Brothers

Chapter 9 - Punishing

I felt Ryan move his hand from over me. He slowly got off the couch without waking me up but I was already awake. His feet hit the hard-wood floor and he turned on the microwave. I kept my eyes closed and hoped I wouldn't even have to get up.

The microwave beeped and I heard plates hitting each other. Ryan came over and bent down to look at me. I squeezed my eyes to keep them shut.

"Hey," Ryan moved the hair out of my face. "You awake?" I opened my eyes and looked at him with a grumpy look.

"Wow, you look bad."

"Well, thanks!" I said sarcastically.

"No, really, are you OK? Did you sleep?"

"Of course." I closed my eyes again tiredly.

"No, no you didn't." I shoved him and got up, I needed to get ready to go look for jobs.

"I made pancakes." He followed me to the bedroom.

"Great. Cool. Good for you!" I knew I was definitely tired.

"Hey!" He snapped. "Why are you so angry? I knew you didn't get any sleep."

"So what, maybe I didn't. Don't you have to go somewhere?"

"Ya, pretty soon, but maybe you shouldn't go look today."

I zipped open my backpack and pulled out new clothes. I choose decent looking clothes over jeans and a hoodie. "And why's that?"

He was standing in the doorway. "Well," He sighed. "To be honest, you look terrible. No offense but it probably isn't good for you and you won't make a good impression." I stared at the backpack and agreed, but didn't want to say so. "See? You're not even answering."

"That's not why." I said with retort. He stared at me. Without caring, he shrugged and walked out of the doorway. I decided, to take his word and stay home.

"Here, pancakes." He gave me a plate and a fork.

"Thanks." I ate even though I wasn't very hungry. Ryan left with formal clothes on and without a word. I tiredly laid on the couch and kept awake. I laid there for an hour but didn't get one ounce of sleep. I stood up and moved out to the porch again. I saw all the tons of people and cars had returned and continued to watch. I attempted to make up a story for each person, but they all ended up seeming kind of tragic.

I wondered how long Ryan would be gone. Hopefully not too long because everything we had in our pantry I couldn't make and I would probably get hungry soon. I'd gone back to the bedroom after grabbing a knife from the kitchen. I liked to carve things into the Mancala board, but right then I wasn't feeling it. The board reminded me too much of home and my old life so I set the knife on the windowsill.

I realised almost everything I had been doing had involved not wanting to think of home or because I wasn't home. I gulped, knowing this probably wasn't a good thing to think about. I thought about doing something to cheer myself up until I heard the door open.

"Back!" Ryan shouted. He wasn't going to let me leave the house and I had nothing to do out there so I stayed in the room. I stared at the board, wanting to force myself to play it and not be sad. I wanted to forget what had happened.

"Ugh!" I mumbled to myself. I was still thinking about it. I picked up the knife and held the board. I scratched out everything I had written or drawn on it, hoping to get rid of anything that would cause me to feel sad. I continued to scratch and rip at the wood until I saw blood drip onto the floor.

"What?" I whispered. My gaze moved to where the blood had come from, somewhere on my wrist. There was a slight cut there that had gone deep enough to draw blood. I stared at the spot... And felt an odd satisfaction. Each second I felt sad, even a little bit, I made another cut. I continued aimlessly for another 15 minutes.

The blood on the floor made me nervous and I began to feel nauseous. I knew immediately that what I had done was wrong. I had blood seeping from cuts that made their way all the way up to the inside of my elbow. I grabbed my zip-up hoodie and threw it on over the cuts and got outside of my room. I had to tell Ryan, I was afraid of what I'd done and I didn't know what to do.

"Ryan..?" I murmured. He was on the phone talking about going to another interview and I could see he didn't want to be interrupted.

"Ryan." I said louder.

"Sh! One second." He glared at me and turned away from me to continue talking.

"No Ryan, now!" I had yelled. He turned to me to yell back but stopped. I could feel my face getting hot and my throat was tight, and I could feel tears coming. I tried to hold back and keep a straight face but it obviously wasn't working by the way Ryan looked at me.

"Wh-" He had moved the phone slightly away from his face and continued to stare. "What happened?" The phone beeped as he pressed a button and hung up on whoever he was talking to. Slowly, he stepped closer and closer until he was right in front of me. I couldn't stand to look at him so I tilted my head to the floor. Tears started coming and I couldn't stop them. I tugged at my sleeve and Ryan noticed.

"Tell me what happened!" He was leaning over me now with his hands on my shoulders. I was crying to hard to speak but I held up my arms. He backed up to watch me. Trembling, I pulled up the sleeves. I made sure to do so slowly so I wouldn't make my arm bleed more.

"Oh my..." He muttered. I still couldn't look at him. "You- you're fine... you just need..." He looked around. "Um, you just need..." He seemed distracted and couldn't seem to figure out whether to put his hands on me or grab something around him. I watched but I couldn't see very much with my eyes blurring from tears.

"To wash it off." He finally finished. "Here, the sink." He pushed on my back to get me to the sink. My arm was trembling and shaking so hard he couldn't wash it so he picked me up and put me on the counter.

"Please just stay still!" He looked pretty scared himself as he washed my arm with a wet towel.

I was still crying, from both the pain and the fear. Ryan looked ready to cry too but he didn't.

"Just a second." He set down the wet, and now soaked in blood towel. He dug through a few cabinets for a minute before giving up. "Where is a first aid kit when you need one?" He said loudly. He turned to me and looked very angrily at me.

"I'm sorry... I don't need it I'll be fine." I whispered with a hoarse tone. His face changed from anger and annoyance and confusion, to worried, sorry, and scared.

"No I'm not mad!" He came closer. "It'll be OK, you'll be fine." He said again. "Come on." He picked me up from the counter and carried me like a baby to the couch. I shoved my face into the couch and sobbed quietly.

"Are you OK?" His voice was now soft and quiet. I didn't answer because I didn't know. "What happened?" I turned my face to look at him.

"Did you do this?" He continued to ask questions. I nodded yes. He stood and went to the bedroom, coming back with the knife. He began to look annoyed more and worried less. He washed off the knife and stuck it into the dishwasher.