this is for a deh amino WL prompt. we had to include the following:
lunchables
chapstick
a school bus
a box
recovery
enjoy!
(art by cryptidw00rm on tumblr/twitter)
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I remember when my brother, Connor Murphy, was in fifth grade. He danced around and played like any other kid, and he was so happy. He had this sort of aura around him that showed you he really could be friendly if he tried. He was misunderstood, even at such a young age.
His favorite food was that stupid Lunchables ham. He only ate that, out of all of the things he could eat. To our parents, it was a waste of money, probably, but they didn't mind buying Lunchables for Connor. He loved them, after all, and they made him happy. That's all they wanted.
When he wasn't playing and happy, he was angry and frustrated at everything. Even me. I was, and no longer am, one year younger than him. I was the subject of his aggression, no matter what. It hurt. Always.
Skip a few years, and we're at Connor's teen years. These were the worst for him. You could practically see the pain in his eyes, you know? I could, at least. At the ripe age of 12, I had really seen a lot of my brother. He opened up to me sometimes. He was just so… sad. Even at 13.
During the winter of his 8th grade year, it had seemed that he had given up on family. Whatever bonds he had made were broken. His chapped lips were closed shut. We moved into a new, even huger neighborhood, and were left to pack everything we wanted into boxes, while donating anything we didn't want.
All Connor wanted was a few comic books and some headphones. He gave away everything else. Back then, I thought that he was just being generous, but now, I understand how he felt. He had lost interest in all his toys, and in everything, really. He began to isolate himself. Instead of calm, nice words, he'd scream and kick and hit. she became a ticking time bomb, ready to explode with every unimportant matter that inhabited him. Over and over again, it happened. Mom and Dad grew old of it quickly.
When he was 14, he put this pent up, physical anger to use on a poor kid who wouldn't stop laughing. We were on our school bus, and I saw it first hand. It all happened in a blur, but I remember. One second, Connor was playing on his DS, and another second, his fist was slamming into a kid's face. Afterward, my parents weren't happy to have to pay the kid's medical bills and the fee to fix his glasses.
After that, my parents grew wary of their son's actions, and constantly asked where he was going and what he was doing. It was almost pitiful. A family who can't trust their own son seemed like something you'd never hear of.
Especially when that family was trying so hard to be picture perfect.
Yes, on the outside, we were that perfect cookie-cutter family, but on the inside, when you got to know us, we were the very definition of every aspiring family's nightmare.
The ever-trying mother, the serious and willing father, the good-natured sister, and the deviant brother.
Once, though we didn't celebrate Christmas much, I was generous and brave enough to go up to his room and slip a note with some chapstick under Connor's door. It sounds like a stupid gift, but when I was younger, I had really noticed his chapped lips. This time, as opposed to the winter that we had moved, they were cracked, split, and bloody. They looked like they had been through a war and a half. I was only trying to be nice. I guess, even through his ten-layer wall of his, he saw this. Within a week, his lips looked soft and full of life again.
I started noticing little things. How he'd smile just a little bit when Mom or Dad cracked a corny joke, or how his hair looked clean, not greasy like usual. Even his outbreaks weren't as often. It seemed like Connor was getting better. Mom, Dad, and I all hoped so, at least. We hoped that maybe, just maybe, Connor would get better.
Our hopes and prayers were never enough, though. Soon enough, Connor stopped smiling altogether. His hair was back to its wild sort of style, and his lips grew cold. A blunt replaced the spot where lips should collide together in a bout of love.
Drugs had become his new family, and nobody–not even a therapist–could help. Believe me, we had tried too many times to count. Every time we scheduled an appointment with a new therapist, he had been thrown out of their office sooner or later. His time bomb self was still there.
My parents didn't know what to do with him. He was out of control; an unstable atom, almost.
Even I had lost hope. He was terrible to me as the years went on. 13,14, 15, and now 16.
He was terrible to me. Still is, even when he's dead. Now that he's dead, I'm seen as some grieving, eternally-sad girl. No one thinks Connor was bad. No one thinks he was a villain. In their eyes, we were the villains.
We weren't the villains.
Connor Murphy was the
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I crumble up all three pages and toss them.
