Oh Brother (Completed)

Come As You Are

"Are you even listening to me, Arianna?"

I tore my eyes from the beach to my left and at Phil in the driver's seat. He looked as if he'd had just as much sleep as I did. His dark hair was sticking out in every direction, eyes hooded and carrying dark bags beneath them. Even his voice was strained, as if he were beyond the point of exhaustion and was just dragging himself along. He'd stirred me awake this afternoon, my first day off all week, and ordered me to get dressed and meet him at the car. With a very minute selection of clothes, I ended up throwing on one of Nix's band shirts and a pair of jeans that had managed to survive the chlorine.

"Yeah, I heard you." I mumbled, "You said something about Dad coming home this weekend."

The very thought made me sick to my stomach, seeing my father for the first time in ten years. There had been a part of me that had assumed that I wouldn't have to face our father this summer, but of course he'd decided to grace the lot of us with his presence for a weekend before heading back overseas to make another sale.

"I need you to at least try to be nice, Ari." Phil said, resting his elbow against the open window, running his hand through his hair. "I'm not asking you to jump with joy over his presence, but just try."

I crossed my arms over my chest and stared straight ahead, but I could tell by the tension that hung heavily between my brother and I that he wasn't quite finished.

"And?" I prompted, shooting him a curious look. "What's going on, Phil? Is it Aden?"

Phil gnawed at his bottom lip, his grip on the steering wheel tightening. "Not Aden. It's Dad."

"What's wrong with Dad?" As hard as I tried, I couldn't stop my voice from wavering. It hadn't even been three months since Mom passed, the last thing I needed was to sit and grieve over another parent, one who'd done everything in his power to keep my brothers isolated from my mother and me.

"I'm picking him up from the airport tonight so I decided to go into his room and clean up. I found some old medical records on his desk."

"What kind of medical records?" My hands had begun to grow sweaty, but Phil's expression didn't change. He remained unreadable, stone faced and tense.

He finally slowed the car to a stop at a red light and sent a quick glance in my direction. "You know how Dad is. He drinks and drinks and drinks. And if he's not drinking, he's smoking. And at the point, we don't even know what he's smoking, or if he's gotten into harder drugs. I. . . he hops country to country. All of that was bound to take a toll on his body."

I could feel vile rising in my throat. "Dad's dying?"

"Not dying per say, but he's definitely not okay." Phil's voice dropped an octave. "I wanted to see if you could possibly try talking to him. I already have and he refuses to say a word. But you, you're his little girl, maybe he'll say something to you."

"I haven't been his little girl in ten years, Phillip." I said, turning to look out the window. "Why don't you have one of the boys do it?"

I didn't have to turn around to see his expression to know why. They didn't know. That's why Phil had looked so exhausted for the last month and a half. He was like me, internalizing everything to prevent others from feeling the brunt and burden of it all. But I'd already suffered, I had watched our mother wither away, so if he was going to tell anyone, it made since that he'd tell me.

"Arianna—" he started.

"Because I watched Mom die?" I said the words through the knot in my throat. My brother didn't answer, not even a nod in response. Instead, he remained silent until we were turning into the mall parking lot. He put the car in park and cut the engine, but made no move to get out.