Freed

35

It was so quiet at home.

Every second, every minute, every hour of the day only served as an agonizing reminder of how long it had been since Elijah had left us. Every tick of the clock reminded me that one more minute had passed ever since those police officers had taken him into custody.

I was starting to realize something that I'd always had a grasp of. Every person in a family contributed something to the home. Every person had their purpose; every heart made a place a home. When one person left, when one piece of the puzzle broke, everything fell apart.

And that was exactly what was happening right now. It had been three days since Elijah had been taken to jail, and everything was already shattering.

Ethan was angry. I'd never seen him so angry in my life.

He was the human embodiment of flames. He burned and burned and burned until his rage forced him to push everyone around him away. He turned cold so the hurt wouldn't break its way in. His rage showed itself in different ways. Slammed doors and cabinets, cruel words, heated glares; his anger had become a part of him since Elijah had left, and that anger had stemmed from pain. He left home late at night, came back early in the morning, slept a few hours, and then the cycle repeated again. And it had only been three days since Elijah had left, I didn't know how we would survive the rest. Everybody missed him.

Ethan was acting like how he used to. Every time he ran into me, he instantly shoved past, avoiding my gaze. If I tried talking to him, I ended up getting my feelings hurt because of something he'd say without a filter. After the words would come out, he'd blink as if he realized what he'd just said and then leave again without another word. He was like that with all of us now, including Caleb.

Caleb had gone silent. Sophia went with him to his treatments because it seemed like all the responsibility of the house had fallen on her. She was taking care of everyone and I wondered if that was what Elijah had whispered to her that night. To promise him that she'd take care of us.

We barely talked anymore. No one really talked to me in the family now except for Sophia. No one really talked to each other, hence the suffocating silence.

Kaiden was home now and he spent all day making phone calls or answering the front door every time one of Elijah's men came over to figure out a way to get my brother out. That was all Kaiden did these days; he buried himself in work. He was always rushing around, always avoiding all of us. He'd been trying nonstop to get Elijah out of jail since he'd found out.

Him and Sophia wouldn't even look at each other, let alone talk. They were acting like strangers. Every time she walked into a room, Kaiden would leave. Sophia never stopped trying to get him alone so she could talk to him, but he was relentless in his goal to avoid her. Every time we spoke to him, his replies would be monotonous; clipped. As if he couldn't stand to look at any of us because of guilt.

I was a different story. I didn't let myself fall apart because I'd done that too much already and I wanted to be the one to hold everyone else together for once, instead of them holding me together. I cleaned the house when no one else could, I answered the door when everyone else seemed lost in their head, I took my own medicine and pushed away every awful thought my mind allowed inside because my family couldn't handle more hurt. I made dinner when everyone else seemed to forget to eat. I checked on my siblings when they slept for too long or stayed in their rooms for too much time.

I was taking care of myself because I remembered what Mariam had told me. If I didn't, no one else would. Hence why I was sitting on one of the plush white couches in Mariam's office.

"Izzy."

I snapped my head over to glance at her, realizing that I'd become lost in my own head once again. Mariam's brows furrowed in concern as she watched me, sitting opposite of me.