𝐫𝐮𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐫, 𝗲𝗺𝗶𝗹𝘆 𝗽𝗿𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝘀𝘀

𝟏𝟎𝟏

"𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝙸𝚗𝚗𝚎𝚛 𝚆𝚘𝚛𝚔𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜 𝚘𝚏 𝚊 𝚃𝚒𝚌𝚔𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚃𝚒𝚖𝚎 𝙱𝚘𝚖𝚋"
ɴᴏᴀʜ
𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘫𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘯𝘢𝘭

How did I end up here?  I have completely moved my life across the country with someone I barely know. My mother is dead, my brother is in jail, and my father is still gone — not even returning with everything going on. Maybe he doesn't know yet. How do I tell him? How will he find out?  How do I figure out where he is?

Besides all that, what the hell happened?  When did we go from a broken family who yelled at each other to a broken family who kills each other?  I can't even begin to process what happened.

How did Nick have the guts to kill our mother?  Did he look her in the eye?  Did he say anything to her before he killed her?  What was the last thing Gia saw?  Was she scared?  Did she see it coming?  Was there something going on that I didn't know about?  Does Nick regret it?  Will he come back to kill me?

All of these questions that I have will never be answered.  I will never be able to ask Gia anything or get the full truth out of Nick nor will anyone in my life now ever let me see him again.  I don't think I'll ever be able to move on from these questions.  How do people do this?  How do they go on not knowing what truly happened?

The truth is, I don't know if I want to know what happened.  But there's still that part of me that wishes I could've stopped it.  And that's strange because I could've sworn three days ago I was screaming how much I hated Gia in my head.  Was I wrong for hating her?  Or am I wrong for not hating her now that she's dead?  Or do I only feel bad because o̶f̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶w̶a̶y̶ ̶s̶h̶e̶ ̶d̶i̶e̶d̶ she was killed by m̶y̶ ̶b̶r̶o̶t̶h̶e̶r̶ her son?

The one thing I do know (because I need to have something solidified or else I'll lose my mind) is that it hurts.  After Dad left and I went through Gia's abuse, I thought it couldn't get worse.  And then it did.  It got insanely, terrifyingly, murderously worse.

𝚗𝚎𝚡𝚝 𝚙𝚊𝚐𝚎

Tonight, me and Emily had Chinese for dinner and ate on the living room floor.  I asked her what her middle name is and she asked me the same.  Her middle name is Elizabeth, her mother's name.

Noah Portman Prentiss.

Portman is Dutch for someone who lives in a gate or a walled town.  Out of everything Gia remembers from the day she adopted me, this was always the story she told most.  She always found a way to bring it up just to knock me down.  Just to tell me that I was stuck in the four walls of her house.  Not our home — her house.

Gia used everything against me.  Any little thing I said or did, she used against me.  Even my name, something I can't necessarily change.  Damn that nurse who gave me that name.

I wonder where Noah came from.

𝚗𝚎𝚡𝚝 𝚙𝚊𝚐𝚎

Seattle.  Why did I ever agree to go back there?  Did I think it would cure something in me?  Did I think it would bring back the happy memories?  Did I think the interrogations would settle something?

Jenny told me that she was broken.  That her mother broke her.

It makes me wonder why I handled it differently than she or Nick did.  Was I just going through the abuse without doing anything about it?  Nick was so angry that he built up the courage to kill her.  I know I was just as angry as he was.  Why did he have to kill her?  And in our own house.

The house is where our family instilled everything — stories, laughter, happiness, trauma, screams, sobs, fear.  There were good days.  So good that I wish I could press them between the pages of a book and keep them forever.  And there were bad days.  So bad that I wish I could take a pencil and erase it all.