Where Is God? - Sabriel

i

"Gabriel, I'm hungry."

"Gabe, when's dinner?"

"There's nothing in the fridge, Gabriel. What am I supposed to eat?"

These requests fired at me from my various siblings spin around my head incessantly, and I manically watch them whirl, getting dizzy and nauseous. It doesn't help that I've got five bits of homework to do, all due in the next couple days, but whenever I open a book all I see is: Where's dad? Why did he leave? Why are you looking after all of them? Why didn't you go shopping today? What are you going to feed them? Do you have enough money to make it til the end of this week?

Before I know it, I can't breathe, and the longer I hold my breath to wait for the anxiety to pass, the tighter my brain squeezes and the more I feel like I'm going to explode. I can't remember the last time I was alone and it's suffocating. I long for the lack responsibility and the feeling that there's someone looking out for me.

"Gabriel." It's Castiel this time. "If you're busy, we could order pizza. It's two for Tuesday at Dominos and I just got paid. I could-"

"Cas, I'm not going to make you pay for dinner," I tell him gently, looking up from my mound of textbooks to look at my big brother.

He may be older than me physically (only by a year, and there's hardly a difference between 17 and 18), but that doesn't mean he should be in charge. No- that's my job. Sure, Cas has a job, he gets by pretty well in school, but he can't take care of himself properly, let alone little 8 year old Anna, 11 year old Balthazar, and 15 year old Michael. He's not a big picture kind of guy, doesn't understand how life works, and goes around consumed in his own world. He focuses on what's directly in front of him and doesn't understand how screwed we are financially, doesn't understand that dad abandoned us and that that's not fucking normal, and that things can go wrong. He wouldn't be able to balance looking after three kids, and wouldn't even know where to start.

Cas tilts his head, eyebrows knitting together. He wears that expression every time he doesn't get something, which is a lot, bless him. "Why not, Gabriel? I have the money. I can pay for it. And you don't get paid until Friday."

"Because..." Because I'm supposed to look after you, and it makes me feel like inadequate when I have to take your hard earned money to feed the kids.

I have a part time job. I work weekends at a coffee shop, and Cas works weekdays after school at a supermarket. When I'm at work, I'll make sure there are enough sandwiches and snacks ready made for all of them to last the day, so Cas just has to make sure they don't raise hell. I come home and help the kids with their homework, make them dinner, make sure they're washed and put them to bed. Money is hard to come by, and it's a struggle. I get child benefits that dad was claiming before he left, and that helps. I get the essentials, and Cas saves some of his until it's need for clothes, school books, et cetera. That makes me feel bad enough, but when I have a fiver left to my name at the end of each week's expenses (which I use to buy sweets for myself- a horrible indulgence, I know, but it's my only coping mechanism), I can't afford to fork out on any extra bits when the kids need new stuff.

"Like Michael said, there's nothing in the fridge. We can't go shopping until tomorrow. Here." He hands me £30, enough for two pizzas and some sides. Enough for us all not to go to bed hungry.

"Cas..." It's infuriating sometimes, how his mind works on pure logic. Of course it makes sense for him to pay for dinner when I can't, and of course he can't comprehend how guilty that makes me feel. Not as guilty as you'd feel if you couldn't feed them at all, that horrible objective part of my brain chimes in. "Thank you. I can give the money back to you when I get paid,"