redamancy || georgenotfound

ten

I woke up to a deathly quiet house, which was the first abnormal thing I noticed.

Frowning, I lingered in bed a little longer before getting disturbed at just how silent the house was. Ria always made sure to notify me the night before if she was going out at dawn, but other than that, the house was always filled with some song blasting through the TV speakers, serving as my alarm clock.

I immediately knew there was something wrong when I walked out of my room and the kitchen was squeaky clean. My forehead creased as I tiredly ran my fingers across the table, then kitchen island, observing that it hadn't been utilized since last night. There were two possibilities in this scenario. One, Ria had gotten kidnapped (which I quickly checked off the list, seeing that there were no dusty footprints or broken locks). Two, Ria had just forgotten to notify me and would be back soon. Three, Ria was losing her mind behind closed doors. I could safely assume it was three.

A crash sounded from her room, and I found myself sprinting and swinging her door open.

My first instinct was to empty out the entire room and deep-clean every corner until it was spotless. Her bed was messily unmade, the sheets were scattered on the ground. I could see a broken canvas sadly lingering in one corner with splattered shades of red and green coating it, along with the floor. Her easel was somehow hanging from her ceiling fan, and I could see her entire bin of paints had scattered onto the ground, which I assumed was what caused the deafening sound.

My sister stood in the midst of the chaos, looking even more of a disaster than the room itself. She looked like she hadn't gotten sleep in an entire week; her hair was a mess, her sweatshirt was streaked with dried red paint, and her flannel-patterned pajama bottoms had a large hole just below the knee. Worst of all, she was crying. Tears streaming down her face at eight in the morning, and her chest heaved up and down, which I immediately recognized as a sign of one of her breakdowns.

"Ria... Ria!" She stumbled back, her leg getting caught in a loose bedsheet, but I leapt forward and shielded her head from hitting the ground. That was what caused the dam to break, and my sister broke in my arms.

I laid there, still snaking my hand under her head as she trembled on the ground. I could tell she was trying her best to silence her cries, which I knew would only make things worse later on, prompting me to gently help her sit up and lean her against the bed frame. Ria let out a choked sob, one that pierced my heart no matter how much I wanted to ignore it.

"I'm sorry" were the first words uttered by my sister through her parched lips, causing me to frown and shake my head as I analyzed her grief-stricken face.

"No, don't apologize. Do I need to beat Colin up? What happened?" I pressed gently. She wiped her nose with the back of her hand and shuddered, like a blast of cold air had suddenly shot through her body.

"I fucking miss him," she almost shouted, but I could see the energy completely drained from her eyes as she slumped down against the hard bed frame. "After what he's done, I still miss-" She swallowed the last word back, and rubbed her temples tiredly.

"You know, you're allowed to feel," I said quietly, looking down at my hands.

Ria scoffed, her voice cracking at the end. "No, I should've seen it coming."

This time, it was my turn to exhaustedly rub my temples and finally meet her forlorn gaze. "You aren't some fortune teller, Ria. Colin decided to make a shitty move, that's on him, not you."

"It's easier to hate myself than hate him."

I thinned my lips into a straight line, my ears pounding with the antagonizing silence that wrapped around Ria's last words. I desperately wanted to give her a snack on the head, with hopes of inserting common sense into her vacuous thoughts. She shifted uncomfortably in her position so that she was now sitting across from me, no longer helplessly slumping on the bed. I met her tired gaze, and she harshly blinked, her eyes red and slightly swollen.