed me, rubbing circles against my back.
I couldn't stop crying long enough to talk to him.
He grabbed the remote and turned the show off, pulling up the Youtube app instead. 
He put on Dark Blue by Jack's Mannequin, one of his favorite bands. He was obsessed with anything Andrew McMahon does though, honestly.

He hummed along to it, he wasn't sure he was a decent enough singer. I'd heard him in the shower though, he wasn't bad.
He rubbed my back and just hummed along with the song.
When it ended, I was still crying, but not hard. I could breathe, and the thing in my chest didn't shock me, and if it did, I didn't feel it, so I must've been okay.
He put on The Resolution next, humming along to that as well.
I liked the fact that he respected me enough to not make me talk. Not yet at least.
I sucked in a few deep breaths and rolled away from him, onto my back. I reached my arms up and rubbed my eyes.
I stared at the ceiling for a while, listening to Jack hum. 
After, came Rescued.
I sang this one, shakily, but I sang it. I had to do something, and I loved this song. It was sort of an anthem of mine, a song that I felt entirely to my core.