Integrity & Melancholy

Messed up minds

Chris rubbed her temples in agony and just stared down at the ground.

"Brian, you have to stop this." She whispers out slowly, trying to contain her anger and frustration.

Her brother throws this jacket to the ground and she can feel him getting more riled up.

"I can't just stop this now Chrissi!" He yells "If that ass doesn't get his money I'm in huge trouble. He said things, Chris, things that made me want to crawl on the floor." He takes a deep breath and looks up before sitting down on his bed beside his sister.

Chris holds her head in her hands and rubs her hands over her face before glancing at her brother who looked scared beyond belief. Chris had never seen Brian in this stage. Sure he would get angry so it would bring him to tears whenever their father was being a ass again, but scared... scared was never something that crossed him like this.

"How much?" She whispers out, trying to keep her voice calm, leaning her arms on her legs.

Brian looks away from his little sister and she can feel him trying to shut her out again.

"Brian, how much?" She asks again, more fierce in her voice and her face stone cold serious.

"2." He whispers out. Even though Chris knew better, she still hummed out the next queston.

"Thousand?" She looks at him in hopes.

"Million." Brian utters out.

Chris heart almost sinks to the floor.

"Go ahead, tell me all these told you not to get involved in drugs and gangs. The whole I'm stupid things and how much you're disappointed."

Chris holds quiet as a million and two things are running through her head. She looks around, her brain working out a solution to the problem. Her blue orbs land on a cigarette package laying on her brothers desk and then looks at her brother's hands, how bloody and beat up they were, his lip had a split in it and his eyebrows pulled together.

She and Brian, were all they had, always were. They sure couldn't stand each other but as a drunken talk on Chris' 18th birthday showed, they always took care of each other. He blurted out about when he was beating up some guys in her class for bullying her and calling her names, and through some 'friends' she found out how highly he spoke of her. She never told but it's clear in her head, the day she beat a girl up for talking shit about him. She broke her wrist while hitting her and got thrown out of school for a month.

They are now at a point in their relationship as brother and sister where they could enjoy each other's company and were able to talk with each other without starting to wrestle on the ground.

Chris looked away from her brother.

She would do anything for him, and she was about to do everything she could, no matter what it meant for her.

"Brian..." She get's his attention after a long silence and she knows he is at his wits end.

She stands up, walks out of her room and into her bedroom, lifting off one of the paintings hanging on her wall and takes out an envelope, walking back to her brothers room.

She stands in front of him and stretches out her arm, the envelope in hand. Her brother looks up and stares at the envelope.

"What-"

"Take it." Chris insists. Brian slowly takes the envelope in his hand, opening it and pulling out a bundle of money. His eyes grow wide and he stares up at his little sister.

"it's 1, I can get you the other half, but you have to promise me that once you payed that asshat back, you get out of it, you'll get a real job and I don't even want to hear you uttering the word drug." Chris puts her hands into the pockets of her pants.

"Chrissi, I- I"

"I wasn't asking. Get your shit together... please." She turns around and walks out, her eyes watering up. She was saving up, she had for so long, but nothing, not whatever she would have ever used the money for would be more important than her brother.

Falling onto her bed, Chris looks at the watch around her wrist.

9 pm.

Malli hasn't called me yet

Chris takes out her phone and instead of calling, writes a message to her friend.

Hi, how was your date? Did you get home yet?

She puts the phone beside her and looks up at the ceiling, a blank stare while so much just runs around in her head, it's like chaos is breaking loose in hell.

Her phone vibrates and she takes a look down at the screen.

It was good, he's nice. I'm home, don't worry.

Good.

Chris replies and waits for a second, she just really needs to talk to her friend right now, so much is just going on at the moment, her parents divorce and fighting and bickering and drinking, her brothers fucked up situation and she can just feel how panic and frustration is rising in her, day after day.

Hey can I call? Do you have a minute?

Chris knew it'd be more than a minute once she'd get started but at this point she really needed to have a somewhat normal person to talk to.

It took awhile for Malli to reply but when she did, Chris broke into tears.

Sorry, today was kinda stressful. thought about going to bed, we could maybe talk monday instead? Or was it something important?

Chris heart just aches and she's not one to press for a opportunity to talk, even though she really wanted, needed to.

So instead of taking the chance for Malli to get more stressed, her reply is the same as every other time things like this.

No no, nothing huge, talk to you monday.

She throws the phone onto her bed and starts sobbing and crying while crawling under the covers and trying to keep her voice down as she falls apart in her room.

-

No no, nothing huge, talk to you monday.

Malli looks at the message and sighs a breath of relieve. She couldn't have talked to Chris normally with all the worries in her head at this point.

She and Chris had done a lot and their friendship was everything to both of them, but right now, Malli wasn't sure they shared the same values in friendship anymore.

Maybe she just needed to sleep a night over it. Instead she texted back to Sebastian, giving him an answer to his question of if she'd like to take a small trip next weekend.

She was excited for it already. She just couldn't explain why she felt like she had no trouble being herself from the start when she met him.

She lifts up her covers, turns of the light and lays in bed, her computer on her lap.

She puts on a movie and watches, while letting the whole day run in her head.

A smile runs up her lips and she suddenly feels like she could start leaving her problems behind because she had something good in front of her.