Family Ties

Chapter Five

I woke up in my bedroom, sunlight shining into my room through the closed white curtains. I tried to sit up, and I winced from the pain still lingering in my head and shooting down the back of my spine. 

"L-Lemon?" Soda's voice was fearful and meek, almost a whimper.

I turned my head toward him sharply, ignoring the pain this time. If I'm honest, I was more than happy to see him. He looked like my guardian angel, there in the sunshine. "Hey, Soda-pop-" I started in a positive tone before blinking away my naivety and having a sudden realization. "What time is it? Shouldn't we be at school by now? We're going to be late, I can't--"

"N-No, you're staying right there." He spoke in a concerned tone, though he was trying to sound stern. "You need to sleep, and give yourself at least a day or two to.. heal... You can't keep forcing yourself to keep going day and night without sleeping."

I looked down at the blanket, slightly ashamed that he had to be the one to reprimand me. Well, either way, he was right. I couldn't keep going the way that I was, eventually, my body would give out and there would be permanent, maybe even fatal, consequences. But, I was also well aware that I didn't exactly have the time to heal, nonetheless to sleep. I had to go to work to make money, I needed to go to school to make getting full-time jobs as an adult easier for myself, I needed to try to keep my parents from arguing to the best of my ability, and of course; I had to be there to protect Soda, to try to keep him away from the dark side of our parents, and to keep him as happy as he could be. At that moment, though, I was failing at all of that. I wasn't at work, or school, my parents were still nearly guaranteed to start fighting as soon as dad got home, and Soda was feeling the need to worry about me.

I cleared my throat before speaking, I couldn't bring myself to make eye contact with him. "Soda, I... I need-"

"One. One day. That's it, okay?" I knew from his voice the expression that would be on his face. He was clearly concerned, even more so than usual, so I decided to humor him just this once.

I sighed, forcing myself to look up at him. He looked almost as if he was going to cry, so, I pat the bed to let him know that he could come to have a shoulder to cry on. "Okay. One day. I'll call out of work for the day. C'mon over." I asked with a sympathetic smile.

He immediately walked to the bed and climbed onto it, crawling up to me and hugging me a little bit tight with his head on my chest. I wrapped my arms around him, taking a deep breath and looking down at him, speaking softly. "We both need to go to school tomorrow, just so you know." I paused for a moment, having a realization before continuing. "..Does mom know you're home? Where is she-"

He hugged me more tightly, clenching onto my shirt as he spoke in a slightly harsher tone of voice; "You're not going to see her today." I hadn't heard him have such distaste in his voice for a while. At least, not at a time when he wasn't speaking about our father. Which, I guess would mean that he's starting to realize that our mom isn't who she used to be. Soda and our mother used to be very close, so he probably felt pretty betrayed at this point.

"Why not?" I asked, hoping to get to the reasoning behind what finally made him change his mind about her.

He hesitated before answering, speaking in a sharp whisper, his forehead pressed up against my chest. "I know what she's been doing."

I thought on what to say, my mouth open very slightly out of surprise. I ran my fingers up through his hair gently as I spoke in a vaguely nervous tone, trying to keep myself appearing as calm as I could. "Don't blame her-"

He interrupted me, looking up at me with tears in his eyes and speaking in a low growl of a voice. "There's no-one else to blame!" His breathing was quick and he was shaking a little out of frustration.

I moved my hands to his cheeks, using my thumbs to wipe his tears. "You know how badly dad treats her. It's just starting to get to her.. she still loves us. She still cares."

"That's not a reason, Lemon! That doesn't change that what she's doing is-- it's horrific! You should be in a hospital right now because of her. That's not okay!" He was crying at this point, his face red, his eyes puffy, and his hair a mess. He looked like he hadn't gotten any sleep, now that I got a good look at him. He continued, trembling; "The only reason you're not there is that we don't have the money. It's not like it should even be down to us to pay in the first place, dammit! It's not fair!" He pressed his forehead against my chest again, clinging onto me even more firmly, sobbing quietly.

I started hugging him again. I didn't know he'd been bottling up his feelings like that. It made sense, though, thinking back on it- and I regret to admit that I was the reason behind it. I was the only person that he could talk about any of this with, and I'd constantly been either at school or work, he knew that every time I'd come home I would be exhausted from the day. I was being naive, hoping that he wouldn't know what'd been happening between our mother and I. It was stupid of me. Soda had grown up more than I was giving him credit for, and he was smart; of course, he'd have it figured out. He was just too scared to say anything about it. There was a pit in my stomach as I stared down at him in my arms in such a state, a question forming itself in the back of my mind; How long had he known?

It'd been happening for months now, I know that much for sure. That is, our mom going as far as she had been. She'd been aggressively flirting with me for even longer than that, as uncomfortable as suddenly being aware of that fact is. Soda and I hadn't ever spoken about it, though, hindsight makes it obvious that he clearly caught on when she'd first started. I felt bad for leaving him wondering exactly what was going on, but, I had a hard time convincing myself that it was that much of a problem in the first place. I'd always comforted myself by thinking about how much worse it could've been, which didn't make it any more acceptable, really. Putting myself in Soda's shoes, I could understand why he'd be so distraught. Having the person that he'll always be closest to being thrown in the way of just about every bad thing that could happen, including being abused by the only other person that he could bring himself to trust, probably had been mentally beating him down for quite some time.