All Too Well - Erik Menendez

He Won't Break Me, Break Us [18+]

Princeton. NJ. 1988.

Eriks POV:

"Erik!" I'm woken up by the calling.
Standing over me is an alerted Lyle, whose face rather looks like he's seen a million different sets of ghosts, rather than the scene he has laid upon.

"Lyle?" I murmur, sitting up too-quickly, accidentally knocking harshly into the angelic girl laying beside me. Thankfully, it doesn't wake her. Like a baby cub inching from the grasps of his elder. Before I'm even stable on my feet, my wrist is grabbed. My elder drags me aggressively out of the living room, finally letting go as we arrive into the kitchen.

"Are you okay?" He asks, anxiously walking further into the room.

"I was fine when I was sleeping." I reply, the sleepiness still fogging in my head.
But as the clouds clear, and his eyes turn to meet mine. I remember. I remember why he was absent, I remember what was here before sleep overtook my body.

Dad was here.

Jose.

He was here.

"He's gone." Lyles voice cuts through the panic, answering the question my soul desperately needed to hear.

The spider of anxiety threatens to creep up my chest, patter itself lightly on my skin before tightening itself around my neck. It threatens to consume me as I choke out the only words I care to ask. "Does he know?"

"No, I just told him I had a girl here." He runs his hands through his hair. However, his face looks more irritated, more on-edge, more annoyed than I would've presumed.

"Are you okay?"

"No Erik. I'm not okay. That fucker can't come in here and intimidate me! I'm allowed to have my own flesh and blood in my fucking place!"

His breathing is jagged, heavy. The intensity is harsh, and it encourages the spider of anxiety to wrap itself around me. Bringing me to edge.
What if he knows? Maybe he was just playing games? Maybe he's just letting me think I'm safe before he comes back and sinks his teeth into me.

"I think he knows."

"No, he doesn't. I just told you, I made up an excuse! But he almost saw your car, I saw him approaching when I went out to look for you, otherwise he would've!"

His voice bounces off every wall. The syllables pushing up his throat evokes uncontrollable flinches from the mere sound. He's yelling, exactly like how dad does.

I don't realise my eyes are squeezed shut until I feel a hand on my shoulder and have to open them. When I do, I'm face-to-face with Lyle. His expression softer than moments before.

"Fuck, I'm sorry buddy." His hand rubs the back of my hair, it's soothing. Calming. "I'm just pissed at him, but everything will be okay."

"W–What will I do if he knows?"

"He doesn't! I literally have said this Erik!"

I shut my eyes harshly. He does. Else he wouldn't have came. He does. He does. He does.

"Erik!"

I flinch from the voice and with a lump in my throat, I push past the spider of anxiety; the crippling ecosystem that has been singlehandedly built by my father. "Please stop yelling."

What will he do to me?
I can't go back.
I can't return to face my consequences.
I can't take it anymore.

Silence follows after a heavy sigh floods the room. It's crippling, and it does relatively nothing at relaxing my body. But this is not Lyles fault, it's the fault of the fact. The fact that only I truly realise. Dad only came here because he was looking for me. He knows I disobeyed him. He knows.