Timeless

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Seventeen

            I didn’t see Starburst for a whole week, her being in the hospital and all, but when she did come home, I took all my anger out on her.

            I heard the car door slam, and before Starburst could even enter our house, I was out the front door and marching over to her. I didn’t want to be mad at her, I’ve never really been mad at her before anyways. Maybe we’d have a small screaming match every time she accused me of going into her room, but we’d never really “gotten into it.”

            “You!” I cried. Starburst stopped in her tracks, jolted back really, since she’d been staring at the driveway as she walked up to our house. “You never knew, you couldn’t have—” I was rushing up to her now, her eyes regretful and defeated, but I couldn’t stop my rant. It just came out like a word waterfall. I ignored all the scars on her, otherwise I’d lose it and take back everything I’ve said so far. “How. Could. You. Forget. Her! I hate you, I hate your, Ihateyou  Starburst! She was like...she...Emily didn’t know what life was really! And—but—we were teaching her, and she was doing so well!” I didn’t hurt her, I never would, but I was right up against her, her tall frame diminishing my small one, but I didn’t care.

            “You’re my brother!” She finally managed out.

            “So? I’m so—there’s already so much wrong with me, why didn’t you just let me burn?” I bellowed. Starburst looked at me incredulously, and I suddenly regret what I said.

            The thought of suicide has crossed Starburst’s mind before. I knew that. Maybe not in detail, maybe she never planned anything, but things clicked between ‘herself’ and ‘dead’ occasionally. To hear her brother imply the same thing, it was nearly too much for her. And over someone he’d only just met, too. A practical stranger over his own life. How could he chose that?

            A single tear rolled down her cheek and she looked at the mountains, which only made the tear more visible and solitary; sequestered from the rest of her pale features like someone left out during hide-and-seek because they were a different race.

            “You’re my brother,” she repeated, more slowly this time, letting it sink in. She opened and closed her mouth several times, but she didn’t need to say more. I was her brother; I should be able to figure her out.

            She pushed past me, bumping my shoulder hard, and walked into the house, slamming the door behind her, leaving me to dissect her words.

            I was her brother. The one who caught her locking herself away in her closet to cry and cut when she was ten. The one who held her hand as we jumped on the trampoline when she was fifteen. I saved her from suffocation at eleven. I cried with her—wiped the tears and snot from her face—the first time Ethan hit her at sixteen. On her sixteenth birthday, when he was supposed to be taking her to a “romantic” movie date, then to look at the stars. She came home seeing stars. Black and golden stars dotted near the edge of her vision, where the voices taught her about constellations.

            I watched her practice making nooses.

            I made her stop.

            She started making tinier nooses for her stuffed animals instead.

            Why would she ever choose a stranger over her brother?

***

            I don’t go to the funeral. I can’t bring myself to be submerged in a sea of black, tears and prayers. It’s not the environment I want to be in right now.