𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝟖 (𝐅𝐀𝐍𝐅𝐈𝐂)

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝟏𝟏 | 𝐏𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞, 𝐉𝐨𝐞. 𝐈 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐝.

JUNE 3, 2004.
ORLA LYNCH

I avoided the mirror most times.

Because when I looked at the girl standing in it, looking back at me. She was no longer me, but an entirely different person.

The spark had left her eyes and a dull abyss replaced them. Her hair was greasy, her eyes heavy with exhaustion, unhealed cuts scattered the insides of her thighs, her skin dirty.

She wasn't the creative, adoring, occasionally angry, girl she had been almost two years ago.

She wasn't the girl trying her best to seem normal on her first day of secondary school.

She was just broken and defeated.

She looked like she had stopped trying.

And everyone noticed. I knew they did just by the looks they'd give me. Joey and Shannon: A worried but weary type of look. Ollie and Tadgh: Confused, weary, and avoidant.

I could never tell what type of look my Mam was giving me. Sometimes it looked worried, other times disgusted. And Da, He's too fucking out of it to notice how much he has ruined me.

They were all weary because of the amount of times I've blown up on them. I've yelled at them, cursed them, Said the cruelest things to them in the moment because I always felt threatened. Like they were judging me and trying to hurt me in some type of way.

I don't know why that was my first instinct, but it was.

I always felt defensive about everything, always felt threatened now.

I always felt guilty too.

Always made it up to them somehow.

I drew them pictures that I felt reminded me of them. Sketches and doodles, little things that could describe them in a heartbeat.

A bang on the bathroom door startled me and I jumped away from my reflection. "Orla! Hello? I've gots to pee, Orla!" A whining Ollie sounded outside the door. I dragged a hand down my face, then raked my fingers through my hair and whipped the door open.

I mustered up all the energy I had left to respond with a chipped and lighthearted tone, attempted to sound completely sane and normal.

"Sorry," I murmured, brushing past my dirty blonde little brother who had his legs crossed as he hopped up and down in agony. "It's alright, Orla." He smiled at me before he charged into the bathroom, slamming the door shut.

"I can hear you peeing."

" 'top listening to me pee, Orla!" Ollie shouted, an exasperated type of agitation in his voice and I snicker as I move toward the stairs. "Stop peeing so loud, then." I tossed over my shoulder, and listened as he whined and shouted in protest.

I can't help it. I heard him say, imagined the look of my precious brothers face as he said it. I jumped off the step and started toward the kitchen. Da should be out at the pub tonight, Joey might be home from work if he hadn't went straight to His girlfriends house.

"Hi, Tadgh." I said when he caught my eye on our lousy couch, flipping through channels on our even lousier TV. He side-eyed me with his usual amount of snark. "Hi." He bit the words out, I could hear the irritation in his voice as he watched me wearily.

I stopped dead in my tracks and spun to face him, moving toward him now as I took my deep breaths and gave myself a pep talk in my head. All will be fine, he'll forgive you. He always does.

I stood in front of him with my hands behind my back to conceal the paper I had ripped out of my sketch book earlier. I crinkled the paper with my nerves. "I'm sorry, Tadgh. I shouldn't have yelled at you for no reason, I was a bitch." I admit.