"Do you think mom and dad would appreciate how you treat your little brother?"
I knew immediately after those words came out of my mouth that I should have never said that. I watched as the angry expression on their faces darkened, it happened any time I would bring up our parents.
Easton was in front of me and picked me up by the collar of my shirt before I could even comprehend it. He pushed me against our bedroom wall, his face two inches in front of mine.
He gritted his teeth. "You have no right to talk about mom and dad."
"They were my parents too," My voice cracked as I spoke, tears welling in my eyes at this point. The moment I noticed this I immediately fought the tears. I wouldnotcry in front of my older brother.
"Andyoukilled them." When Easton said it, he said it low and grueling. He did not need to yell anymore; he could get his point across with the sharp tone of his voice.
And I killed them.
I was angry and I wanted to cry, but I refused. Crying never worked, it only made people think less of me and hate me more. So, unsure of what else to do, I spat in his face.
Wrong move. My brother cocked his fist back and drove it right into my eye. Emerson screamed as Easton let me go and I sank down to the floor, my hands flying to cover my hurt eye. This wasn't the first time I had gotten punched by my brother, we had fought a few times over the past years. However, this was the first time he had hit me to harm me and not just to get me to shut up. It was the first time he hit me so hard that I would for sure have an ugly bruise.
I didn’t know when, but Emerson ended up by my side. She kept trying to pry my hands off my eye to see the damage, but I was in too much distress to let her.
"You're the reason we have been orphans since I was two fucking years old!" Easton shouted.
It was a good thing my aunt was a heavy sleeper.
"You're the reason we live in this shitty house with our shitty aunt. Everything isyourfault, Elias," he seethed.
Unwilling to listen to this anymore, I stood up and reached for my phone. I looked under my bed to grab a bottle, not caring what kind or how much liquor was in it. I just knew that wherever I was going, I was going to need something. I didn’t care that my siblings would see because it was now clear to me that they had known for a while and didn’t care. However, my brother ripped the bottle out of my hands before I could even register what was happening.
"And you're a goddamn alcoholic at the ripe age of seventeen-years-old. Think mom and dad would be proud ofyou?" he scolded. “Well, we know dad would be proud. Like father, like son.”
"I'm not an alcoholic!" I yelled, my voice raspy. “And neither was dad.”
And I truly believed both of those statements.
He threw the bottle at the wall, a loud and deafening clash sounding the house as it shattered. Glass shards flew everywhere, and the liquid soaked into the carpet.
"Easton! What is wrong with you?" Emerson screamed in disbelief and genuine concern.
He grabbed the other two bottles from under the bed and used all his force to throw those at the same wall. The glass broke again, so far that a stray piece cut into my arm. Now blood was trickling down, and that was when I realized that I was shaking. Easton got angry easily, but he was never this violent. This was new.
I stood up and shrugged Emerson off me. I wasted no time standing up and running past Easton, ignoring Emerson protests in the process. I almost stepped on a glass shard in the process, but I paid it no mind because all I was focused on was getting out. My aunt was awake by the time I made it to the living room, but I rushed past her without any words. I left the house, making sure to slam the door behind me.
Seven
Eli
Ididn’t know how long I had been walking alone because I wasn’t keeping track of time. I was not afraid like I was the last time I walked alone at night. The difference was that the last time I had been walking from school, and one thing about the small town that I lived in was that there weren’t too many sidewalks. So, when I would walk home from school I had to walk in the grass. It was pitch black out because of the lack of streetlights.
When walking from my house, however, there were sidewalks and streetlights. I felt a lot safer than I did walking from my school. I was not worried about someone jumping out of the bushes and getting me.
Unfortunately, my eye hurt like hell, and I was still trembling.
Bella was grounded, so she didn't have her phone on her. I called and texted Ricky multiple times, but he did not answer. I called Kailey once, but she didn’t pick up either. Kailey and Ricky were probably doing something together. They were my only three options for help, so I had just myself.
My idiot brother wasted every bottle I owned. So much money and valuable liquor gone because of him and his tempertantrum. Now I had nothing to drown the pain with. I was stuck dealing with my agony the normal way—the painful way.
I hummed a tune to myself in an attempt to calm down even just a bit. That was when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I whipped around, startled, but I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding when I realized who it was.
"Out alone at night again?" Javier asked me with a wiggle of his eyebrows, but the playfulness fell off his face once he got a good look at me. “Jesus, your eye."
