Microwaved Love

4|

So Aiden and I used to be close.

He was my big brother, and I was his little sister. Our parents were too busy with work and forgetting about us so he took over the role of the parent figure in my life.

There had been a time where he looked after me. He had been over protective. He cared. That had pretty much been enough for me, but he went on and did these things, these almost unnaturally kind things, that really showed me how deep the extent of his love went for me.

I remember this one time. One of the boys in my class had done something reckless and ended up getting arrested by the police. It hadn't been anything too big, nothing actually worth all the attention that we naive middle schoolers had given it because he had been back to school two days after, but Aiden must have thought that I was going to turn into the new school deliquent or something of the like. He gave me this ridiculously long lecture about drugs and boys, and abiding by the law, and he had been really serious about it at the time except I had tuned out for most of it, more worried about the poetry assignment that I had left to the last minute.

Aiden had helped me with my homework even when he had his own larger pile to complete, and even when we had to stay up so late in the night (because I'm the queen at procrastination) that we sometimes saw our parents get back from work, or most likely not work, and been on the receiving end of these strange stares and a few hushed words before they rushed off to take a shower.

He had given me pocket money from his salary from working at the sweaty, grease filled car repair shop down the road, and he had embraced me in these warm, solid hugs that only older brothers can give which are basically the definition of 'actions speak louder than words.'

But one day that all stopped.

One day he started to shut me out. One day while I was lounging in front of the television flicking through shows, he came back home with a sullen and closed off face, and I didn't know who he was. It had been too sudden. I must have done something to upset him. So I asked him if anything was wrong. He told me there wasn't. He lied.

It only got worse after. He completely stopped talking to me. Late night conversations with his friends stopped. Nothing was the same, and I wasn't used to it at all. I kept thinking that it was only a phase, maybe from the stress of school. One that he would get over it and he would smile at me again and apologise for his distance. But instead he stopped cooking dinner for us. Instead he left me a couple of dollar bills on the kitchen table. Instead he stopped reminding me to tidy my room, and he stopped waking me up in the mornings for school.

I tried to ask him what was wrong, I tried to keep our relationship alive but he just kept brushing me off. So eventually I stopped.

He gave up.

So I guess I gave up too.

~~~

My head aches.

My alarm had woken me up almost half an hour ago and I have yet to drag myself out of bed. I feel as though I have little cotton puff balls stuffed into my ears, because what I'm hearing is all muffled and hazy. My throat is as dry as the sahara desert itself, and my nose is so blocked up that I probably wouldn't be able to smell a plate of mouldy, old cheese even if my face was shoved right into it.

I groan into my pillow and curl up tighter into my ball.

Somebody knocks on my door.

"Sage? We were meant to meet at my car fifteen minutes ago."

Aiden's quiet voice pierces through my haze of cloud.

"I don't feel good."

That is what I try to say, but it comes out more as a croak of a horny frog looking to bump nasties with someone.