Haven't updated in a while so I thought it was about time I did. This one might be a little sensitive, especially considering the themes that pop up. But I hope you guys are having fun reading so far! Vote and comment if you like it! Love you hunnies, xoxo, Clay.
"No one can understand what you're feeling, unless they burn the way you burned."
-Rihanna
♔ Chapter Seven ♔
I hadn't been able to sleep, since Hedley left. I hadn't even been able to think straight, without my mind shooting back to what had happened. Every time I left my room, I thought I might have seen something in the corner of my eye, and for a second, I'd believe it was him. I'd believe that he'd came back for me, that he was still alive, my twin brother.
But then I'd look over, and I'd rub rigorously at my eyes, and there'd be nothing there. For a while after Hedley left, I couldn't stop thinking about it. Every time I closed my eyes, I'd see him amidst the darkness, staring out at me, getting closer and closer. I couldn't leave my bedroom without thinking, only for a second, that Wilfred was here. I could almost hear his childish laugh ringing in my ears, echoing lightly around the room. I could even remember what he used to smell like, all those years ago. The heavy stench of talcum powder and freshly-washed clothes.
He'd just looked so real, when I remembered what had happened. Seeing him hanging off of me like that, where Hedley should have been, as if he was right there with me, like he'd never even left - it was horrifying.
For years, I'd tried to block out his death, I'd tried to forget that I even had a brother. It seemed so much easier at the time to pretend they never existed at all, than to accept that they were gone forever. But for just one moment, seeing him there, and recognising him - I almost felt like I had my life together again, like I had my family back. Then reality set back in, and Hedley fucked off, and I was alone all over again.
I kept telling myself that none of it mattered - he was gone, he was dead, and he wasn't coming back. But I still couldn't bring myself to believe it. I'd seen him. He was right in front of me. My dead twin brother. He looked alive, like he hadn't aged a day since my mum's car swerved over a cliff and sent them to their watery graves. And I'd be lying if I said it didn't feel good to see him again, to hear him and smell him everywhere I went. It made me feel like I was less alone, in some stupid way, even if it was only for that one moment.
In all of my life, ever since I was a child, the only thing I'd ever been afraid of, and I mean seriously terrified of, was being alone. After my mum and brother died, I'd try and look ahead, to see what the rest of my life would look like, and I saw myself alone. I didn't see myself with a wife, and definitely not with a husband, and it scared me. The idea of having nobody in my life, of having no one thinking about me on my birthday, sending me cards at Christmas and giving me chocolate eggs at Easter - that was my worst fear.
Even then, it never came true. I wasn't alone, after they died. I wished that I was. I would have preferred that, than to have grown up in that big, empty house, and with my dad. But I didn't like thinking about him much these days either. He was a cold, fucked up fat man with no morals and no sense of empathy. Maybe that was where I got it from, I chuckled to myself. But then I wasn't chuckling, because I remembered all at once exactly what my dad used to be like.
I remember one of the first few days after the accident. That was when it started. Every time that I could smell the stiff scent of beer or hard liquors, I knew he'd be angry with me, and he'd want to hurt me. At the time, I didn't know why. I figured it out eventually.
I'd lost my family, but I hadn't stopped to question why they were running away in the first place. I could just remember it in the back of my head. I was sitting at the top of the stairs, listening to the two of them argue. Wilf was sitting next to me, but he slowly descended the stairs, and the two of them had silenced.
"What's going on?" he'd asked.
Mum must have rushed over to him quickly. She grabbed him, tears running down her face, and swung open the front door.
"Where's Isaac?" she'd asked him. He turned and pointed to me, sitting at the top of the staircase. "Isaac, come down here, quickly. We're leaving," she panicked, breathing heavily.
She began walking up the stairs, but I saw Dad's arms reach through the banisters and yank her back down. She stumbled out of the front door and managed to catch her balance. Wilfred ran out after her, and Dad stood sternly in the doorway.
"Let me in!" she screamed, running at him, hammering at him, but he was a massive man, and my mum only a thirty-something retired model. "Isaac!"
"You better get out of here, Wanda."
"I'm coming back for you, Isaac. Just you wait, Bruce, I'm going straight to the police! The boys are gonna have a field day with you in prison, you filthy fucking nonce!"
The door slammed right in her face, and we got the phone call half an hour later that they were both dead. I remember the sound of his hard, huge laughter, once he realised he'd gotten away with whatever he'd been doing. It didn't take me longer than that to figure it out.
I had to barricade my room with my wardrobe to stop him from getting in.
I couldn't always stop him, though.
I'd managed to waste away in the shadows of my bedroom a while after Hedley left, the covers of my bed over my head and the hours oozing by so slowly. But I didn't want to leave. I had no idea how long I'd been under there, staring out into nothing, breathing faintly. I felt as though I was waiting for something to happen, something really bad.
"I'm sorry," I could almost hear my brother say. "I didn't want you to be left there with him."
Then I looked up, and dove back from under the covers. Sitting opposite me, lurking under the same covers, there he was. His eyes were blackened and misty, and the rest of him seemed greyer than an ashtray, like a single touch and he'd crumble right in front of me. My baby twin brother, legs-crossed, and not a day older than the last time I saw him. He was still wearing his pyjamas from that night: red and blue, soaked through with water.
"Wilfie?" I asked, stepping closer to him.
"Yep, in the flesh," he smiled, his entire body shaking from a cold I couldn't feel. "I've been watching you."
"You're dead," I whispered.
"I'm sorry we left you. I wanted to come back sooner, but I thought you'd forgotten about me. I thought you'd moved on. And I felt guilty. So guilty."
"No. I knew I'd never be able to forget about you. Every day, I think back to when we were kids, and I pray that I'm just dreaming, and I'll wake up any minute. But every morning I wake up and I look in the mirror and it sinks in. You're gone, but at least Dad is too."
"It was my fault," he admitted, sniffling. Even back then, Wilfie always had a way of crying that made him seem like the saddest person in the world. He was always just so chirpy and happy that sadness looked so wrong on his face, like anyone would do anything just to make him happy again.
"What was your fault?"
"He never would have touched you if I hadn't told Mum," he said.
"What do you mean?"
That was when he looked up at me, the bags under his eyes a sickening purple. "He said we were playing a game, and no one could find out, because it was our 'special thing'. But Mum saw the bruises."
He pulled up the sleeves of his pyjama top, and wrapped around his arms were bright black bruises, putrefied over his tiny, harmless skin in rings. I could see the shape of our dad's fingers, imprinted forever onto my baby brother like a constant reminder.
"She made me tell," he whimpered, wiping at his eyes and his nose with his sleeve. "She told me it was all going to be okay. But when I told her about the game, she started crying, and then she started breaking things, and I ran upstairs. When Dad came home, she was shouting, and he was shouting back. I didn't want to leave without you, but she said we were coming back."
"That doesn't mean anything is your fault, Wilfie," I told him.
"But for years, he was doing all of that to you, and you couldn't do anything to stop him. He hurt you, over and over and over, and that's on me. If I hadn't died, if I hadn't said anything, he wouldn't have hurt you. I knew that if he kept playing the game with me, he wouldn't come after you."
"No," I persisted. "It's all his fault. He was a fucked up bastard, he shouldn't have touched us, not like that. He deserved everything he got."
"Then what do you deserve?" he asked.
"What do you mean?"
"I've been watching you Isaac," he sniffed. "I watched you grow up and turn into him."
I turned away. I couldn't bare to look at him. "I'm nothing like him!" I screamed. "Don't you fucking dare compare me to him!"
"Tell me I'm wrong," he sighed. "Tell me you haven't hurt people, tell me you haven't thrown them around and beaten them up. Tell me that somewhere inside, you're an actual human being, that you actually feel something, that you haven't changed since we were kids."
"You want me to tell you I'm the same stupid little kid I was back then?" I paused. "After years of hearing that man bang on my bedroom door, break it down and grab me, hold me down by my neck, and push his fat, naked body over me - and you want me to stay the same naive, helpless little kid? Well fucking no! I learned how to fight for myself, I learned how to make sure nobody would treat me like that again. If you don't like it, then fuck you. But don't you dare say that I'm anything like him! I'm nothing like that."
Am I?
I shook my head repeatedly, even trying to convince myself.
"Do you remember what he used to say?" he asked. "When he was holding you down, when you were crying and begging him not to - what would he say?"
I shuddered at the thought. "Lie the fuck down, it's time to make Daddy happy."
"What else would he say?"
"Keep crying, kid. Makes me hard."
Don't fight. I'll just fuck you harder, you little shit.
You must think you're so special, getting all this attention.
It hurts, does it? So does life, kid, so get fucking used to it.
"I'm sorry he did that to you," Wilfie said.
"I don't like talking about this," I said. "I don't like talking to you. You're a little kid, and dead. You're all in my head. I'm just going a little bit insane."
"A little bit?" he laughed. "You really like that boy, don't you?"
"Which one?" I asked.
"You know which one."
"No I don't."
"Yes you do."
"I don't!"
"Yes you do. You're falling in looooove with him."
"I am not!"
"You shouldn't feel guilty about it, Isaac," he continued. "Maybe he'll be good for you. Maybe he'll make you happy."
"And maybe I'll fuck it up, just like I fuck everything up. Everything that's good for me, anyway."
"Giving up before you've even started? Maybe you haven't changed that much after all. You always were a quitter. If you're so scared of being alone, why don't you ever let anyone in?"
"I let people in!"
"No, you don't. I've been watching you. You're walling yourself up, you're hurting him for fun. You're letting it hold you back, what Dad did to you."
"I'm not that predictable."
"Oh yeah? People like to think they're so special, they're unique, but no. Everyone's predictable. Hedley Haynes is predictable. He comes here at your beck and call. He might hide it a bit better than other people, but he's got the hots for you. Don't you have a date with him Saturday night?"
"Yeah, so what?"
"So go, and have a good time, and make him fall in love with you. You're good at that."
"He's different from everyone else, though," I started. "I feel like he gets me."
"So go get him."
And just like that, I decided. Hedley Haynes would be mine, and it would only be a matter of time.