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Man, I needed you.

Elliott's POV

I knocked nervously on the door of Blake's room. Well, right now it wasn't Blake in this room but my little sister, whom I had to miss for a long time. She was the most important thing for me and I always waited to see her again and now she was here again, unfortunately not under the circumstances that I would have hoped for.

I never expected her to be like me. I never wanted her to be like that because she didn't deserve it. I thought she got another chance when she was picked up by the youth welfare office, but apparently everything wasn't going according to plan. Why was she on the street at all? She was only sixteen.

Joelle didn't behave as I expected. She seemed so cold towards me as if she wasn't happy to see me again. Why? What had I done wrong? I was always there when our mother wasn't. I raised her and I loved her as much as she loved me. I still loved her, but she didn't seem to do it anymore.

"What?" I heard her say pissed off. I took a deep breath, opened the door and entered the room. She was sitting on the bed but got up when she saw me. I smiled at her, but she didn't smile back. What did I expect? "What do you want?" she asked annoyed. Why was she like that?

"We can go shopping tomorrow so you have some things to wear. Also, you can borrow some things from Celine. I'm sure she doesn't mind." I explained to her kindly. She rolled her eyes and turned.

"You mean your girlfriend? She can keep her things." she said, exasperated. She apparently couldn't stand Celine, even less than me. I couldn't understand why because Celine wasn't rude to her.

"Do you want to walk around naked?" I asked, because she would have to if she didn't want new things. She turned and frowned. I wanted to hug her and I wanted us to have the same relationship we had then but she didn't seem to want that.

"I want you to leave me alone with your annoying girlfriend." she said with her arms crossed. She seemed so angry with me. Now I was the one who frowned. It didn't feel right. This is not how it should be.

The whole time I wondered what I had done wrong. She hadn't seen me in years, I couldn't even have done anything wrong. We had no contact. How should we? She was with a foster family and me? I was on the streets.

"What's wrong with you? Why are you so mad?" I asked confused and hurt at the same time. "What did I do wrong?" I wanted to know. I finally wanted clarity no matter what it was. She laughed, but she didn't mean that laugh seriously.

"Are you really asking me that?" she asked angrily. I just looked at her in confusion because I really had no idea. "You left me alone! You weren't there, half of my life I had to live without a family. I waited. I waited every day and hoped that you would come and finally be with me. I thought you would support me. " she explained loudly to me. I swallowed hard. She thought that? She thought I had left her alone?

"What? No, I didn't leave you alone. I had no choice. Mom was arrested and I was too young to take care of you. I couldn't help it, you were taken away from me!" I defended myself. I would never have let her down. If I could, I would have continued to take care of her even when I was young. I could see that there were tears in her eyes. She shook her head.

There was nothing I could have done back then. I was young, she was taken away from me. They said that I couldn't take care of her and they were right because I was sure that she would be better off with a foster family than with me, and yet I would have loved to never lose her.

"I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the fact that you never came around to look after me, even though you were allowed to. You excluded me from your life. As if I didn't matter." she accused me. She seemed hurt, very hurt. A tear ran down her cheek. She tried to suppress the pain, but I could see that she was damn hurt. She wiped that tear away and looked away.

Now I understood all of it. I never came to visit her. She was right, but I couldn't. I didn't dare. I didn't want to have a bad influence on her because Mom already had.

"Joelle, I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. My life went completely wrong and I just wanted to get it straight before I visited you. I didn't want the same negative influence as Mom had on you. " I explained truthfully to her. There was no need to lie to her. If I wanted to rebuild it all, we would have to start with the truth.

"You weren't even here when Mom died. Man, I needed you." she said and at that moment my heart stopped. I repeated this sentence in my head and now I understood the meaning behind it. Mom was..?

"Mom is dead?" I asked incredulously. Joelle frowned and nodded cautiously. I swallowed and took a step back because I couldn't believe it.

Even if it was only a matter of time, I thought she was alive all the time. All the time I hoped to see her again sometime. If not now, then in a few years. I had hoped that she would be sorry at some point and that she would still like to have us in her life again, but that was no longer possible because she was dead and I didn't even know.

It was difficult to explain what I felt because I felt a lot. I was infinitely sad and so damn angry at the same time. I was angry because she never felt the need to be with us. We needed her. I needed her. Why didn't she want us? Why was the drug more important to her than her own children?

"She died two years ago. Even though she wasn't always there, she was my mom. I needed you, but you were never there. If you love me so much, where have you been, huh?" she asked me. "In the end, you are just like mom." she accused me. It hit me, more than anything else. Was I like mom? No, I wasn't like Mom. I was just silent. I nodded, swallowed the pain, and turned around. I slowly walked out of the room because at that moment there was nothing I could tell her.

While trying to suppress all my pain, I went to my room where Celine was. I entered the room and closed the door behind me. Celine gave me a pitying look and I couldn't hold it back. I shook my head and sobbed. Celine hurried over to hug me. I wrapped my arms around her and clung to her. I needed this hold. She was my anchor.

"She's dead," I sobbed. "My mother is dead." I repeated, trying to let my pain out so I wouldn't suffocate because that was exactly what it felt like. It felt like I was suffocating by my own pain.

"I am so sorry." said Celine, but I didn't answer. That didn't bring her back either. I will never understand why she would do this to your children. Why did she go? Why didn't she just stay with us? She had everything she needed with us, hadn't she? We loved her. God, I loved her even though she ruined my life. She was my mother.