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Eliana hadn't visited her brother in a long ass time.
It's not even that she had been purposely avoiding him, but now that she's been back in town for over a month, she really assumed it looked like that to him. She didn't want to admit it, but he made her nervous. Something about him was so incredibly expectant. Or maybe it was all in her head; maybe she thought she should be someone better for those around her instead of herself and herself alone.
Mikey used to be her favourite person in the whole entire fucking world. It wasn't even because the two spent a lot of time together growing up, walking to the corner store for ice cream or him teaching her how to play the drums on the set he kept in the garage, but she genuinely loved him. Before everything that happened, he was just another kind kid who was doing the best he could for his mother and sisters. He was even the one who taught her how to sew.
Drugs are a fucking scary thing.
Eliana wished that she hadn't seen so much of the drug abuse and the toll it took on her brother's life, but if she had turned a blind eye to it, then it would have slipped through the cracks and Ginger and Gwen would have had to deal with the consequences. Eliana wouldn't let that happen, no matter what. That was really the only thing she ever blamed Mikey for; being so selfish when she needed him the most.
More than anything, she hated what he left her with — to wander the house alone because mom was almost always working, to be left wondering how to afford groceries for the month, to be left with the neighbours and the kids who repeated the tales of Mikey Romano.
They all had the story wrong, of course. Mikey was made out to seem like the sole perpetrator, the reason that the robberies went down the way they did, leaving several people severely damaged. Hardly anyone paid attention to the fact that he was only an accomplice, only there because he wanted the money to fuel his drug addiction, only there because addiction is an illness he was charged with. He cooperated with the police and was only charged with second-degree sentencing, and would be eligible to be released once his five years are up. Almost three down, two more to go.
In the mess Mikey left for Eliana to clean, there were also a lot of things that were changed in the wake. Mostly just the fact that she was no longer having to hide a drug addict from three people in the house. She didn't miss having to feed Rocco because he forgot again, passed out on the floor of his bedroom with traces of powder in the room — on the floor, stuck to his notebook, on his dresser — anywhere. He'd be a mumbling mess as Eliana scrambled to clean the surfaces, anything that could be dangerous later. Although she never found the source, he would be mumbling to her how much he loved her and how much he was sorry, to which she'd meet with a hushed, "it's okay, Mikey, it's okay, I still love you so much."
I think a lot of them thought Mikey was a lot more dangerous than he actually was. The cops, the prison mates, hell, even their mom for a while. They acted like he was a raging maniac with no hope. The judge was pretty much the only person who took mercy on him besides his sisters. In all actuality, he was just a scared little kid.
