Chapter 9

Where have you been?' Amy yells at me the second I walk on the door. 

'I had to get out.' I simply answer her. 

Her bed is covered in tissues and her hair looks terrible. Amy is never the person to look bad, but now her makeup is ruined wet all over her face. If I wouldn't know her, I would say she is really hurt and suffers. Picking at her face, she keeps mumbling while nervously circulating through every room. 

'Amy, can you just sit down?' I try to calm her down, ready to hear all the details about dad passing away. 

'Martin said he was sick, Josh. Sick. He didn't say a word to anyone about it, he made his doctors swear they won't say a word to anyone. And today, his body just couldn't...' 

I rest my head in my hands. Dad was always the healthiest person we ever knew. He always kept himself well for mom's unannounced adventures. And still, why would he keep this from us? The tears keep falling down Amy's face and she keeps wiping them off very brutal until her skin turns red. 

'What in the world, Josh? That's why he sent you to live with me? Because he was afraid you'd figure it out?' 

I have never been so confused in my entire life. I don't know what to say. 

'You could've helped, right? Get him better doctors, send him on a forbidden island and let him heal there. Maybe he worked too much...'

'Calm down, would you? You're stressing me out.' I make her look at me, grabbing her chin.

She removes my other hand off her shoulder.

'You don't even care. You lost him the moment mom died.' 

Her words arrow me deep, even though I hardly admit to myself that she is right. But I know Amy is not the person to see both sides of the story.

'You don't know what it's like.'

'What it's like? You locked yourself into you and never got out since then.'

'His behaviour was exactly like yours. He sent me off because he couldn't stand me, because I was in his way. And you do the same, all the time. Complain and blame me for everything.'

Maybe I did quit fighting for any kind of connection with him, but so he did. 

'That's because you are to blame! You do nothing all day, other than feeling sorry for yourself.'

I feel my blood pressure growing too fast.

'No one in this world has the right to make anyone feel like a piece of garbage! And that's what you both did to me, since mom died...'

'Since mom died, since mom died! Leave her out for once in your miserable life! She is dead, do you hear me? Dead! You are never gonna see her again! Face life, you coward!' She yells. 

Facing a black spot in the room, biting my down lip till I taste the blood and keeping my tears so strong that it almost feels like I swallow them, I feel the anger rushing into my veins. I hear the things I said to Sunshine earlier in my mind, the fact that I'm scared of not hurting Amy because she is such a chatterbox. 

'Keep your mouth shut, Amy.' I whisper to her.

'I lost a parent too. Dad lost his wife. You're not the only one suffering here! You don't care about anything but yourself, your pain, your thoughts, your life! And you still blame dad.'

'Shut up. Please, shut up.' I warn her in my mind but she keeps going. 

'I loved her too, get that? And I loved dad too, I never stopped like you did.'

'You don't know what you're talking about. It's easy to love someone who loves you back. Suddenly, I wasn't enough for him. Suddenly, I couldn't become the son he wanted anymore.' I whisper while grinding my teeth. 

'I guess he was true. You were just a burden, and we were all maybe luckier if you were the one dead now!' She yells with all her might and runs into her room.

She knows why she did that and I thank her in my mind, because she knows she pissed me off worse than ever. I run after her, hearing the door locking up, and hit the thick wood with my foot and my fists.

'I hate everyone in this family!'

After every hit, I hear her screaming short into one of her pillows, but I keep going and going till I finally distinguish her cracked voice off all the other sounds.

'Joshua, stop! Please!' And then much more like begging. 'You're breaking the door.'

I catch my breath and close my eyes. Since all the anger washed away, I can finally feel the sadness and the loss. Every single cell of my body feels dead right now, trying to rise up from the darkness but can't find the light. I realise it all came together; I never let the anger out at once, because I don't trust myself, but now it forced me to break free. 

The hot salted drops reach my lips and open my ears to hear my sister crying on her knees on the other side of the door. I know she hears me too but she doesn't say anything. And I feel my voice quitting on me. 

... we were all maybe luckier if you were the one dead now.

I lean against the wall, feeling all the heat in the hall decreasing. Amy's words hurt me to the fullest, but I know her well enough to be sure that if she didn't mean them, she won't apologize. She was angry too, but I don't have enough good reasons to understand why. 

'I thought we both emotionally moved away from dad, as we did from each other.' 

Even though I whispered, I know Amy heard me. She stays silent for some time but then gets close to the door. 

'I always felt closer to dad, like you felt closer to mom. We all became estranged because mom was the glue that was sticking us all together. But dad and I kept a part of our connection, even though we didn't share it like before.'

I sigh, a little in disbelief but trying to remember how was it like to have a sister. Is it necessary for the same glue to be reborn or can it be recreated? 

'I never knew that.' I sigh and hear Amy opening the door.

For the first time in a while, I truly look into her dark eyes. She is so close to crying again, her eyes sparkling in the weak light of the hallway. I guess I haven't tried to see both sides of the story either.

'I could've stayed with him. But he really encouraged me to go, I remember he said it'll do me good.' She admits grabs three sheets of paper from one of her desk's drawers.

She starts ripping them off in little pieces, one by one, and throws them somewhere behind her on the wool carpet. I guess I was wrong. My sister really loved our dad, had a special relationship with him, one that I could never see me having.

'I misjudged you, in this matter at least.' I tell her, because I don't know what else to say.

'Yeah, I'm not an angel either.' She mumbles. 'Mom always loved you better and so did you. I was jealous a while, until I realised dad was doing the same thing with me.' Amy adds and chuckles sadly.

My brain is filled with memories. I remember all of us smiling and laughing.

'We loved going to aunt Christine's. Remember her big garden? We had that big tent and used to beg mom and dad to let us sleep in it at night.'

'You were always scared. You couldn't fall asleep without a light so Martin brought candles that almost burned out the grass around.'

She talks with such a serious voice, more like complaining but I know she is smiling, by the way she tries hiding her face between her knees. When did it all stop? Did we really miss every single chance that we ever had to be happy again?

'When's the funeral?'

'Next week, Tuesday.'

She closes the door again and I hear her bed sounding rusty under her weight.