Behind The Glasses

Chapter 4

   I don’t know what time it was when I woke, all I knew was that I was late; terribly late. The sun was already high in the sky, casting bliding light through my windows onto my bed. Goodness knows what time I had gotten in last night after going shopping, after my fairy-tale moment.

  I listen in the house, wondering who is here. I hear the smell of bacon cooking; Chase is home, Hunter is gone. Thank god, I really needed a break from Hunter right now; what with him being angry and aggressive all the time. I check the clock on the wall; it is already eleven am! Jesus.

   Chase looks identical to Hunter, with soft brown hair, and dazzling green eyes; eyes not filled with anger and hatred like Hunters, but full of life and happiness; full of light. They were like ying and yang. Total opposites and brothers at the same time. Chase is tall and thin like Hunter too; they are identical with only extravagantly different personalities. Thank god!

   I sprint for the shower, and fling off my pyjamas. The hot water is welcomed on my body; which at the point in time is a sight for sore eyes. I scrub my skin and hair clean, jump out of the shower, ripping a brush through my hair. I tie it up, wet; before padding downstairs in my dressing gown. “Harper, are you finally awake?” Chase joked, silently I slip into the kitchen, to see him sat in his wheelchair, the wheelchair he sees as a prison; bent over the stove; he’s finished frying the bacon.

   He serves the delicious meat up on two plates, pours us each a mug of tea and wheels to the kitchen table. “Harper, what happened? You look terrible, so run down; so; what’s the word? Just terrible.” Chase exclaimed, stabbing his crispy bacon with his fork and shovelling it into his carnivorous mouth. Chase wolfed food down quicker than a dog!

    Slowly I cut my bacon, eating it in tiny chunks, Chase raise an eyebrow as I slowly chew the food; embracing the sensation as it fills my mouth. It is not often that I eat meat these days, I’m too tired most of the time; I live on bread.

   “I’ve just had a lot on my mind right now, what with mum and dad coming back, and Hunter’s as wound up as ever; I have to deal with this house, school and work; it’s all too much” I reply honestly to my brother; finishing my first slice of bacon, hungrily attacking the second with buttered bread and ketchup; I’ve also downed my mug of tea.

   The butter melted when on the hot bacon; it drips deliciously into my mouth, mixing with the ketchup I rarely use. My fifty pounds wages is stored safely up in my room, as with the rest of this month’s wages which I am planning to spend on food for myself and whoever is at home.

   “Mum and dad came back? Why didn’t they tell me? Get me to call earlier? And why do you let Hunter stay so much? I’d live here with you all the time if it wasn’t for him! Why don’t you just kick him out?” Chase demanded, finishing his food. He was hardly ever around when mum and dad came back from their world tours. But then again they were hardly ever home.

    Growing up we always had au pairs to look after us; or a nanny. When I was ten, mum and dad told me sternly that they were fed up of babying me; that I had to clean up my act. I was left in the care of my sometimes around brothers.

   I sigh, shrug, “I can’t turn him away; he’s my brother; and mum and dad said nothing as usual; just told me I was a rude child; gave me extra washing and ironing to do; it’s like they only came home to make me their personal slave”. Chase pulled me into his lap, hugging me; I loved Chase, I loved everything about him, my ‘good’ brother; I didn’t care about him being around hardly ever, or him being in a wheelchair; just the fact that he was here today instead of Hunter made my day!

   We do the washing up together, “Is there anything in particular you wanted to do today?” I ask Chase, who is sat, drying dishes for me; I washed and put them away. Chase was in a dirt biking accident years ago; it went wrong and he ended up in a wheelchair. It was pretty nasty; doctors were certain he would walk again, but evidently not. Not yet anyway. Chase shook his head, “Why don’t we just do the jobs, together? Relieve the stress a bit?”

   A weird passion of Chase’s is gardening; so I wheel him out in his chair. He gets on his knees and crawls over to the flowerbed, the flowers are all dead. “What happened to my precious flowers?” he cried disparagingly, “I swear they were fine yesterday”. I sighed, passing him a weeder, “Chase, you haven’t been here for two months; it’s just been Hunter and I”; Chase gets a bit confused sometimes. He threw me a puzzled look and shrugged; setting off on his gardening.

   I go up to my room and bring down his guitar, knowing Chase only too well: he has the attention span of a goldfish. After twenty minutes he lay down his trowel, replacing it with his guitar; just as I intended. He began to play. When Chase played guitar it was as though the whole world melted away around us, I love it when he plays; Chase makes up his own melodies; melodies only he can remember.

   I can never remember them, only remember how happy they make me; I can only remember the feeling. Chase will play, beautiful music for a whole day, then he will leave; the melody with him; and the silence will return.

   Between songs Chase will occasionally begin to re-dig over a small patch of flowerbed, red flowers once grew here, blood red flowers, and baby blue one’s too. One summer sunflowers even dared to grow here – that was a long time ago; now the flowerbed was an exhibition of England’s finest weeds. Things grew there occasionally, but never for long; no one has the time to look after them.

   I spend my day, lying outstretched on the grass; hoping the day will never end; the music floating in the air around me; wishing Chase will never leave. The sun slowly begins to sink in the sky, and the music keeps on coming. I pause for a moment, getting cold; I tell Chase to keep playing, I will be five minutes; I will make us both a hot chocolate and grab some blankets.

   We will sit, watching the sun sink until it is a part of the earth, then until it is pitch black. The moon and stars will rise, casting their brilliant white glow upon us, wrapped up in checked picnic blankets we will watch their beauty. Our hot air will swirl like dragon’s breath in the black air, steam will rise from the piping hot chocolate as though it was a sauna. The hot chocolate deep and rich, we will sip it under the stars. To the accompaniment of the guitar and crickets.

      The picnic blankets take longer to find than usual; therefore the milk is slightly overcooked – a skin has formed on top of the liquid, I quickly pull it off, flicking it onto a bush; before pouring it into two mugs. The house is strangely quiet, I wonder what is wrong. Placing the two mugs on a tray I take the blankets outside too. Chase is gone. I am alone.

   Trying not to feel down I console myself in a mug of hot chocolate, a huge picnic blanket wrapped around myself. I sit there, staring at the stars; thinking of my perfect day; and how it had ended.