Hopeless

II

"I think it's a mistake to ever look for hope outside of one's self." – Arthur Miller

As the years went by, I forgot the reason I found myself guilty of their death. I just had trust in my younger self's thought process and took her word for it; she said it was my fault so it is.

After my parent's death, my brother and I went to live with my grandma at the outskirts of town. She had a small home that normally could house only two people. So, for the next seven years my brother and I stayed at the same room, a tiny room that could fit only one bed and a desk. Fortunately, we were not in great need of the desk, therefore it got replaced by another pint-sized bed that I had the luxury of sleeping in. The room was cramped, to say the least but neither I nor my brother ever complained. We never dared to. Even if we wanted to, when we got face to face with our really old grandma, seeing her trying to raise us, our mouth magically closed shut. It was sad watching her hold on to life for us.

Aunt Maria, my mother's sister and my grandma's youngest daughter, started visiting more and more during the last two years of our stay at that house. She cooked for us, she cleaned the house, and with her husband Rick behaved like they were our parents.

Rick was a wonderful man. He really loved my aunt and everyone could see it. Even during what I believe was one of the worst times in my aunt's life, Rick managed to keep her smiling at most times. And when she told him she wanted to move to England for those last two years, Rick joined her with no second thought, leaving his entire personal and work life back in New York in half a heartbeat. He took me and my brother in, in no time, reaching out in the most delicate but passionate way, trying to be there for us without making us feel uncomfortable.

Rick was the only person I talked to. After my ninth birthday, my voice disappeared. I didn't do it on purpose, I swear. I just didn't have the need or power to speak. I didn't utter a word for two years. At school I had no friends and the teachers would scream at me every day for not talking when I was told to. I could barely even raise my look to stare at them while they were calling me names for not respecting them.

I didn't care though. Not one bit.

And so, the days passed. For the following seven years, I spoke to nobody but Rick, I didn't smile, I didn't eat regularly. My brother didn't speak to me either. He was always angry. Angry at Maria, as he had grown to call our aunt only by her name. Angry at Rick for overstepping the line, angry at his teachers, his friends. Later on and his girlfriends and boyfriends.

But mostly, he would be angry at me.

He believed I was the reason our parents died, too. I already knew it from that day. The look on his face couldn't convince me otherwise. Though he told me as well. He couldn't keep it in.

On my sweet sixteen, while aunt Maria and Rick were singing happy birthday as I sat in between their bodies, silently crying, my brother had been absent. He only came when they were done. He arrived just in time to wish me 'Happy birthday'.

He didn't. Rick and aunt Maria looked at him. His face had turned red from anger, his fingers were slowly moving into fists. 

'Dylan, wish your sister a happy birthday.' My aunt's sweet voice said. My brother didn't look at her, he only looked at me.

'No.' He answered. I felt my aunt's body stiffen next to me. She knew what would follow. She didn't warn me though, neither did she make a move to conceal me from what my brother would spit right to my face, to spare me from the pain that followed me years after that. Aunt Maria stayed still. Although, maybe I deserved it.

'Why not, Dylan?' Rick's tone was harsh, threating. I felt bad for Dylan then. Now I wish Rick had been scarier.

'Because it's her fault my parents died.' My parents, he had said. I don't remember what happened next. I just know that Rick started yelling, aunt Maria started crying and I blew the candles that stood short on my pathetic birthday cake, making a wish; I wished to be dead by the time my next birthday came around.