Untied Ends

Chapter 2

{Rylie POV}

It was a sunny Thursday afternoon, but the mood around it was rather glum. As I was driving to our anticipated destination, my brother was screaming at the top of his lungs to the radio songs. Everytime he did it, I was worried about him waking up our dad. To put it nicely, he isn't the kindest when woken up from a nap; especially because he naps when he is drunk.

His singing or shrieking never bothered me, I was too busy thinking about this morning's 'adventures' one might say.

As I went to pack the car, Dad ran out to me with my phone.

"That thing is going crazy, you better start to control your stuff or I will." He stated as he handed me the cold electronic and huffed off to go have another shot of whiskey.

I looked down to see the normally clear screen to have at least 50 text messages and missed calls from various people. One of those people was my boyfriend and another was my best friend and her social group.

The ones from Jared, my boyfriend, went the route of, "I need to talk to you", "Why aren't you answering?", "Do you think I'm not important any more?".

My best friend, Saige, texted me letting me know that she made it to Jared's house and will see us in a few hours. They were riding together because Saige's parents were out of the country.

The other messages were from Grace telling me about how excited she was for the trip. She also included some pictures of Peyton sleeping in the car, looking silly with drool coming off the sides of her mouth.

I wish that I could say the same.

All I could think about as I drove was about how I could never please anyone, especially not my boyfriend. That terrifies me.

As I kept thinking about it, I realized there were warm tears flowing down the edges of my cheeks. I was going to reach for a tissue but saw they were at the feet of the man sitting next to me; I guess sleeves work just as well.

The man in the car was an eggshell of my once to be father. Before my mother left him, he was a civil man and never hurt anything. But once he found out she was cheating on him, he found divorce papers and got permission to raise my brother and I. But this is when he started to break down, mentally and physically. He wasn't able to keep a steady job and alcohol became his best friend. Around the age of 13, I was becoming the adult in the house; hence why my brother is so well taken care of.

I can't say I blame the man but it only got worse as the years passed by us. He would snap out of it every once in a while, which is a major reason we are on this trip. When we had to go out or went on vacation, he would act like his old self in front of people. It was a nice change from the abusive, drunk s0-called father he normally was.

I just noticed that the shrill sound of my brother's voice had stopped. Looking through the rear-view mirror, I see he had his face against the window and is holding his breath. I guess we made it.

As we pull into the parking lot of the hotel, I try to wake up my dad but have little success. I need him to sign us in because I have two more years until I am legally able to do it.

I was still trying to get him to wake up when a hand was resting on my shoulder. I turned around faster than light and almost punched who was behind me; but they caught my fist.

"I see that we are still nervous around people, huh sis?"

"Carlos!" It was my oldest brother. I have three older brothers and they were all joining us. It had been almost two years since I've seen him so I gave him the biggest hug I could muster. If I had to choose a favorite sibling it would be him.