Like a Cigarette

Chapter 11- Hey brother! Do you still believe in one another?

I don't know how long I stayed like that for: crumpled against my dad, heaving sobs. I didn't move for what seemed like an eternity but still wasn't long enough. Eventually, I felt a gentle hand on my shoulder, pulling me away from him. I looked around to see Ms Renshaw sitting beside me on the passenger seat. She pulled me into an embrace and I didn't even protest. I didn't even feel it. My anxiety couldn't hurt me then. I was made invincible to it by a shield of pain, too great for my anxiety-demon to even make tremble.

Ms Renshaw held me in silence for a while, before eventually saying, 'You were your father's first child, Kara. He loved you very much.' Her words echoed at the back of my head. Your father's first child. That meant he had a second child. I sat up suddenly, banging my head on the roof of the car.

'Zale!' I cried. How could I have been so inconsiderate as to forget about my brother at a time like this? My brother would still be at school walking aimlessly about, wondering where his father was. And his father was lying here next to me, dead. I was his first child, not his only. I had to go to my brother instantly.

'Darling, it's alright,' Ms Renshaw soothed, placing her hand on my head where it had hit the car roof.

'We have to get my brother,' I told her. I knew this wasn't fair on her, but I didn't know what else to do.

'I'll drop you and my children off at my house first, and then I'll go and get him,' she said gently.

'No, we have to get him now!'

'Ok, Darling, we'll get him,' she assured me. I knew I wasn't being rational. She had to pick up her young twins from school first, and her car wouldn't fit Zale in it with them, Ashnah, Bethany and I. But I imagined my brother walking aimlessly around the school feeling like Dad had abandoned him. And, even with my eyes closed, I could still see him there next to me, dead. I choked on a sob and involuntarily made a noise like a tortured sheep (or at least what I think a tortured sheep would sound like. I've never actually heard one). Ms Renshaw took my hand and pulled me away from my dead father, towards her car.

'What is she doing here?' asked Ashnah in an annoying, irritated tone as soon as we reached the car. She didn't even seem to notice that I was covered in blood and tears. Maybe she just didn't care.

'Ashnah,' Ms Renshaw began in a gentle, soothing voice; one that was meant to comfort. I hated that voice. I don't know why. It never comforted me, it just made me want to hit something. Upon hearing it, I would always feel a twisting sense of anger, that I couldn't explain. I remember once, I had been brushing my hair when I was younger and got frustrated at a knot that wouldn't come out. My mum had used that voice to offer to do it herself. I had told her then that I didn't like that voice and it had made her cry. That was the last time I told someone about my unexplainable dislike for it.

I pulled my hand out of hers so I could clench my fist without her feeling it. Also partially because my anxiety began to take hold again, my annoyance with Ashnah, and anger at Ms Renshaw's tone having weakened the shield of pain.

'We have to take Kara...' she continued. Her voice trailed off as she realised it was annoying me. At least I think that's why she trailed off, but that might just be me thinking about me, as always. 'We'll talk about this later,' she told Ashnah in a firmer voice. Ashnah glared daggers at me.

'Kara get in the shotgun seat,' Ms Renshaw told me. Ashnah looked like she very badly wanted to murder me right then.

'Uh, no!' she said, her tone dripping with spoilt-brat. 'I sit in the shotgun seat, Mum. It's been that way since I was five!' I was pretty sure that was illegal, but decided not to point that out. By the way Ms Renshaw grimaced at that, I figured it wouldn't help her right now. Instead, I said, 'Let her sit in the front. This is a waste of time. Just get in the car so I can get to my brother!' I got into the back seat of the car. Bethany followed suit. Ashnah gave me a confused look, clearly surprised by that statement. She seemed to notice all the blood on me for the first time then, so didn't say anymore. She got in the front seat next to her Mum.