Myocardium

Part 2

Upon coming home at around 5:30 in the morning, I enter our apartment and take off my shoes, putting them onto the shoe rack next to the door and hang my jacket onto a coat hanger above the rack, before going to my room, where I take the dollars I've made tonight and lock them in a drawer securely, so no one can or will take this money away from us. After all, we still need it. Badly.

On my tiptoes, I walk out of my room again and quietly open the door to Sasha's room, where he's sleeping peacefully. After checking on Daisy too, I go into the kitchen and grab a cup of yoghurt. I'm starving. As I sit down on my bed, I begin thinking. The cocaine is wearing off and immediately, I start doubting everything I do. Honestly, what kind of brother leaves their siblings by themselves overnight?! What kind of brother takes drugs almost every night?! What kind of brother is failing his siblings as much as I am?

Maybe I am following my parents' footsteps to become a bad person, while I'm trying my best not to be like them. Maybe this is why the only persons who accept me for who I am are my colleagues, people just as messed up as me, and my siblings, who I relentlessly stay strong for.

At 6:30, after an hour of resting but not sleeping, I get up again and gently knock on Daisy's door.
"Good morning, princess. It's time to get up." It's Friday. Finally, it has been an exhausting week. I have barely gotten any rest and am overstressed by schoolwork. Luckily, weekend's coming, so at least have a little break from it all. As I enter Daisy's room and open the curtains, she rubs her eyes and yawns a, "Good morning, Eli," while burying her tiny face in the pillow again. Outside, it's still dark, it's been raining all night. On Daisy's bedside table, there's a small carved pumpkin. October's approaching. Therefore, there are all kinds of Halloween and autumn decorations scattered all over our apartment.

After I've gotten Daisy out of bed, I go over to Sasha's room and repeat the process. It's like this every morning. First, I wake up Daisy so I can help her if she needs something while getting ready in the bathroom, then I wake up Sasha so I can make breakfast for us while he's getting ready. That's the most sufficient way of doing it since we can all eat together once Sasha's ready. Especially when little Daisy was still younger and needed help getting dressed. Meanwhile, she has learned to do pretty much everything by herself too.

Mostly, I only help her brush her hair, since she's still struggling with it a bit and needs to look neat when she's at school. Apart from this, both of them do everything else all by themselves in the morning, what gives me more time to prepare breakfast and some lunchboxes for my sibs. We usually have the same things for breakfast – toast with butter or jam and lots of sliced fruit and nuts. Oranges, bananas, apples, pears, grapes, and watermelon are only some of our favourites. To that, I put one cup of green tea for Sasha and a cup of hot chocolate for Daisy together with a mug of coffee for myself on the dining table in our living room.

For lunch, I usually prepare PB&J or other sandwiches and put them into their lunchboxes, together with sliced fruits or veggies and a bottle of water or diluted syrup. So far, they have not complained about their food, so, naturally, I just assume I'm not doing that bad of a job. I try my best to raise them healthily, which is why I cook for them before I need to leave for school. Both Daisy's elementary school and Sasha's middle-school start lessons at 8:00 a.m., my classes begin at 9:00, giving me enough time to prepare a meal for when they come home. I always stay away from frozen food and similar things since I know my parents wouldn't have raised them like this either.

Concerning phones, Daisy only has an old key cell phone without internet access, for emergency calls only. Sasha does so too, both carry it around with them at all times so they can call me if they need me. Of course, only the true, original Nokia is good enough for my beloved baby-siblings. Sasha does have a laptop that he's allowed to use for an hour every afternoon though, and since he has always been very disciplined about it and never even tries to argue with me about this curfew, I don't really care that he is certainly using it at night too, when I'm not home. Let's be real, I did the same at his age.