Some Short Stories

The Fear of Thunder

"My older sister was always afraid of thunderstorms." I started, looking at the group therapy.

"Most nights, whenever it was storming, she would just go up to the room we share with each other, lay on the bottom bunk, and pretend to sleep.

Only whenever she thought I was sleeping on the bed above, would she curl into the corner of the bottom bed, put a pillow around her head, and let the soft - hardly able to be heard unless you were listening for them, sobs out. She would sit like that, in the fearful little ball, until the storm rolled over, and only then she would let sleep overwhelm her.

Seeing her wake up with her body sprawled around the entire twin bed never made a single person think a thing about the possible fear that lurked behind those strong, beautiful eyes. The strong eyes that didn't even flinch whenever a car slammed into the side of our mothers vehicle, and destroyed both the back and side of the car.

With my luck, I was the one who was splattered with the glass, and my knee was crushed underneath the door. My mother pulled a screaming me out of the car, with her crying and hugging me, asking me if I was fine, if I was hurting anywhere, and I couldn't answer. All I could see was my sisters semi-smiling face pulling my little brother out of the seat that was next to my own. She was telling him that he was okay, and that the scratch that he got on the side of the cheek from the glass was battle wound, and all the girls at school would be after him for it. He was five at the time, and instead of being on the brink of tears from the cut, he was nodding his head, and had his body wrapped around her own.

She had put him on the front seat of the truck, patting his head, before walking over to the guy that had hit into us, and asking him if he was fine. Turning out that he was not hurt in the least bit, she came over to us, told our mom to call our dad, and put her arm underneath my shoulder so that so much pain wasnt on my leg that was slowly losing the awkward pain from the car that didnt even hurt my leg.

Considering I was still in shock, I didnt even realize the passage of time that had happened. It was like it was all unreal, and I was watching from a movie point of view. All I could really do was wrap my arm around my little brothers shoulders in the front seat and wait for our dad to come and get us. All my sister did was the talking. I will always wonder how she looked so cool and collected on the outside, while the rest of us were shaking.

After the whole ordeal, a family member of ours picked us up while our mom left with an infuriated father. He wasnt abusive or anything, but he was damn good at tearing apart someones ego, an ego I doubt our mother even has even has anymore.

They were still yelling whenever they came home, so my sister who always seemed so calm told them to stop arguing like prats in front of the kids. Which were yes - my brother and I. At that, she carried me, (Im not going to lie, I complained the entire way about my leg) and told our little brother to follow her up the stairs.

Putting me on our brothers bed, she slammed the door shut, and then pulled all of us on the bed while the sound of them arguing echoed traumatically through the house.

And when the thunder boomed, and the lightning hit our house, she didnt even flinch from her spot.

She was always just so cool." I stopped, looking at the rest of the group who looked astounded.

Getting off the podium, I took my normal seat next to the lady who was addicted to sex, and put my face in my hands.

Its just so hard to believe its been four years since she killed herself.