The Grean Household

51: Addiction

There was a sick and twisted thought that came to her mind when she stared at her brother.

I told you so.

Emma was right there, standing at the foot of his bed, eyes wide, hands unable to find a proper position in this situation. Alex was right there, eyes closed, heart thumping. He was unresponsive. There were bruises all along his arms, the cause being internal. Needle holes were up and down his flesh, as if he got desperate and needed to shoot it wherever he could.

The doctor solemnly told her that cases like this were on the rise in Stratford. It wasn't a surprise the epidemic started to spread to Glendale. This killing machine- those grains of special looking sand that people would melt to liquid and shoot into their veins- was after her brother, and she was watching the process.

She wondered if he smoked it, and now he had pneumonia in his lungs, or if he smothered it into his gums so now there was cancer and his teeth were rotting. When she heard about this drug, she knew it couldn't possibly be a problem to them. Emma overestimated the genetic instinct to smother oneself in greed and death. It was colorful, but she knew it had to be dangerous, like a dart frog to its predators.

It was colorful, like a dart frog- but like a dart frog, its color pressed caution in Emma's chest. Who knew so many people liked shiny things.

When Emma had gotten word that her brother was in urgent care, it wasn't from the concern of her own father, it was from the apathy of his friends who were finally coming down from their high. She couldn't wrap her head around it, not the truth that Alex only took so much because they dared him and he complied, nor the fact that he was only 22 years old and was now unresponsive to doctors.

She wanted to scream at him, scold him for never listening to her, but she also wanted to hold him, confess that she failed him and that's why he's in this mess. But Emma was almost positive that he was too deep to hear her.

Emma's eyes roamed his body, noticing how the drug destroyed him. It made his skin disgusting- like a parasite ate his flesh, thinning him down to a simple bag of bones: a person that Emma barely recognized when she came in. His friends left him, apparently terrified of what their addiction caused. Alex became a resemblance of PBD's destruction.

She was thinking about what the doctors told her. That there was a small chance that he'd wake up. She was wondering what it was like to be asleep like this. 

Was it cold?

They told her that the chance was so small, there was no use trying to keep him there. They suggested letting him go to which Emma's reaction was instant. 

I am not killing my brother.

Emma was trying to contact their father, to let him know that his son was now so deep into his poison that it was killing him. She wanted him to know that she could see what his poor parenting did to them. That maybe Alex was about to go, but she wasn't, and he'd have to live with the fact that he killed his son.

She sat there, covering her face, wondering if Alex would wake up to the sounds of her sobs. She began to wonder if anybody from her father's side would somehow notice and come to her aid. Any help would have been nice, but no one came. It was just Emma alone, watching as Alex failed to fight this beast that held him under.

As she sat there, wiping away tears, covering her mouth as the realization really started to settle in, she began to think about her father- about his shortcomings. Emma started to realize that maybe the reason her grandparents weren't coming was because they didn't associate with them. It made sense to her.

All the Grean family considered was image. Their daughter was a doctor, their son a direct heir to their financial empire, and their youngest was a drunk and drug addict. Who managed to let someone who was assigned to him slip through and into another man's arms. A father who let his children get poisoned to the point they started killing themselves. A father who was so careless that he let his 3 year old toddlers escape his supervision, so they'd travel three states away to be slaughtered and mutilated after God knows what took place to their young bodies.

An irresponsible man with parents who only cared about image.

Emma buried her face into her hands and cried, wondering if this was it. If this was the final point in her life where she'd have to continue alone. The thought made her shiver, letting more tears drop. The most she could do was hope, but even that was getting useless. After years of torment and abuse from her father and other men which her poor upbringing brought, Emma could only rely on luck and hope so much. She learned the hard way that there was no way around fate. Not even luck could help her.

But she continued to hope that somebody would care enough to notice Alex and her were missing. Emma hoped that their father would show some kind of concern and show up at the hospital and cry with her over her brother's overdose.

But nobody never came.