Dead Girl Walking ― Aaron Minyard

12. brother

oh brother, i am home
in the fires of our youth
i could care less if it hurts you anymore
― madds buckley

[trigger warnings: underage drinking, drug use, drugging, & blood; references to child abuse & (knife) violence]

♦

WHEN ELIZABETH AND NATHANIEL WESNINSKI WERE TEN YEARS OLD, their parents loaded them into the car, the ride long and thick with a tension they had never not known.

They drove the twins to Castle Evermore, and as Elizabeth's brother suited up to play a scrimmage with two boys only a bit older than them, she had followed her mother and father up to one of the observation towers, her father's hand an eternal weight on her shoulder, her mother's a fleeting touch on the top of her head.

Chin up, Elizabeth, her father had ordered. You are a Wesninski—act like it.

So Elizabeth had stood tall and blank-faced, dress smooth and itchy, hair perfectly combed and styled. She was little more than a doll, as she had always been. She was the spare, the unexpected and unwanted baby. It had taken years for them to decide what to do with her, and even now it was a tentative future made of fragile thread, so easily snapped.

At her father's elbow, Lola Malcolm had shot Elizabeth a wink and touched her hip, where Elizabeth knew she carried her favorite knife, the one with the serrated edge, dull enough to require force to cut. Though she recoiled internally, the memory of that blade against her skin fresh, she was careful not to flinch. 

It would only encourage her.

From forty feet in the air, Elizabeth had watched her brother play, imagining herself on the line beside him, where she should have been—where she always was. But little league was a fleeting privilege she would soon have to give up in favor of... other pursuits. 

Her brother played well, though Elizabeth would always say that, even if he let every striker past him. If she were older, or less biased, she might have noted his hesitation to trust the backliner he'd been paired with, so unused to a stranger next to him on the line. If she were older, she might have seen the angry disappointment in her father's eyes as he watched the Master watch his son.

If she were older, she might have realized that the brief, fleeting brush of her mother's fingers through Elizabeth's hair was a goodbye.

But she was young, and she loved her brother, and in the blind and optimistic way of children, a part of her loved her parents, too. Even as her father took her by the shoulder and led her away from her mother—even as he guided her to the cold, air-conditioned room with the stainless steel table and the crying man—even as he instructed her to take a knife knife and cut him in a dozen ways—even as the man cried and screamed and pleaded for mercy—

Even then, Elizabeth loved her family.

But it did not love her back.

She remembered that night—remembered crying into her pillow, haunted by the man's pleas; remembered her brother slipping inside, their tether straining as she wept. She remembered finally falling asleep with their backs pressed together, in reach of each other and on-guard, the way children should never have to be.

She remembered her mother slipping inside—remembered her shaking Nathaniel awake, telling him to go get his shoes, telling him to hurry, be quiet, do as I tell you and nothing else. She remembered her mother seeing her eyes blink open, confused and already moving to follow her brother.

She remembered Mary pushing her back into bed, going so far as to tuck her in like she hadn't in years and press a rare kiss to her daughter's temple.

Be good for me, Amara, she'd whispered.