day 4 ➜ a letter to my sibling
Dear Somebody,
Yes, that's right I am writing this to somebody. No name. Because I don't know. I don't know what name you have. I don't even know if you exist. But I'm going to hope for the best and hope that you do. Whether you're the child of my Mum and Dad or the child of one of them with other people. It doesn't matter. You may not have my name, but you have my blood. That makes us family.
I wonder what kind of person you are. What the colour of your eyes are, what the colour of your skin is. The possibilities are endless because Mum or Dad could've got with anyone.
I just wish wherever or whoever you're with that you never feel what I felt. That loneliness that seeps into your skin when you feel unwanted, uncared for and unloved. Those feelings were always with me. But I only realised they were woven into me when I should've been happy, with the girl I loved and the people I cherished.
I don't know why Mum and Dad didn't keep me and instead pawned me off to Aldertree care home with false hope, but they kept you. Cherish that. No matter how annoyed you might get with them. No matter if they ground you or confiscate your phone. They're there and that's what matters.
I don't even know if you're old enough to read this, but I'm assuming you are since Mum and Dad's prime should've been around the time I came along. I always imagined you existed, which is probably why I'm addressing this to you and not Jaime (a boy for Aldertree I considered a brother throughout my youth). I always imagined you as a comfort for Mum and Dad. Like you replaced me and I used to hate that. I'll be honest. When I was younger and in Aldertree waiting for the day they'd come and get me. I was bitter with thoughts that they'd forgotten all about me because they had a younger, cuter and smarter child to look after.
I was jealous of you, very jealous.
But that changed when I was 12.
One Friday, Mike (the head care worker at Aldertree) decides he wants to feel at one with nature and the countryside. So he tells us all to start packing clothes for the weekend. The next thing you know, we're all in the Aldertree van (loaded with sleeping bags and packed up tents).
It wasn't long before we arrived at an organic farm in the countryside. Apparently, the owner was a childhood friend of Mike's and had offered to let us use the site to "escape the city" and what not.
"Alright kids, gather around!" Mike shouted and we all walked to him. Some came out of their tents and others from the logs positioned around the campfire. "So we're going to go a walk and I'm going to give you instructions on the path. Go get some wellies from the shed and meet me back here in 15 minutes. Go," he said and we all went towards to shed.
The shed was a nasty place. The wooden slabbed room was dark. There were sleeping bags and blankets just chucked everywhere on the floor. Layla went inside first for the wellies, before she came out empty handed saying they weren't there. It was Rio who said they were piled on top of each other around the back. Let me tell you, I was shocked. I got myself a pair in my size and there were cobwebs inside, totally disgusting.
After all that commotion, we all met up with Mike. Then we went on the walk. We walked on a tiny path in-between the grass, the path must've been the width of my wrist. We then found ourselves on a rumble-like road the van drove on. We walked a bit further down it until we were told to jump over a metal fence. At this point, I wasn't sure we actually allowed to be there.
The Mike stopped us all and gave out A5 notepad with pens, one of each for each of us.
"I want you all to walk off, sit down and write in the notepad. I used to do this back in the day, it's called freefall writing. And don't go off with your mates! Go separately. I'll call you back in 20." Mike said some started walking off. Others just stood there looking at him baffled like I was.
Freefall writing? I thought he'd lost the plot.
Mike looked at me still standing there with him, "go on Harry," and I just looked around. All the spaces near us were taken by someone. Well technically there was loads of space, per say, but I didn't exactly want to be even remotely close to anyone. I think Mike knew this.
"Why don't you go over there?" He says signalling to a field of wheat. I nodded and started walking towards it. Notepad and pen in hand. I got to the edge of the field and looked around. I could see Jaime by some bushes, Maggie in the middle of the meadow and Ben was near the gate.
Before I could stop myself I started running through the wheat field. It went on forever. I couldn't see the end of the yellow sticks coming at me from all angles. I was running so fast the wind was hitting my face viciously, pushing my hair and loose t-shirt back.
My arms found themselves in the air, floating, like the wings of a dove. It felt so freeing. Like I had everything and so... I smiled. In that moment I felt like a winner. Ironic, huh, considering how my life seems so bleak, you know... me having no parents and all that. I was smiling feeling like I wasn't even human being overwhelmed with, what, how can I explain this? Happiness? Free? It was so long ago, I don't exactly remember the sole feeling, but all I know is I wanted someone to share that with me. That moment, that feeling.
I wanted to share what I learnt that day with you. My sibling.
A lesson I haven't forgotten about even now in prison.
When life is bleak or just plain hard if you smile in the face of your issues you're the winner.
I wanted to be the first person to teach you this. I wanted you to learn from me. I don't care if you're older or younger than me. I just wanted my words to be the first to reach your ear because you don't know just how many times this saved me. How many times did I want to just cry in the face of my troubles and become the loser or to just endure and become minor— because what way is that to live?
There have been so many times where I've had the willpower to smile when all wanted to do was cry. Where I get those (ghost-like broken) smiles from is this moment in the wheat field where I actually did feel like a winner despite the irony that is my life.
I just wish you were there with me.
In this one moment of goodness, I always come back to for battery power when I feel deflated, decayed or just plain dead.
Not that you need it, but you might, you know, one day. Need that extra boost and it would've been great if you could remember my words or a good memory of us. It would've been great if I could be the first thought you have that brings you strength.
But I guess the biggest question is, do you even know I, your brother, exists?
Mostly likely not, how would parents explain how they abandoned one of their other kids?
I just hope whoever you're with treats you right and gives you all that they couldn't give me. Whether you're from my Mum or Dad or both. I hope you never feel like they made me feel. No matter whatever happens with your parents, no matter how mad you might get with them. They're there with you. Some of us don't have that. Your brother never had that. Be grateful you haven't ended up like me. With a broken smile as my only comfort in hardship.
I was so busy enjoying myself in the wheat field, I'd kind of zoned out, and as a consequence, I didn't hear Mike shouting my name. When I got to Mike I got really told off. He thought I was just going to sit by the wheat field not run through it.
Maggie said he was being stupid for thinking I wouldn't because I'm a kid, and Mike responds out of all the care kids, he thought I'd be the less likely to be naughty and so such a thing, like running through crops with a complete lack of respect.
Little did he know in a few months time Jaime and I would become best friends and we'd be labelled as the resident troublemakers.
I had to write a letter of apology to the farmer of the land which I handed to Mike after breakfast (when we got back). But before we concluded Mike's 20 minutes of freefall writing, we had to gather and sit in a circle.
"So who wants to read what they've written?" Mike asks. No one says anything until Jaime sighs.
"I'll go first," he says opening his notepad. "This is so dumb. Why are we here? Why am I sitting behind some bushes? I could be playing Grand Theft Auto. This is such a waste of time. I'm so bored. I don't like that it's so quiet and all I've so far are birds and insects. I wanna go back. This is stupid Mike. You're stupid." Everyone was silent for a hot second before all the kids started laughing except for me.
This wasn't stupid, Jaime. At least I didn't think so. It was my first time outside London and for once I wasn't scared of the change.
Change for me normally meant things were going from bad to worse. But this time, on an organic farm of all places, I wasn't scared because I had a feeling the change this time would be good.
No one else shared after Jaime and so we went back the camp and had breakfast. Jaime got told off really badly but Mike, but he just laughed it off.
I really did wish you were there that day. Although I just wanted it to be me and you. No Mike and no other care kids. Just us. And you know why? Because camping seems like such a family activity to do, and running through a field of wheat and climbing over fences, bringing change upon ourselves and finding adventure seems like the things siblings do. And I wanted that with you.
I've always wanted to do fun things with you.
Don't believe everything they're saying about me. I know I'm in prison. I know I've done things I shouldn't.
But it's not like they say.
Read all these letters. Even the ones not addressed to you. Get to know me. As I fear by the time you've read them all... I won't have a voice to speak to you with.
To tell you my fears, my dreams, my losses and what happened to me.
And worst of all... I don't think I'll be alive to know your name, let alone your face. So know me now and maybe it might not be too late.
It might not be too late for you to know your brother.
All the love, Harry.
//author's note//
Unedited.
Sorry for the wait, I kind of didn't know what to write about? But the camping on an organic farm thing is something I've done. It's so good to get away from the city sometimes :)
(Did get the wheat thing from Theresa May tho, thought it was jokes)
And omg, GoT last night! The Tyrell graduated from endangered species to extinct (but the way Olanna went out was just amaze-balls!) And who else caught the Rhaegar and Jon similarities? I was shook. The subtlety is killing me, and even more so Jon and Dany probably won't out till s8 (but still aaaaaah!) And Bran rocking up at Winterfell looking zen af. But the way he brushed over Sansa's wedding night like it wasn't horrifying, can't blame Sansa for walking away (looked like she was having ptsd). But next episode is gonna be so good! Apparently, there's gonna be a big battle scene with Jaime and his army against Dany's Dragons and the Dothraki. And I think Ayra might make it home next ep too. But my fave reunion I'm still waiting for is Jon and Ayra (probs won't happen till late tho, because it looks like Jon's gonna be at dragonstone for a while).
Who's heard the rumors for 7x06?
Till next update,
L x