The whole story

Alina blinked and let out a small "oh" succeeding this outburst. She turned her face to stare at the lake. After a few seconds, just when Steve thought Alina wasn't going to say anything and keep her problems to herself, like she was in a habit of doing, Alina opened her mouth. "I don't even know where to start." she mumbled.

Steve put a reassuring hand on her back and spoke, rubbing small circles on her back, "Start from the beginning. I want the whole story." Alina nodded and seemed lost in thought for a few moments before she inhaled a huge breath and began to speak, "Okay. So this whole thing started when Alex came back. No. Actually, no." she interrupted herself and shook her head, turning to look at Steve.

"It started way before that. Do you have any idea about mum's disease or why Alex left?" she asked.

Steve scratched his head and replied, "I know a little bit about aunty's disease. She was far too ill for any conversation when we moved here. And Alex had moved away before that."

Alina nodded and turned back to stare at the water and began.

"There isn't much to tell about mum's disease. Just that it wreaks havoc on the internal organs. All the internal organ have trouble functioning and finally stop working one by one, usually starting with the lungs and ending with the heart. That was what happened to mum. We tried, really tried to find out what was happening. I even volunteered to donate one of my lungs but mum said no. I did donate part of my liver when her's stopped working, without her knowledge of course, she never wanted to disease to take us. But the liver never worked for her. It stopped functioning soon after.

Well, that's all that is known about her disease. Coming to Alex. He was, he's always been obsessed with our father, who left before we were even born by the way. Alex has always dreamed of becoming like father, chasing an image of him that he has formed in his head. Well, Alex always said this place was too small for him. Too suffocating. He had always planned on leaving.

But then mum started too get worse. We were both in our junior years of high school then. Mum had home-schooled us, but dreamed of us going into prestigious colleges. I had wanted to apply to Yale, and Alex said he wanted to go to Harvard, but everything changed once mum got ill. She needed someone to take care of her, so I said I was going to stay. Both mum and Alex tried to talk me out of it, but you know me, stubborn as a bull.

So anyway, I decided to stay. And Alex obviously couldn't leave me here alone, so he didn't apply to colleges either. I was happy with mum. Taking care of her and the fields, everyone is so nice also. But apparently it wasn't enough for Alex. He started to spend more and more time away from home. He would be gone all day, returning home only during the night, and somedays not even that.

And one day, I guess the fact that this place was too small for Alex finally caught up with him.