Melancholy

chapter 3

[3]

AS SOON AS we enter the building, everything happens really fast. We weave our way through the crowd, San and Ale shielding me to their best capabilities as people press into us from every side before we finally get to a big window like space cut into the wall, a woman sitting inside of the small room it reveals, smiling kindly at the four of us.

I cling onto Ale's arm as the officer buys our tickets, feeling somewhat light headed with the amount of people rushing about around us. San's hand still lays protectively on my lower back, his body obscuring me from view.

And then we're off to another round of pushing our way through this sea of people. I have to bite my lips a few times, when someone bumps into one of my brothers a tad bit too hard and as a result, sends them knocking into my smaller frame. The whole ordeal tires me out even more than I'd already been. I'm not made for crowded places - all the yelling and the bumping shoulders, it's a nightmare.

I breathe a sigh of relief when we finally reach the boarding gate for our plane, some of the tension leaving my shoulders.

"There you go. Three tickets for these guys over here," Officer Carson points into our direction, a polite smile playing on his lips as the woman takes the tickets from his hands and reads them over. And just as she tells us to enter, I return the officer's smile with one of my own, the warm feeling in my chest tugging my lips upwards.

This is the first time someone promised something to us and kept it.

His smile widens and he sends a small wave as we take off down the narrow hallway leading toward the plane. My brothers watched the whole intercourse intently, eyes guarded as they kept their hands on me, ready to push me behind them if he were to do something, even something as small as to not reciprocate my smile, knowing how rare it is for me to smile at someone that isn't them. I think there was even a twinge of jealousy in the way their fingers inched closer to my skin.

We're not used to social interaction, to say the least.

I chuckle softly, entwining my hands with either one of theirs as I walk between them.

"I love you," I whisper, my voice hoarse and quiet, but they understand. They always do.

Unable to let go of their hard demeanor as another employee comes into view, they simply squeeze my hands, conveying all the words they can't say.

And just for a moment, I feel excited. Just for a short, barely there moment. My mind clocked up from the fuzzy feeling the officer left me with, and the growing realization that we're really out of that basement.

But then it all comes crashing back down on me, just as my bum connects with the hard material of the plane's seat.

Our father was never our father. We have brothers. Plural. God knows how many. And we're moving to Seattle, to live with them, under one roof.