To Keep You

Twelve: Malachi

Jealousy is a sin. One that I've been warned to avoid as if it were the fire of hades. It's a virus in it's own right. It turns your skin green and makes your insides burn. It turns friends away and even breaks up families. When I was a young boy, Pa used to preach to me the importance's of never falling into jealousy. I listened to those words, for they had fallen straight out of the bible, and the truth couldn't be truer. Until today, I rebuked jealously and knew what God gave me was what I needed, not wanted.   

I followed that mindset until today, for as I stood before my second story bedroom window and watched as my younger brother, Aaron, stumbled towards the shed that holds my beloved. I grew more and more jealous, for I wanted to be the one who touched her skin. To look into her enchanting eyes and brush her bountiful hair away from her fairy like face.

She is my rose, and I desire to be the one she pricks with her thorns...

Gritting my teeth, my fingers tightened around the buttons of my green and brown flannel as I buttoned it up. I could not help but allow my eyes to burn holes into Aaron as he opened the shed's door and slipped inside like a shadow of the night.

Oh, how I wished I could be his shadow...

Every moment I spent with Candy was glorious in it's own right. Even though she could not yet feel it, I still felt the strong pull towards her as if she was some kind of drug and I, were her addict.

I wouldn't mind consuming her in every way imaginable.

As my jealousy peeked as high as the surrounding mountains, I sighed and turned swiftly away from the window. Stalking across my room, I grabbed my Carhart off the end of my bed and heavily strolled towards the wooden door.

In all honestly, my room was nothing to gawk over. The walls were wooden along with the floor, bedframe, and chest that was pushed up against the end of my bed. There is no art hanging from the walls, nor is there any color besides grey and brown tainting this room. Others would probably die if they had to sleep even a night in this considerably bland room, but for me, I didn't care. Besides sleeping, I don't spend much time in here and isn't a room just for sleeping anyway?

I hand carved both the bedframe and chest when I was only sixteen. It took many sleepless nights and countless hours creating the two items, but in the long run, they were worth it. Not sleeping at all was better than sleeping in a bed that you've outgrown many years prior. I still shudder at the memory of my feet dangling off the foot of the bed.

Exhaling, I sauntered out of my room and into the cramped hallway. The hallway itself was tightly formed together with seven bedrooms. Joshua, Tobias, Aaron, Asher, and I were lucky enough to have our own rooms, but I knew it was more than luck that granted us these rooms. According to Pa, because we are the older five and have worked countless hours and years on the farm, spilling our sweat, blood, and even at times tears for the farm, we earned the rooms.

Even though his words were true, they did not shield me away from feeling guilt and even pity towards Caleb, Elijah, and Enoch. For though they are younger than me, they have been tending to the farm since they could walk, and their blood is spilled on the roots of this farm as much as the rest of ours. Yet, Pa did not give them their own rooms. I believe this is partially due to the fact that there are no other rooms to share for them.

Many years ago, Tobias suggested that us, sons, build another house on the property, at the time the farm was blossoming with money, and it wouldn't have put too much of a dent in our pockets. Everyone thought it was a good idea... besides Pa. He accused us of hating him and Ma, but truthfully, I know it's because he feared if we did not live underneath the same roof as them, he would lose control over us. So, being the dictator of the farm, the idea was quickly shot down and buried. To this day, it has never been brought up in conversation again as if it had never lived.