Skylar Miller was only ten years old when everything began to fall apart. First, it was the quiet disappearances-one sibling at a time-until only three of her siblings remained in her life. Then came the accident, a day that left her with more than...
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| Skylar Miller |
"Life's a little easier when you can let yourself stop worrying, isn't it?"
Being the youngest out of all of my siblings, especially the ones that still hung around and were present in my life, which wasn't a lot, meant that I was the last for everything. I was last to get on the bus, I was the last one to get off the bus, and I was the last to walk in the front door. I was the last to get food, the last to get my surf board, and the list could continue.
So, when someone called my name, as I was trailing behind my brothers and their friends, I stopped. I turned, searching for the voice, as I had a foot on the steps. When I found the voice, as they repeated my name, my brothers stopped what they were doing in front of me. "Sky, hurry up and get on the bus"
I didn't do as Noah asked, and I knew that it would irk him. I wasn't smart, rather choosing dumb decisions like this one. I stepped out of the way of the other people, as Noah had to squeeze past people, with Luke trailing behind him. "We have to get on the bus, now Sky" Noah was talking to me, but I couldn't tear my eyes from the person across the parking lot.
I hadn't seen this person in years, being a good 5 or so years, so I had changed, and so had this person. This person had changed marginally. "That's- " Luke went to say the name of the person that we hadn't spoken about, but Noah just stopped him with a single "Yep", almost sounding resigned with himself for having to acknowledge the presence of our brother.
"Hey, I came to pick you guys up from school today. I wasn't sure what time you finished, so I've been sitting here for a good hour" the way that he was speaking so animatedly and smiley, it was almost like I had never had the old version of him, standing in that house, arguing until the early hours of the morning.
It was like the drunken version of him, lying face down in the front yard, with a bottle still in his hand, as the mothers drove past, and dropped their kids to school, and came back, knocking on our door, to tell us that our brother was passed out, and probably was losing oxygen, all while we knew that this was a regular occurrence.
I knew that certain things I had seen and heard, and had even done, was not normal. I hadn't had a normal childhood, and that was giving it more credit than it deserved. "You don't need to do anything for us. We are more than happy to catch the bus" I knew that Noah was just deflecting, almost like he was trying to get us away from the person that was in front of us.
It was as clear as day, from that simple sentence, that Noah did not trust him. I didn't either, but I guess I had no voice in this discussion. I had no say. "Well, if it's anything, Shane texted me and wanted me to pick you up" he was just standing here, digging his own grave. The sad thing was, he knew how bad our trust issues had been, and it was just getting worse.
"Well, Shane never informed me, so it isn't happening" oh how I wish that was true, because when we turned away from him, the bus was pulling out of the school gates, meaning that we were stuck looking at his smirk, knowing that he had one this first and last battle with us. He would be walking into more, but there wasn't many people that would put up a fight where we lived.
