"Okay, it's kind of long so feel free to tell me to stop so you can catch up." I breathed, laughing slightly.
"Okay," he giggled.
"My brother was never really all there in the head, in his defence. He wasn't like disabled or anything but he just wasn't right. Sometimes he would get angry over something small and then completely explode. None of us thought anything of it, we just thought he had anger problems but looking back now it was so much more, it was to a psychotic stage.
"He was 20 when it happened, he'd been out with some of his friends and got drunk then when he came home he was angry about something, 6 years later and I still don't know what it was," I laughed under my breath, taking a second to get my breath back. "My mum asked him what was wrong and he just shrugged her off and said it was nothing. Obviously she knew that it wasn't nothing, so she said "come on Derek just tell me, I just want to make sure your okay."
"All I remember was looking at her face and the frown she had, because she knew too that her son was sad and she just wanted to make him happy, and make him okay as any mother would do for her son. After she said that everything was in slow motion. They tell you big dramatic moments like these either feel so fast you can't remember them or so slow that you could see all the details that you didn't even notice when it happened. He turned round and looked her dead in the eye and towering over her which most people could do be cause she was so short.
"The doctor said they'd never seen anyone die from one punch. when he hit her it was straight in the nose, which broke her nose, then when she fell back from the impact she smacked her head off the glass table which cracked her skull and the top of her spine, then after she'd lost so much blood, she died."
After I'd finally finished, I turned to look at Luke who looked like he had tears in his eyes. "My god, I am so sorry."
"I though you didn't like people telling you they were sorry, bit hypocritical aren't you?" I joked.
He shrugged me off, "what happened after he punched her?"
"My dad called an ambulance for my mum, and while they were coming Derek didn't move once, he just stood there staring at her lifeless body. Paramedics came and examined her and told us that they didn't know if she would still be alive by the time they got her to the hospital but we told them just to take her anyway.
All 3 of us went in my dads car, while we made Derek sit in the back seat and I cried my eyes out in the front seat next to my dad. I wasn't allowed to swear in front of my parents but I said a lot of things in that car ride to Derek.
"Once we arrived to the hospital we were told to wait in a small room while they did everything they could to save her but after 3 hours a nurse came in and told us she hadn't made it. My whole world just froze into shock, I felt numb, so numb that even though I shot out of my chair, launched myself at Derek and punched him in the nose and attacked him until his nose and his lip were bleeding. I was so numb that I didn't realize I'd done any of that until my dad had pulled me off of him." I chuckled, actually wishing I could remember what it felt like when I did that.
"How long was Derek sentenced for?" He asked.
"6 years, he gets out in 2 months." I sighed, remembering that time was running out.
"Do you think you'll ever see him again?" He asked, and it took me a minute to think of my answer.
"Maybe, but I don't know. I still get upset about my mum, but I'm in a different place now than I was then. I was so close to Derek before it happened, I was the only one who could calm him down and we bonded over that. My dad learned to forgive him and visits him in prison sometimes, maybe I could forgive him but I don't know." I told him, scratching the back of my neck like Luke.
"If it helps you make a decision, think about what your mum would want you to do." He shrugged.
"Thank you." I told him, realising that that was exactly what I needed to do.
"For what?" He asked.
"Just listening to me, and making me realise that maybe I could forgive him." I looked up at him, god he was so much taller than me.
"And thank you for feeling comfortable with me and trusting me." He smiled down at me.
