Diary of a Biatch

22. An Epiphany

'I told you not to come here, Kaila,' a familiar voice said, and immediately, I relaxed.

It was Carl - thank God!

I breathed out a sigh of relief - relief that I wasn't going to be abducted by some creep - and jumped up, hugging Carl ferociously. The crying started again, and I couldn't stop it.

Carl was surprised at first, probably because he'd never seen me cry before, but then he soothed me.

'Kaila, Kaila,' he murmured while stroking my hair, as he sat down on the bench, with me on his lap. 'It's okay, sis, it's okay.'

'No!' I tried to shout through the material of his shirt, which was rapidly getting soaked due to my thunderstorm of tears, but it came out as a measly cry. 'It's not okay Carl! She's trying to replace Dad!' I looked up at him, his face slightly blurred from the tears.

He looked slightly confused - I think it was confusion anyway - for a moment, then smiled slightly.

Smiling? How could he smile at a time like this?

'She's not, Kaila,' he replied so calmly.

Oh, right. So first, he's smiling, and now he's lying to me CALMLY. Great.

'She is!' I was pleading with him, now, using my puppy dog eyes on him. 'Dad's only been dead for a while, and all of a sudden, she's got a new man that she didn't even want to tell me about!'

He was shaking his head before I'd even finished, though. How was I going to get him to believe me?

'You don't get it, do you?' Carl said. But he said it sympathetically. 'Kaila, Dad's been dead for ten years now. Ten years! We can't just let Mum go along for the rest of her life, without knowing that Dad would have wanted her to carry on her life, because he would of, and she knows that. Dad was that sort of person who would want that, and if he could see her right now, he'd be happy, because she's finally happy.' He looked down at the floor, his jaw clenched.

He misses Dad more than I do, a little voice told me in my head. But he's stronger than me.

While Carl had been trying to convince me that Mum wasn't trying to replace Dad, my tears had started to slow down. But after seeing that look of despair on Carl's face, the tears started to form in my eyes again, my throat aching as I tried to keep the sobs inside.

I quickly thought a different subject, wanting to regain my composure. 'How did you know I was here?' I croaked.

He looked up, and there was a small smile on his face and a glint in his eye.

'Well,' he began, as I rested my head on his chest, which was still damp from my tears just a few minutes ago. 'After you ran out the house, you kind of ruined Mollie's party-'

'Oh shit! Mollie's birthday! I totally forgot!' I interrupted him, abruptly trying to get up, but failing due to my big brother's arms tightening around me.

'Firstly, don't use that type of language around me - you're only fourteen. Secondly, can you please let me finish?' he asked, trying not to laugh.

I nodded, and mumbled an apology, whilst lying against him again.

'Like I was saying, Mollie's party just kind of disappeared. When you was running out, everyone noticed, and immediately started running after you, including Mollie and Mitchell. But you were too fast - I didn't know you were so good at running! Because of that, they lost you. They said they tried to ring you like a million times, but you wouldn't answer.'

While he said that, I checked my phone in my pocket, and realised that I had 8 missed calls from Mitchell, 10 from Mollie, 17 from Mum, and even more from quite a few other people. I also had loads of texts.