He can’t be here; he can’t be real. He’s dead…
But as I look at my best friend, her face flushed and eyes wide with surprise, I know that it is. This is real. It simply must be because the sheer intensity of the emotions hitting me right now can’t be dreamt up.
My heart pounds, my breath quickens, and a multitude of feelings swirl around my chest, igniting the suppressed fury within me because my brother, the one who left me — who is supposed to be dead — has decided to make an appearance in the worst fucking way possible.
‘What the fuck!’
How dare he do this. After almost a decade of suffering alone, this fucker has the audacity to show back up and he’s done it by stealing my best friend.
How fucking dare he.
‘How are you here?’ Ruaridh asks, yanking me out of my reverie.
Ru, the nerve of him to question how I’m here, all accusation in his tone. I want to scratch his eyes out.
I scratch at the burn scars on my hand instead.
That’s until I see the concern he has for Fauna, how he gently readjusts her, making sure that she is comfortable and covered all whilst mumbling terms of endearment.
‘Baby?’ I question, looking between them and how close they are. ‘What the fuck is going on?’
I don’t understand how something like this could be happening. How is my brother here and how is he here with Fauna? And not only is he here with her he’s fussing over her like he… cares.
I’d be tempted to retch at his behaviour if it didn’t warm something inside of me with how caring he is being towards her. My best friend, who always puts everyone's needs before her own.
An all too familiar heaviness settles in my throat, accompanied by the emptiness in my chest. The pain began when I lost my parents to the virus seven years ago, or that’s what I’ve assumed since they never came home. And it kept growing when I lost my brother Ruaridh — or so I thought. I hadn’t watched him die in the fire but I had assumed after all of this time he would have died at the hands of a monster. I never thought he’d become one of those monsters.
I knew when Fauna came back she’d met someone. The look of silent grief in her eyes was all too familiar to me. I’d recognised it straight away. Because that feeling of meeting someone you have somehow found an instant connection with and having to leave them, no matter how much you want to stay, is exactly how I’d felt. How the hollowness inside of me feels.
Only unlike my man, Fauna’s found her. He hadn’t let her go and judging by the way he is looking at her he doesn’t plan on doing that any time soon. And remembering how obsessive my brother used to be, I don’t expect him to.
But my brother. Really? How on earth has this happened?
We’re from Glasgow, but it has been that long I didn’t expect him to be here, didn’t expect, after everything that happened, to find him. When we decided to pass through my long lost home I thought I might see the ghost of him, an echo of a wound that never truly healed but not in my wildest dreams did I think I’dsee him in the flesh. Nor did I think I’d find him living and breathing and very much not dead.
Relief begins to wash over me as it sinks in. My brother, my big idiot brother is here!
‘Never mind me, what the fuck is that?’ Ru exclaims, as he brings attention to my belly and the small bump that I have absentmindedly started to cradle. With that, my happy bubble is burst.
It feels like he thrust a knife through my swelling heart, ruining any joy I’d felt at his miraculous return. His eyes, which were pinned to my face, slowly glance downwards, and I watch as his shock turns to horror. He has some nerve coming in here and casting judgment over me. I can’t stand it. The fucking nerve he has to barrel back into my life and demand that I explain myself to him.
Too enraged by my asshole brother I don’t register Fauna’s distress until she is running past me.
‘I’m sorry,’ she chokes out, leaving us with the echoes of her sobs as she runs from the room.
My eyes stare transfixed on the door as we fall quiet. Stunned into silence as we listen to the sound of Fauna’s hurried steps climbing the floors of the school staircase and the rooftop door slamming shut. My heart pinches hearing her cry like this.
I fix my furious gaze back onto my brother, spitting venom his way. ‘Look what you’ve done. You just can’t help yourself, can you?’
I march toward him as he stands there staring at the door and slap him. It knocks him back to his senses and his eyes flash with anger. He roars as I slap him again, but I couldn’t give a shit. The big bastard might have put on a few pounds of muscle but he has never, and will never intimidate me.
‘What the fuck!’ Ru sputters.
I mimic him, pulling a pathetic face to emphasise how ridiculous he sounds as the palm of my outstretched hand connects with his cheek for the third time.
Despite being a few inches taller than me, I don’t let the space between us sabotage my assault as I go in for a fourth swipe as I scold him.
‘My best friend, Ru!’
