FO4 | Book 0: The Diaries of Anarchy ✔️

August 12, 2248

"Come on, John! Keep up!"

"I'm coming, I'm coming! You're going too fast!"

"What a baby!"

"Hey, I'm not a baby!"

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Heh. I remember when things were that simple...

I tried to keep up with my older brother who was runnin' barefoot by the coastline close to our house. Even though there was a six-year difference between us, he never treated me like a defenseless child.

He did, however, like to pick on me every once in a while for being small. In contrast to my hefty thirteen-year-old brother, my body was scrawny. He didn't pick on me a lot for it, though, because he knew when enough was enough. I was a sickly kid, but he never let that get in the way of us having fun together.

I took after my mother, Martha, a lot in that regard. It seemed like she was always getting sick, whether it be a cold or aches and pains. Guy took after my dad, Patrick, which wasn't always a good thing. My dad was ambitious to an extent, but he never put into consideration the amount of work he needed to do to reach his goals. For example, the front porch that he started "fixing," but only got as far as takin' half of it apart and not repairin' it.

My father was also a drunk. A lot of the caps he made went to beer, which then led to him yelling at my mom once he was drunk enough. If anything, it taught me that alcohol had a way of forcin' people to show their true colors.

My dad, when he was drunk, seemed to always be unhappy with his life. He'd complain about his wife, his kids, his house, the whole damn world. When he was sober, it seemed like he could care less about any of that noise. In fact, the only time he complained was when he was out of beer.

My mom smoked, though it was really bad for her, causing her coughin' fits to really flare up. She tried to make every cigarette count because caravans took forever to reach that far north. She never knew when she'd have another pack.

"Do as I say, not as I do," she'd say. But I couldn't help but lean in when she wasn't lookin' and slowly inhale a little of the second-hand smoke. I loved the smell of it, the feeling of ease it gave me. That, and I figured if Mom was doin' it, it had to be okay, right?

Guy hated the smells of smoke and beer. He was always an odd one to me because he didn't like to do anything my parents liked to do. He didn't even like to help out with the garden or cook dinner. He just disappeared into his own little world.

What I didn't understand at the time was that my brother was very much a stability-driven kinda person. Stability was somethin' we didn't really have in the household, and he got tired of livin' the way we did. Me bein' as young as I was, I just saw this as him being an ungrateful brat, so I sucked up to my parents a lot to make an attempt at bein' the favored child.

It didn't work out that way, though. I knew my mom loved us both, but sometimes I wondered if my dad loved any of us. No amount of suckin' up would fix the dynamic my dad had with us.