Prove It [Undergoing Construction]

Prologue

Prologue

29th January, 2010

It was when he woke up for the third time in the same night, completely drenched in sweat, clawing at his skin and completely disoriented, that she begun to worry about what her older brother was doing for a living. It had been almost ten days since his eighteenth birthday, and there hasn't been a single night in those ten days that he hadn't woken up at least once with a terrified gasp. That's if he even went to sleep.

They weren't any ordinary nightmares. Even she - the one sleeping in her older brother's bed because of nightmares - have never woken up that shook in her thirteen years of living. For a couple of minutes after that loud gasp, he would glare intensely at his hands and unconsciously rub at them until he'd finally realize that there was nothing there but his own olive - coloured skin.

That would be the moment when the younger sibling's soft whispers of reassurance would finally find their way into his ear and wrap themselves around his once fearless mind, and embrace him. Nothing ever scared her brother. Not their abusive 'father,' or their cold, watchful mother, not even all those fears that many people seem to have today; Nothing. Nada. Zilch.

Countless of times she recalled being woken up from her own nightmares, to have her brother's warm outstretched arms ready to comfort and reassure her petite, trembling frame that their father was not going to come near them, let alone hurt her especially, on his watch.

She watched for any sign that indicated he was indeed as fine as he claimed to be. She found none. She knew there was none. As she knew that whatever happened at the night of his eighteenth birthday was something tremendously bad. Something so terrible that it made her father's endless torments seem so small. That thought alone made the dark hole in her stomach grow.

Her suspicion started a few months before he turned seventeen, when he came to pick her up from school with one of his rare stress-free smiles. Of course at that moment she did not complain, as his heart-warming smile was all she wanted to witness at that moment. Usually after school he would stay with her for a good two hours before he had to leave to work. Not coming back till she was ready to go school the next morning, that was if he even showed up.

But that particular day he did not even flinch. When she asked him about going to work he shrugged and then informed her that he had officially quit his jobs.

All three of them.

Once again she said nothing. As she knew how much he disliked working but had no choice to because - as her brother always said, 'the house bills aren't going to pay themselves.'

As soon as he hit the legal working age, he set out to look for a job, to support his sister and himself. She felt bad that he had to drop out of school in his last year, due to working two part-time jobs sometimes getting as little as no sleep before his first class. That if he had any energy to show up to school resulting in poor attendance and from there, his grades began to drop. Drastically.

He sacrificed everything to give her everything he couldn't have, and in return she stayed out of trouble, learnt how to cook the most basic recipes, and stayed quiet.

She stayed quiet when she caught glimpses of the bundles of cash he hid under the loose floorboard in his room. She remained silent when she saw him - many times - sneak out of his window in the dead of night. She bit her tongue to avoid asking about the bruises or the blood he sometimes returned with. Not knowing if it was his own or someone else's. Days stretched to weeks, weeks to months, and months to years until finally when she decided to open her mouth and face him about it, she was too late.