Chapter Four

Asher

Brenton

I came back home to shattered glass and empty hearts around the dinner table. Mom was sprawled on the ground, she mumbled drunkly as dad remained sat down in silence.

This dining room used to be much better when she was around. She brought the family together, now we were just hurting in our own way. It used to have bright aura with candle lights filled with happiness and smooth kisses, my parents used to sit on each other's laps and Averly would hold my hand whenever my APD showed up. They discovered it early when I was a child.

I didn't relate to words as much as I did with a safe touch from my twin. I ended up diagnosed with chronic feelings of inadequacy and was still highly sensitive to being negatively judged by others. Until I learnt how to control it with Averly's help.

I directly stepped upstairs to her room and sat down on the bed. I had chipped nails from anxiety and damp hair, I was a portrait of what I felt inside. My mind reeled me back to what happened in the book shop, how the girl's voice invaded my privacy and made me annoyed. I wanted to stay the same.

A frozen person only waiting for his death. I tried suicide but I failed even at this.

"Hey, Ave. How are you holding up?" My scratchy voice was heard as I imagined my sister sitting in front of me.

"Hi Ash, I'm doing good, and you?" Her lopsided smile would glimmer her face as she would question me.

"I just miss you, you know." The emptiness of my voice dimmed in front of the closed curtains and the empty space that used to be her room.

She would frown as she took me in a hug and whispered, "Asher, don't do this to yourself. Leave me please and work on getting better."

Averly wanted me to be happy, but how could I be when a big part of me was gone?

I wasn't well with coping. Especially change, my psychologist didn't care enough, neither did my broken parents. The whole new house was soulless and bare.

People like me couldn't be understood but were easily left out.

I gingerly placed my bag on the ceramic floor and laid down on her bed, her smell was gone but her notebook was in my grasp. I opened it as I read a part of it.

"Dear Diary, Asher had a relapse today and I wish it didn't affect him that bad, some wishes couldn't be true I guess. . ."

I recalled that day when my disorder shook me up all day long, my parents convinced us to go to a charity lunch event and I didn't want to go, but Averly told me it was fine and she was there to help me. She told me to face my social anxiety.

That was until I fainted there along with the intense hallucinations that accompanied me. The last thing I saw were my sister's arms around me.

It was before two days from the fire, I wanted the guy who tried to touch my sister gone, so I found the matches and his haunting figure on top of her as she struggled and cried out in agony.

The sounds of her screams were ringing in my ears, he saw me and took the matches that was in my palm, but I was fast in catching him off guard by tripping him with my leg, my sister in front of me as we hurled ourselves trying to get out of the house.

I got out and turned to find the flames eating her up, the guy escaped from the back windows as the whole house exploded.

With the dark reminder, I fell asleep with mild tremors on my arms.