Requiem [COMPLETED]

They are my false memories but I will still blame you

"You don't get how how it is for me; it's not fair to just say 'well you should be better at that.' It's not helpful."

"Oh, like it's easier for me? I don't understand what's going on sometimes. People make no sense and half the things they say are lies," Sven snapped. He was drinking a beer, the first time I'd seen him with one in weeks. There were two empties next to the sink. That meant at least a six pack. Had he and Charlie had another fight? "Putting aside all the fucked up shit from childhood—which alone outweighs your argument that I don't understand you—what about getting my head almost smashed in and throttled? Do you not get what it was like that whole year, not knowing if you were alright and if I'd be alright? I worried what if I never saw you again. Worried if I never walked again, or couldn't write. Most of my friends didn't know what to believe with all rumors running rampant and didn't even come see me. Our lives might easily have been ruined forever. Tell me that I don't understand feeling powerless, to lie helpless in a hospital bed waiting for your brain to work again and communicate with your body. Waiting for a chance to rescue you before it was too late."

"Don't guilt me like it's my fault you got hurt. And it's not like I was Rapunzel in some tower locked away. Yeah, what happened sucked; but you've always had a great capacity for overcoming adversity. I'm not saying you haven't dealt with anything bad; I'm saying you're better at getting things done. I'm afraid of being noticed, of having to talk half the time I'm around people."

"That's because you were cowed into silence for so long. You used to be outgoing when we were little. It was after we first got trapped with grandpa that you got so fearful all the time and just clammed up. You actually like other people."

"You have some really strange ideas about the extent of grandpa's power to pull strings and control every aspect of other people's lives."

"I have some strange ideas? More like grandpa fed them to us trying to brainwash us. It just never worked as well on me."

"What are you talking about?"

"You never remember anything!" he exploded, slamming the beer down on the counter. "Goddamnit Sigrid! Anything the least bit sad or scary ever happens and it's like you get fucking amnesia and it never happened." He stopped himself, closed his eyes and willed himself to calm down. I tried to give him the silence; I'd learned jumping in before he had his emotions in rein just led to bigger bloodbaths. At least he'd gotten more consistent about being self-aware and trying to stop even when in the middle of being upset. Before it was only afterward that he'd become self-aware. He was losing his temper a lot less often these days, which also made it easier to bear when he did have a slip-up.

He breathed deeply for a few seconds. "Sorry."

"S'Okay." He had a few sips of beer before I asked, "Will you tell me—remind me about it?"

He glared at me, then sighed, picking at the pop tab on top of the can. "Well, even before mom died, he'd take us in the parlor in the evenings sometimes. You'd sit on his knee, which always made me anxious because I saw that it made mom anxious. I'd sit on the floor at his feet. He'd sit there and tell us Norwegian folktales but he changed them. They weren't the same as the ones in our storybooks."

I could see him, smoke curling out of his nostrils, firelight reflecting in his eyes and off of his reading glasses, his frame overwhelming the large wingback chair, seeming to envelope it by the sheer breadth of his shoulders, his big maws draping over the armrests. He was like a vast troll inhabiting the house of someone he'd eaten, claiming their belongings for himself.

"I always knew that he changed those stories, just like he'd alter the Bible verses he'd quote, mold them to his liking. He always had the children dying in the end, always being punished with no reprieve. Like the girl who was snooping in the barn. She disobeyed and then the troll bit her—"