Skylar Miller was only ten years old when everything began to fall apart. First, it was the quiet disappearances-one sibling at a time-until only three of her siblings remained in her life. Then came the accident, a day that left her with more than...
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| Skylar Miller |
"I had bullies within my home, and bullies at school. I had no escape from it, yet, somehow, by you being by my side every single time, made it hurt a little less. Just the thought of your presence allowed my life to stop caving in, even if it was just for a second, I would take whatever I could, and savor it"
Riley had comforted me, so much so, that I allowed him to bring me down into the kitchen. The second it got busy with someone I did not want to see, he took me outside. He sat me down close to the water, as he went to get some boards for us to sit on. He even started waxing one, as we kept the conversation on light topics. If it died, neither one of us tried to keep it going, just letting the lull of natural silence occur.
It was easier that way. It was nice, to finally sit on the beach with my brother, but my brain kept straying to the time when a dead body washed up on the beach, during the day that Riley had decided to finally teach me to swim, and I had confessed to him how bad it was with Summer. I had confessed that day, and sometimes, the little girl in me wishes that I never did.
I wish I never added that extra weight onto Riley's shoulders, for him to fix it. It only made it worse, because Summer complained about me being a tattletale, when all I wanted was for her to like me. Even time apart never allowed for that to happen. No matter how old we grew or how tall we got, we were never going to like each other.
Or at least, Summer was never going to like me. We did not even share a room anymore, yet somehow, my mere presence annoyed her. It triggered something in her brain, to lash out at me, for some unknown reason. Even as I cried to her about someone washing up dead on the beach, even though Riley hoped I had not seen it, I had, she had told me to cry to someone else.
And I had. I cried to Noah about it, and he comforted Luke and I together, and I guess that was our turning point. It was us three against the world that day. "Ri" I murmur, starting the conversation again, as questions were bubbling around in my head. Something that had bothered me since I had found out where he had been all this time.
"Mm" he hums in response, as he continues to wax the board in front of him, which I am sure was once his, before it became Grayson's or Jay's, I am not sure. I proceed with my question, preparing myself to not like the answer, how I always knew I would. I was always prepared to not like the responses I got from some of my siblings, because I was always prepared with whatever may fall out of Summer's mouth at any given point.
"Why did you decide to join the army? I know you said you didn't want an office job, but no one just picks the army, as there are others jobs out there that aren't restricting you to the office. You don't have to say anything, if you don't want to" he had never pushed me, and I did not want to do the same. He had pushed me to eating, which in hindsight, was a good thing, but there was something deeper rooted here, and I had just voiced it.
