Atelophobia (Kellic)

4

As I came home after school, the next Monday, I was alone. Kaily still seemed to be in school and I knew that Nick was over at a friend's. And my mom, honestly God knows where she was at that moment. Maybe at work or already at a liquor store, it's not like I really cared. It's been like this for a long, long time.

I was exhausted and simply wanted to lay down, to close my eyes and sleep just for a few minutes. But I knew better than that. Instead I walked into our bathroom, washing my face with some cold water. My eyes were burning and heavy, the cold water unfortunately not helping all too much. I just wasn't able to fall asleep last night, too many thoughts that went through my head, one after another, too fast for me to catch them and get them to slow down. They were all over the place, some about Kaily and Nick, some about my parents, some even about Vic, some about school and pretty much any other semi-important topic you could think of. But that wasn't new as well. If my thoughts were already that chaotic during the day, it only made sense for them to be even worse at night.

I leaned over the sink, taking a few deep breathes. It almost felt as if my body got heavier with every expand of my lungs. I forced myself to stand up straight again and to walk back into my room, to change for work. But before I could make it, the silence in my home got interrupted by our phone ringing. I walked into the living room, picking up. And all of a sudden I was awake.

"Thank you Justin, I didn't know who else to call," I smiled at him even though he couldn't see it, as his eyes were focused on the road.

"How many times do I have to tell you, that you need to stop thanking me for shit over and over again?" I couldn't suppress a small giggle that escaped my mouth, shaking my head.

"Sorry," he looked at me for a short second.

"Same thing goes for apologizing,"

I smiled to myself, shaking my head at him. I called him immediately after I hung up with Kaily's principal, asking if he could drive me to her school. After that I had to call Dave, telling him that I would be late because of an emergency. Luckily, Dave being Dave, he told me to just take the day off, knowing that I wouldn't be late if it wasn't important.

After the years I have worked for him, he slowly started to put the pieces together, kind of knowing what was going on in my life. He never asked me about it, but I knew, because of the way he sometimes behaved around me. I noticed him tip toeing around some topics he thought might hit a nerve. It's not like it's hard to know that something was going on when you employ a 14-year-old boy who desperately needs money, whose parents you've never seen or heard of within the next three years. I was really grateful for him.

However, it didn't matter how important and to be completely honest fun the work was, Kaily was more important right now. I was extremely worried, especially because the principal didn't give me any useful information at all. Just that she needed a legal guardian to pick her up because of a fight.

If Kaily got hurt, I would totally flip. I have protected her from the day she was born, and I would keep it that way. I still remember the excitement that filled me when I first held her. I was only five years old, completely fascinated by this tiny human being who I could play with and take care of. I took her to the playground a lot, which wasn't far from our home, I helped her with her homework, I made her laugh and played with her, I braided her hair for school and always made sure she was okay. Some of this I still did to this day and will continue with forever.

When Nick was born, it was a little different. Of course I took him to the playground as well. Kaily was old enough to not need all too much supervision so I was able to focus on him while she made friends and ran around. I loved to sit on the swings with Nick on my lap, I could still hear his laugh. He was so tiny as a baby, even more than Kaily at that time. And of course I also helped with his homework and made sure he was safe and obviously I loved him just as much. But when he was born I was eleven. I was old enough to understand. And not long after, I think it was about a year, our dad died. That pushed our mom completely off the edge. She pretty much locked herself in her room for a few weeks, leaving me with two kids. And even after she finally came out again, it didn't make much of a difference. Her drinking habit and probably even heavier stuff from time to time got worse and sometimes it seemed as if she had forgotten about us.