Her Secrets

1. Anniversary

Mia was just fourteen years old when her older sister was found dead.

She had jumped off the high point of a cliff that overlooked the ocean. The problem was it just didn't add up. Why would her sister who had just graduated high school the year prior kill herself? She had her entire life ahead of her. She had just started college three months before.

Camille was happy. At least that was what Mia had thought. Their parents were alive at that point, she had no reason to commit suicide. Yet she did it anyways. The thought of her sister giving up on life so easily made her blood boil and although it had happened four years ago, she still hated her sister.

She was afraid that hatred would never change. It was her fourth death anniversary and still she held so much hate for her sister inside. Even if she didn't show it, even if she told no one about it, she hated her older sister with a passion.

She left her behind, and a couple years later her mother left too. She was left alone to an endless cycle of pain.

The death of their parents devastated Mia and her older brothers. It was as if she wasn't living anymore, only surviving. Over the past four years, she had become only a shell of a person. Using her sister as an example of who she didn't want to become, she pushed through the pain. She didn't want to be here without them, but she knew deep down another death in their family would be too much.

Benjamin was there but he wasnt really there. He was consumed by grief and it was evident in his face. A month after their parents died, he had went out and gotten an apartment. The memories of the past haunted him. He was severely distant from his other siblings.

So was Chris, even if he lived with and cared for his youngest siblings. He moved back into the house help take care of Asher and Mia until they could legally be on their own. He ignored anything and everything about Camille and their parents. Sometimes she couldn't help but think guilt was prevalent in Chris' eyes every time she cried over her parents or sister. But they had died by what the doctors deemed "natural" causes. But suicide and a car accident didn't seem like natural causes.

Natural causes should have been seen from miles away. Something expected, something one could prepare themselves for, but this? This was unknown, unexpected, and completely devastating.

Asher was the only one who stayed strong. He was there for Mia wholeheartedly. The one person she could come to for anything and everything, no matter the time. He grieved but he did it with Mia by his side. He never pushed her away like her other brothers did. He never let the grief consume him to the point he'd leave her to drown in her own sadness and despair alone.

A knock on the other side of her bedroom door pulled her out of her thoughts. "What?" She called out.

"Can I come in?" Asher's voice echoed throughout the hallway.

"Sure." She replied before the door opened.

Asher stood in the door way of her small bedroom as he took in the sight of her room. "You need some help cleaning up?" He asked.

Her white comforter and pink silk pillows were strewn about the room and the sheets were halfway off the bed. Water bottles littered her desk and bedside table. Dresser drawers were half opened and clothes were scattered across the floor. It wasn't like her to be so messy but when it was their sister or parents death anniversaries she was completely exhausted.

"Sure," she replied lifting herself out of the bed she was laying in.

"So I was wondering if you wanted to do anything today?" He said.

"Like what?" She asked warily. She was afraid he'd mention visiting their sister. She hadn't done it since her funeral four years ago and she was afraid to. Even when the headstone was placed at her sisters burial site she never went. She always refused.