Page 22 of Lilah

And I took him away from the world.

He flourished in all he did.

He was loved by everyone.

He was going to college, he had a scholarship to play the sport he loved and I took it all away.

God, it should have been me. Why didn't you take me instead?

~~~

The sound of the door jiggling wakes me up in the morning.

I gasp and sit up, scared the death that my father is going to come back in here and maybe find something that was worse than spending the night in my brother's room to do to me.

The door opens and my mother steps into the room, her work clothes on her body.

She's sober.

A breath of relief leaves my lips as tears cloud my eyes.

"Azalea, oh honey," her eyes fill with concern and I silently thank God that she's sober and not my father.

She falls to the floor beside me and pulls me into her arms. I cry into her shoulder and her hand rubs my back soothingly.

"What happened?" she questions softly, pulling away and wiping my blonde hair from my damp face.

"He locked me in here," I put my face back into her shoulder.

"What the hell are you two doing in here? I thought we all agreed to not go in here," my father's sober voice fills the doorway and my heart pounds with fear.

I haven't heard him sober in quite a while.

Usually, before I get to see them in the morning, I'm already out and at the bookstore.

Surprisingly enough, they haven't lost their jobs. I know they have to be hungover but I guess all the bottles of medicine in the cabinets downstairs helps them with that.

"Jack, what the hell?" my mother curses him, surprising me.

I've always been too scared to see them sober, afraid that the reality will be that they're the same person sober as they are when drunk. Maybe, at least my mother isn't.

"What?" he questions and my mother pulls away from me, turning to him. His eyes focus in on me, I can feel his gaze on me but I keep my eyes on the floor.

"You put her in here," she scolds harshly and he remains quiet.

"I don't remember doing that," is the only thing that he can say.

"Maybe because you were drunk," I surprise myself by getting a small amount of courage after all this time.

"Excuse me?" he narrows his eyes at me, still slightly scaring me.

"You dragged me up here, you put me in here," a tear rolls down my cheek, "you left me in here."

"Azalea, you're delusional, I didn't do that," he says and I stay quiet. There's no sympathy for spending the night in my dead brother's room. There's nothing in his eyes. I'mdelusional.

"Okay, Azalea, I think Jake's passing is really just getting to you right now," my mother runs her hand up and down my back.

I look between the both of them. I can almost feel my broken heart chipping away and falling into a bottomless pit.