Guilt

***

  I walked up the steps and to the door of my shabby old house on the South Side of Chicago that seems to be falling apart at the hem. I paused for a moment, thinking through what plans I had for the night. I returned from my thoughts when the icy night breeze hit my face. I took my key from my bag with a shaky hand and unlocked the door. I stepped into the house and shuddered slightly from the sudden change in temperature. I tossed the keys on the table as I passed and hurried up the stairs. There was silence throughout the house. That peaceful silence was rapidly disturbed by the sound of my brother emerging from his room to greet me, though not in the kindest manner. "Where the hell were you, Celia?" he asked with a mix of anger and annoyance flickering in his piercing blue eyes that matched my own. "I was out, is that a problem?" I asked with confidence. " Yeah it's a problem, its late! What if you got home and dad was here? He would have beaten the hell out of you, plus you would have fucked everything up." he ranted "It's only 1 Evan, he's not going to be home for hours!" I walked into my room and my brother followed close behind. As I passed my mirror Evan grabbed my forearm, stopping me in my tracks with a stumble and turned me to face him. "You don't know that! Remember when I thought that?" I frown, recalling the memory he was referring to "Remember? I got home after him, and It nearly fucking killed me." He tilted his head, revealing the large scar behind his ear. The large scar left there when our dad slammed Evans head into a cabinet in a drunken rage, a year ago. I looked to the ground in despair, my red curls falling in front of my face. My speech started as a whisper. "I know okay, I'm sorry." my tone got louder with each word. "But I'm 15 years old, I'm not an idiot, I can handle myself just fine!" Evan sighed, seemingly giving up on the argument. "Is everything ready?" I asked, changing the subject. "Yeah, I got the strongest pills I could get over the counter, and they really don't do well with alcohol" he answered with a grin, as he pulled a bottle from his pocket. "Okay good, let's go do this before he gets home." He gave me a quick nod and rushed out the room and down the stairs, I tossed my bag on my bed and ran to join him. I walked into the kitchen to see Evan sitting with a full case of beer in front of him. "Good thing he buys twist offs." the blond boy chuckled lightly. It took no time at all to spike all the bottles and we returned to our rooms. No more than fifteen minutes passed before we hear our drunken father stumbled through the door, making as much noise as seemed humanly possible. Evan and I both stayed hidden away in our rooms knowing if he didn't see us we would be safe. We both knew very well, he would drink the whole case and by morning my father was surely a dead man.
***
Walking into the school, I heard multiple people singing the chorus of "it's a hard knock life" from Annie, I guess they thought they were funny singing a song about orphans to me. I continued to walk to my locker with my head down as they sang, referring to me, poor little orphan Celia. If only they knew the truth. As I reached my destination, I discovered the Master-minds of the stupid joke, Kandice Rivers and Samantha Lewis, top mean girls of the shit hole people call school. For some reason the rest of my moronic classmates believed those two were royalty. "Aw look at little Celia, did your dad kill himself to get away from you?" Kandice giggled with cruelties. "You too want to-be beauty queens going to leave me alone any time soon?" I growled under my breath. " Hey there... No need to be rude" Samantha purred. I opened my locker and took the books I needed rapidly, ignoring the girl's remarks. "So you're not going to say anything else?" said Samantha "Well, that's impolite of you!" spoke Kandice, right before a sharp pain stung my cheek and I looked to see Kandice's hand raised above her head. I made sure not to react, I closed my locker and walked to my first class.
***
I rushed through the door of my Aunt Heidi's home, my new home. I went upstairs and to my room, which I unfortunate shared with my big brother. I walked through the door to see Evan draped on his bed. "I though we were going to walk home together?" I questioned "I had a spare last period so I went home. Sorry I though I told you." he mumbled. I walk to my bed and collapsed. Evan looked over at me and made a noise that sounded like anger, annoyance and sadness all at once. "What happened?" he asked in a serious tone. I sigh and touched my cheek, assuming that it's what he was talking about, though surprised there was still a mark. "What do you think? I talked back to Kandice and Samantha, and the little bitch slapped me." Evan grunted "And what did you do?" "Nothing, I walked away, I haven't been in the mood to deal with them lately" I responded, not wanting to talk about it. "Well you know we could deal with them together, once and for all." he suggested with a cruel grin. "I though we were done with that stuff." I asked "We don't have to be." I hesitate. "I guess..." his grin grew wider. There was a pause in the conversation until Evan spoke again, "So, we're going to do this?" he asked. "Yeah." I assured him. We then spent the whole night coming up with a way to get rid of them.
***
The school day was over, the plan had been set, Kandice was going to die first. Kandice had a club meeting of sorts, so Evan and I stayed as well. I knew from good authorities that for some odd reason Kandice had a thing for my brother. We used that against her. Evan flirted slightly with her and got her phone number, it was pretty simple. when it was all ready Evan sent the text. "Hey, want to meet in the boys washroom, first floor. ;)" Evan scoffed after sending the text "I can't believe I just said that" I rolled my eyes "It was your idea. She text back ye-" I was cut off by a beep from Evans phone, answering my question. it reads "Sure ;) be there in a minute" Evan grunted in disgust. "Get over it." I said as I rushed up to the second floor to wait. We knew what direction she would come from, so I waited in a place I wouldn't be visible. Within seconds She walked into my line of sight. Once she started walking down the stairs I rushed up behind her and pushed her with all the force I could muster for someone my size. She shrieked as she fell, she tumbled, and hit hard on the small landing separating the bottom half and the top half of the staircase. She laid motionless for a long while. Evan walked into view at the bottom of the stairs and began to walk towards her body, I did the same. We met on the landing and looked at each other for a moment before Evan leaned down next to the motionless girl. He placed a hand on the back of Kandice's head and closed his fist. With a large clump of her black hair in his grip, Evan lifted his hand and slammed Kandice's head into the step where it had landed from the fall, multiple times. I flinch in surprise, and give by brother a quizzical look. "Just for good measure, Little sister," he grinned " We don't want her to wake up so she can tell people she was pushed, now do we?" His voice was cynical and cruel. "Do we?" he spoke in a slightly louder tone when I didn't respond. "N-no we don't, sorry that, that was just kind of brutal compared to last time" I stuttered. Evan stood up and began to walk "C'mon, we got to get home, make sure we aren't close when they find her" I nodded, even though his back was to me, and rushed to catch up to him. As we walked out of the school Evan turned to me, " Next up, lucky miss Samantha Lewis" he chuckled. "Yeah..." I spoke under my breath, it seemed to be the only response I could chocked out. *** Evan and I stayed up late Sunday night planning Samantha's "accident". at around 4 am the plan was ready to be set into motion and I returned to my side of our room and fell asleep almost instantly. The next day we woke up and went to school like any normal day. I could hear in the voice of the teacher making the morning announcement that she was upset and seemed to be distraught. I began to listen more attentively. " We are very sorry to announce," spoke the teacher, her voice unsteady. " that we have lost yet another sophomore student this month. Young misses Samantha Lewis passed away this weekend, a moment of silence for the young soul." I heard a classmate whisper to another, "I heard she killed herself." I froze, unable to process the information. "I think it was cause Kandice died and she was kind of her only real friend." another student whispered. I prayed it wasn't true, I prayed I wasn't part of the reason she killed herself. I was well aware that Evan and I had planed to kill her ourselves, but that seemed different to me. She was so unhappy she didn't want to live. That thought shook me to the core.
*** I met up with Evan at the front of the school to walk home, still in shock.We walked in silence for as long as I could bear. "She killed herself." I mumbled under my breath. I felt deep sorrow towards a girl I despised. My brother grinned "Hey don't sound so upset, She made it easy for us. Now our problems really are gone." He said with a genuine smile. I stayed silent, unable to understand why this upset me so much. We walked the rest of the way without speaking. *** That night I was restless. My mind was scrolling through what Evan and I have done. Guilt built up inside of me day after day, I was gaining little to no sleep. Thursday night, I sat on my bed, attempting to read to distract from these thoughts eating away at me. I cracked, I turned my head to my brother who was sitting at his desk surfing the internet. "We got to tell the police." I spoke unwillingly. Evan turned to me instantly. "What? What are you talking about?" "We got to come clean" I responded "We can't tell the cops are you crazy? We'd get arrested, we'd be separated! No" he paused "no we are not coming clean." He ranted at me in a tone no louder than a whisper."We killed two people Evan! We should be put in jail!" I spoke loudly. "Shut up! Are you crazy, what if Aunt Heidi heard you?" he whispered, rushed over to me swiftly and covered my mouth. I push his hand away. " She's not home idiot, she took a night shift at the hospital." I reminded him. "I can't keep pretending we did nothing wrong! We murdered two people, we murdered our father!"I yelled. Even snapped, "He deserved what he got! he deserved worth than what he got! You know that! He was a monster!" He seemed to have been holding back tears, but I'm not quite sure. "We are not telling the police! We aren't telling anyone! I'm not going to jail!" he screamed "We have to!!" I shouted. "No!" his voice boomed through the house. His rage sent a chill down my spine. As he continued to tell me why we couldn't tell the police I dialed 9-1-1 on my cell phone without him noticing. I slid my phone into my pocket undetected. I'm sure he could see the fear in my eyes. "I don't want to do this, I don't want to pretend we didn't do anything wrong, pretend we didn't kill people!" I spoke loud and with fear. "Well you're going to! I'm not going to jail!" he hit the wall, breaking through the drywall, making me jump from my sitting position. "Calm down!" I spoke with a calm tone. He turned to face me. "No! No I won't calm down! I'm not turning myself in, and neither are you!" He grabbed my arm with incredible force and pulled me towards him. My phone fell from my pocket, landing face up, revealing the ongoing call. Evan looked down at the phone for a brief second before returning his sight on me, as panic and terror coursed through my body "You brat! How long has that been calling for?" He slapped me hard, harder than our father ever did, the force knocked me off my balance and I fell hard on the floor. "Long enough." my voice quivered as I scramble to return to my feet, adrenaline pumping through my veins as I ran from the room, grabbing my phone as I ran " Please help, I'm scared!" I spoke into the phone, " 10124 S Aberdeen St! Ple-" my words were cut short as I hit the floor, hitting my head on the top of the stairs "You betrayed me!" Evan as he grabbed my phone and ended the call. He turned me onto my back and pinned me to the floor with his knees. "You betrayed me!" he repeated.He punched me over and over. I could hear sirens, I could hear them getting louder as the approached, my vision became choppy and stained red. A loud boom came from the bottom of the stars, along with yelling. Evan looked up, three loud bangs sounded, and Evan collapsed, suddenly putting all his weight on me. My vision quickly faded to black, and everything went silent.