Patterns of a Bloodline

Chapter one

Voicemail -- AGAIN.

Julian's lips sputtered out air as he tossed his phone onto his neatly made bed, which he hadn't slept in for days. He immediately headed to his closet, picking shirts off the hangers and flicking them onto a growing pile atop his phone.

Amidst his search for the rest of the clothing he had left behind, Julian failed to notice the humming of his phone beneath the mounting garments. Once he finished, he gathered up the pile and dropped it into his suitcase. He attempted to zip it up, but the zipper refused to budge. Julian wrestled with it, wiggling his wrist carefully to avoid breaking it.

"You try folding them?" His mom called from the hallway.

Julian didn't bother looking up, ignoring her comment. Instead, he lifted the suitcase from the floor onto his bed to examine the problem more closely. He knew that folding his clothes would solve the issue, but the thought of staying under his mother's roof longer than necessary was a greater concern for him.

His mother ambled through the door as she spoke, "Look, whenever you're ready, I want you to come home."

A quick burst of air rendered from the sigh Julian hinted at his agitation. Though, he kept his mouth closed, his desire to give his mother a piece of his mind threatened his silence.

"I told you I'm moving out. I'll have a house soon."

"How soon?"

"Sooner than you think, ma." Julian shot back.

She remained silent. The ache in her heart intensified as she watched her son zip the suitcase shut. She quietly walked away before he could turn around.

In a moment of silence, Julian heard a deep rumble from his bag. After a brief moment of confusion, he sighed lightly when he realized that his phone was buried underneath the clothes he had just packed into the suitcase.

Julian lazily unzipped his suitcase, trying to shift the clothes around to find his phone. He quickly realized that he would have to remove a significant amount of clothing to retrieve it. After doing so, he found his cell phone at the bottom of the suitcase, its screen glowing brightly.

Unrecognizable numbers vanished and then reappeared as the caller dialed Julian again. Uncertainty gripped him and in his attempt to decline the call, he accidentally accepted. Instantly, the caller spewed out words that rattled Julian to his core, even before the phone reached his ear.

Julian shot the phone up to his ear, "What?" He asked with no thought to ask who he was speaking to.

Just as the man clarified his statement, all sensations fled Julian's body. A piercing ring momentarily deafened him as he sat on his bed. His instinct to breathe was arrested by the shock of what he'd just heard. When he finally managed to breathe, tears flowed with it.

The sound of mumbling grew audible. Julian hadn't realized he was holding his phone. Pain enshrouded him, all except his heart, which had numbed. He gazed sadly at the phone, their voices still audible. All he mustered was the willpower to hang up.

After ending the call, Julian struggled to believe what he'd just heard. Overcome with shock and disbelief, he dialed Travis's number. Voicemail. He tried several more times, but each attempt was met with the same response - voicemail.

It couldn't be true. Travis was alive. Julian had just spoken to him hours ago. He believed Travis was okay. Julian tried contacting him again, but received the same result.

Overwhelmed by rage, Julian gripped his phone and flung it at the wall, shattering it on impact. In his fury, he swept his suitcase off the bed, his clothes scattering across the floor.

Hearing a noise, his mother came to investigate. Upon reaching the door, she observed Julian hunched over at the edge of his bed, wiping his face with his wrist. She entered the room, gently closing the door behind her, and approached his side.

"Travis..." Julian spoke in a shaky voice, struggling to lift his head due to the overwhelming weight of his words, "his dad found him... in his room."

Travis, Julian's only friend, was gone for good. The knowledge that life's pressures had led Travis to self-destruction prompted Julian to question why he hadn't noticed his friend's struggle sooner. As he reflected on their friendship, he was tormented by the question, "How could you call yourself his brother?". It was guilt, relentlessly pounding this question into his heart and breaking it into pieces.

A comforting hand rested on his slumped shoulder. Julian didn't raise his head as his mother attempted to embrace him. No disagreement could make him refuse his mother's hug, especially when he needed her the most.

A sliver of sunlight intruded on Michael's sleep, prompting him to bury his face under the comforter. Moments later, his phone rattled against the wooden dresser as it rang. He quickly silenced it and retreated back under the blanket.

As he lay there sleepily, the events of the day began to invade his thoughts. He opened his eyes slowly, staring into the darkness. The shame and anger he'd been feeling for the last few weeks resurfaced.

The sound of the bedroom door creaking open didn't stir him. He knew what was coming next and dreaded it.

"I'm all done. The keys are in the living room," Junie said.

Michael laid there, his mouth clamped shut, his mind running over a thousand words he couldn't verbalize. Junie lingered for a moment, teetering on the precipice of opening up, of saying more than she'd allowed herself to in the past week. There was a part of her that resisted, that didn't want to be drawn back into Michael's world. She knew she couldn't leave without bidding him farewell. Yet, she also knew that this was not her mess to clean up, it was Michael's. It was a maelstrom of his own creation and he needed to navigate it himself. With that thought solidifying in her mind like a silent vow, Junie pivoted on her heels and left without allowing another word to escape her lips.

In the aftermath of Junie's departure, Michael found the strength to extricate himself from the sheets that clung to him like a second skin. He rose, his bare feet making contact with the cold, wooden floor. As he surveyed the room, his eyes were met with a dullness that seemed to permeate the surroundings, a stark contrast to the vibrant energy that Junie used to bring. The absence of her belongings, her essence, turned the once familiar room into an alien landscape.

The room, where they had shared countless memories, had morphed into something unrecognizable, a testament to her absence. In the days leading up to her departure, silence had become their unwelcome companion. Their conversations, once filled with laughter and dreams, had dwindled to mere formalities.

Now that she was no longer there, Michael found himself immersed in a sea of regret and what-ifs. He reflected on the many reasons he could have put forth, the pleas he could have made, to persuade her to stay. But as Junie had firmly stated, the breakup was a done deal, a sealed chapter, once she left their shared life behind.