Everything Changes in a Breath

7

I go through the morning receiving sidelong glances from students and teachers alike. I feel as though they can see straight trough my nothing-is-wrong façade, or that the words 'my brother is dying' have been branded on my forehead.

I decide to skip lunch; instead I go to the library.

I have always felt comfortable in the library. Where I never exactly felt comfortable with my peers, I sought out the library as my personal sanctuary, my refuge whenever I was hurting. I could lose myself in the whisperings of the turning pages. But today is different. I just need to get away. I grab a book off the shelf and open to the front page. I stare at the words, not reading them. Turning the page every so often, I try to see the positive side of my life; I try to find the humor in the situation.

There is no humor.

There is no positive.

There is nothing.

It all started with my father.

FLASHBACK

My father left when Joey was a year and a half old, months before we found out about Joey's leukemia. The yelling started before that. It was always something, always something to fight about. It was always the little things that irked him. Like when my mother was too tired to do the dishes, so she left them in the sink. He always waited until late at night to argue, so they thought that we couldn't hear them.

But I always could.

I would listen to them bicker, and after it was over, I would listen to my mother cry and listen to my daddy watching some documentary until I would finally be pulled to the comforting calls of slumber.

It was raining the day he left; water pounded on the roof, and my daddy's angry shouts could be heard above the crashing thunder.

"I can't DEAL with this family anymore!"

My mother's face crumpled as though he had hit her. Although, looking back, I think she might have preferred physical abuse; she didn't handle rejection well.

After a long silence my mother said quietly,  "Then go."

"Excuse me?!"

"Go. Just leave."

He was taken aback. "Fine." Suddenly, he didn't look angry. He didn't look upset. He looked... Tired.

Tired of fighting.

Tired of being her husband.

Tired of being my dad.

At first, after he left, I would wait by the phone, waiting for him to call, to say that he was sorry, to say he wanted to come back. But the call never came. I never heard from him again.

END FLASHBACK