So Long, and Goodnight

1. Goodbye

Chapter 1
Goodbye

POV - John

    It was my fault. My entire fault. If I hadn't asked to stay out longer, we wouldn't have been there. She wouldn't have died.

    They all blamed me. My family blamed me for what happened to mom. I blamed me for what happened.

    Dad was always at work; and when he was home, he could barely even look at me. I could tell though... he didn't care about me. He probably wished I'd died instead of mom.

    Scott. Well, he had his arms full. He was looking after all of us; getting us to school, making sure we did our homework, get to bed on time, and still keeping his grades up. With the Terrible Two to look after, I didn't blame him for not noticing what was happening to me.

    Virgil. He hadn't so much as touched the Grand Piano in the living room or picked up a paintbrush. Oh how I wanted to hear him play again before I went through with what I was planning.

    Gordon, aka one half of the Terrible Two. Our little fish. More at home in the water then on dry land. I hope he'd keep on doing his pranks, no matter how much they annoyed the rest of the family.

    And Alan, the other half of the Terrible Two. He's only six. I hope that he can forgive me one day. All he knows is that we went on a skiing holiday when he was five, I went out with mom, and she never came back.

    I'd been trapped under the snow, mom protecting me as much as she could. She talked to me until I fell unconscious. I don't know how long we were trapped, but I'd woken up a week later in the hospital with a fractured left arm, dislocated shoulder, broken collar bone and a concussion, to be told mom was dead.

    That's when I first started to feel the blame. The hurt in dad's eyes, the tears in my brothers. And Alan asking where mom was and when was she coming back. He didn't understand that she wasn't coming back.

    It was when we got home, that's when dad started going to work early and coming home late or not at all. He started locking himself away in his office for hours when he was home.

    Grandma helped where she could, but she lived about an hours drive away from us, so she wasn't around all the time. She'd also lost Grandpa Grant in the avalanche that took mom, so she was grieving as well. She probably blamed me too.

    I'd been self-harming for a while. Nothing where anybody could see easily like my wrists, but on my stomach, hips and thighs. I'd also lost a lot of weight due to not eating, and throwing up what I did; not that anybody would notice the weight loss because of the baggy clothes I wore. And the bags under my marine eyes were more like bruises. The curse of nightmares and being a light sleeper.

    And like the packrat I am, I'd hid some of the tablets the hospital had given me for depression. Hidden them away on the top shelf in my room, along with a razor blade and a note for each of my brothers, my dad and Grandma.

    Only when planning this, I'd forgotten how hard is was to get to the top shelf. You had to climb on the desk, stand on tiptoes and lean to get to the shelf; and you had to be extra careful when coming back down.

    Using this method I was able to grab the envelopes, the blade and the pills, but slipped on some of the loose papers on my desk and fallen to the floor with a thud, and dropped what I was holding.