My heart stops beating and my world tears apart.
Happy endings don't exist, do they?
My sight goes blurry and all I can see is his smiling face.
And that face no longer exists.
Everything goes numb and seconds turn to what seems like hours and my mind goes blank.
"No," I say weakly.
I fall to the hard ground and everything comes to me, like waves smashing against my face, pulling me into the real world once again. My eyes start stinging as my stomach falls below the ground and all I can hear is my mother's drunken voice.
"A year after you left." I fail to pick myself off the disordered floor as my eyesight finally come back "And where were you? Where the fuck were you?!" She hollers.
All I can think about is the only person who loved me, my father. I remember the way he laughs, his angelic voice when he comes back home. He didn't have a bad bone. And now he's all gone.
I didn't even get to say goodbye.
I loosely pinch myself, in hope for this to be a morbid dream, but it isn't.
This is very much reality.
I regret coming here.
It should be me. I shouldn't be here. Tobias is gone and now my own father.
I attempt to make my eyes focus on mum "I-" I say loosely, my words slurred. My dad loves me, right? If he does, he'd want me to fight back in my most vulnerable moments? Or would he want me dead? I didn't even get to see his last smile or the slobbery kisses I always used to hate. Right now, I couldn't want those kisses more.
Fight back, Blossom.
"I, I was gone," I say, still very much mispronounced. I drag myself off the floor, the way a bear drags his paws and realised, I haven't been crying. I'm not sad. I don't feel anything, any emotion or pain. My heart aches but no emotion come with it. Dad will hate me now.
"I-I'm back now aren't I-"
"You left." She says sternly. I didn't see it, but I hear glass shatter beneath our feet.
"I left because I couldn't be here."
"I wish you'd left forever!"
No.
"Maybe if you fucking died I'd still have them here today!"
No.
The words sting like a thousand knives as the room turns cold, my blood boiling hot. She's right, I killed my baby brother. Maybe if I died, none of this would have happened. My brother would be living in pure joy and happiness and my dad's stars would be truly aligned.
"Say sorry."
No.
"N-No." She comes closer as I flinch.
Just like that, I realised the old me is back. The one I thought I had lost.
"Don't fucking argue with me."
"No," I try to keeping my guard up, walking away.
Dad would want this, right?.
"Say sorry!" She screams from the top of her lungs. Without warning, her fist comes crashing into my stomach, making me roll up into a ball.
What if dad doesn't want this for me?
"N-no!" I gag. Tobs' and dad's face enter my head as I stand back up, as tall as I can make it.
"Don't you fu-"
"You know what?" I say, trying to keep strong, strong enough for now. In reality, I feel like I'm holding myself together with a prick stick. I watch as she gapes her mouth wide, in disbelief I have the nerve to interrupt her. But nothing really matters anymore. I just want my dad back. I just want his warm hug again.
Before continuing, I stand fully straight, knowing what I'm doing, knowing that this place will simply be a memory, including my mother. And my brother's bed, my dad's favourite chair. All just a distant memory tucked away in my head.
I look at her in the eye "Fuck this." I start with. I feel the anger boiling, the anger I wished to let go of a long time ago "He is gone when I wasn't there, and I was gone when he needed me most. And I so sorry. I'm a murderer, I get that. I will live in guilt forever. My dad will be in my blood forever, he's a part of me. A part of him is still alive." I say, my voice cracking. "But you're not making it any easier as well as you're not making it seem like you give a shit about me and my emotions," I say harshly.
I take one last look at the room, my dad's chair, and the kitchen counter that I use to sit on when he used to put plasters on my wounds. I take a look at the area my brother used to play. I look.
For the last time.
My stomach still aching, I turn around and swing open the door, silent tears start pouring down my stale face, without feeling the pain inside at all.
"And this. This is why I left."
And so once again, I leave.
As broken as I was the last time I did.
