Step Brothers

2

Edited

Everything is black. No matter if I looked right or left, above or below, all I could see was blackness everywhere. I wanted to shout for her. I want someone to pull me out of this dream. The darkness is scaring me. I feel trapped in an abyss of nothingness.

I tried hard to wake up, and a ray of hope rose somewhere inside me when I started to hear a sound. It was low and light. It forced me to open my eyes. My whole body is aching in pain. I'm laying on a bed; the white walls surround me. Some tubes were attached to my hands. No one was here with me. The lights were dimmed, and the moon was shining through the window with the curtains flowing slightly from the wind.

I was still trying to figure out what was happening when, like an explosion, my memories came back: my birthday, mom, the accident. My heartbeat accelerated. There was some sort of beeping noise that increased with every passing second as my heart rate sped up.

I found it hard to breathe; my mother was the only thing on my mind. The words were hard to get out. My body shook. And my brain hurts so much, it's unbearable. Some people came into the room, rushing towards me. I saw a nurse telling me something, but I couldn't hear it. I just couldn't. The thoughts of my mom filled my mind. And the bright light from the truck flashed in front of my eyes as my eyes rolled back when I felt a needle being pulled out of my arm.

"Mom." was the only word that left my mouth before I was once again gone in a state of numbness.

......

A week has passed, and the whole time I have been lying on the bed, crying when no one was around to see me. The next time I woke up, I saw my dad sitting beside me on the cream-colored sofa, placed near the wall.

After three years, I saw him, but he had never contacted me since the day he left the house. And I never insisted on meeting him either. It was his choice; he wanted to leave. When he did not care enough to even check up on me, I had no reason to meet him. He was the one who told me that my mother, the only person I knew in these past two years, had left me. Furthermore, I was informed that she had been buried and that I had been kept in an induced coma for 10 days before I woke up. The body was beginning to decay, so they had to bury her without me. I have cried, had a breakdown, and couldn't do anything.

But all that time, he sat next to me, consoling me and talking about my mother and his memories. It was when the doctor told me that I was good to go back home that my father told me something that left me with confusion and a little bit of excitement.

"Y/n, I want to tell you something." I nodded at him, indicating that he should carry on. "Since your mother, Geena, is no longer here to take care of you, it is my duty to look after you. You will be living with me, your stepmother, Nancy, and your seven stepbrothers."

I looked at him in shock. Step-mother? Seven step-brothers? "I know you're confused. Trust me, you will recover completely. I will tell you everything. But for now, you have a stepmother and big brothers waiting for you."

That night before I was discharged, I had been so confused. On one side, I was feeling happy that I would have a family to call my own. But at the same time, I was dreading that they would not like me and would leave me like my father once did, the way my mother left me. I was afraid they would hate me.

I couldn't sleep that night. Anxiety filled methat night. Anxiety filled me. Everything was going so fast that I didn't know where my emotions lay.

....

It took two hours for Dad to pull in front of a big house. Way bigger than my home. It was mostly quiet throughout the ride; we had stopped by my house to pick up some of the things I needed. It was so hard for me to take stuff from the room that was right next to my mother's. Knowing that if I opened it, I wouldn't find her smiling face.

Dad asked me some questions here and there, but I kept my answers to a minimum. I don't have the heart to forgive him for leaving, especially not right now. A lady in her late 40s opened the huge brown door. "Welcome back home, sir." She smiled politely at him.

"Thank you, Mrs. Choi. I hope the boys didn't give you too much of a hard time." He asked, and she smiled in return. "Not this time, sir. The madam was here most of the time." Dad chuckled. "Well, meet my daughter, Y/N." Her eyes shifted to my frame, deliberately hiding behind my father's big body.

A carefree look took over her face. And she gave me a warm smile. Making me give her an awkward one in return. "Hello," I said. "Hello Y/n. Welcome back home." I gave her a nod and thanked her.

"Now let's go meet others." He held my hand and pulled me inside. The interior was beautifully decorated. The marble floor shined, which I think is all because of Mrs. Choi.

We walked further inside, and I saw a living room with several big white sofas. Huge paintings hung on the wall. My eyes fell on the biggest frame in the room. The family photo, but before I could see clearly, I was pulled inside the kitchen. Where a lady was stirring something in the pot.

"Hey honey." She turned toward us, surprised. "Hey. You're home early. I thought it would take you another hour or so." She gave him a kiss on the cheek. And I was filled with nostalgia. Remembering how my mother used to do the same thing when he would come back from work. And so I diverted my eyes, looking at the floor.

"You must be Y/n. It's nice to meet you, dear. I'm Nancy." Her soft voice reached my ears. I looked up from the floor at her brown eyes, which were looking at me with such adoration that it left me in a confused state. Something warm shined in her eyes as she looked at me. I mumbled a shy reply. "It's nice to meet you too, Nancy." She smiled at me.

"Now there's still time for lunch. I'm sure you're tired. How about I show you to your room and you can freshen up a bit, and then we will have lunch with the boys?" I merely nodded.

She told dad to freshen up as well and led me back to the hallway where we came from. And towards the staircase, which took us to the second floor. There were many doors here, but she walked past all of them to the last room. Opening the door, she ushered me inside.

As I entered, I was met with a queen-sized bed in the middle of the room. There was a large window that over looked the back garden, with a view of the swimming pool.

My eyes wandered around the beautiful interior of the room. The walls were a deep shade of blue with white contrast. And blue is my favorite color. There was a walk-in closet and another door leading to the bathroom. It was bigger than my old room. There is so much space to move around, even after all the furniture.

"So do you like it?" There was an anxiousness in her voice, which I couldn't understand the reason for. "Yeah, I like it. It's nice. Did dad decorate it?" I asked because my dad was the only one who knew what I liked and what I wished for. But she surprised me when she said "No, I did it actually." I nodded, unsure what to say. How did she know exactly what I liked? Maybe Dad told her.

"So you get settled in. I'll call you when lunch is ready. Alright?"

"Sure. Thankyou." She went away after closing the door. She wasn't what I was expecting. I thought she would be like the evil stepmother shown in every movie. It felt nice knowing I would have someone to get close to here. But I knew no matter what, there would never be anyone who could take my mother's place. I showered, but my body started hurting, so I took some pills and laid on the bed. Exhaustion took over, and once again I went to the land of nightmares.