Elegance with Expense

74. Exposure?

Please read the last few chapters, 70 onwards, just to refresh. 

After my heart broke, I bled an ocean through my eyes. My soul felt wafer thin. My body trembled and chilled. Yet even this magnitude of grief passes. And while it does, we learn more about pain than we ever wanted to know. Then we remember it. Then we use it as the fuel we need to make a world of less suffering. Or, at least, that is what I did.

A problem with the current situation, is that I am a partial reason for the death of an innocent person, a child, somebody who's mother is going to be wondering why he hasn't called, somebody's friend who is wondering why he has suddenly lost all contact.

The worst part of it is that because of the conditions of his death, it most likely wouldn't even be announced to the world. His father is probably tortured beyond recognition now, or possibly even dead, he wouldn't even know.

I had been sat on the floor for five minutes now, I had only witnessed the event less than ten minutes ago. I was in shock, my entire body hurt. I couldn't even prosper the strength to move myself to a more comfortable location.

He went through a similar thing I went through, yet, his outcome was different to mine. He couldn't handle it like I could, only because he hadn't had that kind of exposure.

My head was between my knees, and I was hiccupping into my own breath. The uncontrollable type of sobbing was the worst, I hadn't cried like this for such a long time. My entire existence had just weakened. Although I didn't know him for such a long time, the principle of his death was what pained me more.

I lifted my head up, only to remove some of the hair that was stuck to the outer areas of my face, just as I did this, the door I was sitting opposite opened suddenly, simultaneously, the person spoke.

'Alessa, are you in here?' It was Romeo, the presence of my older brother caused me to stand up straight, it was an unexpected movement, making me stagger a little, also because my body was so tight and debilitated. He stared at me for a moment, my hand was on my hair, and I was trying to rapidly wipe the moisture from my face.

'Alessa?' He questioned with just my name, but I knew he was trying to ask me why I had put myself in such a state.

I shook my head, and looked towards the bathroom door, which was a couple of metres away from the door he was standing in front of. I could possibly get there, and lock myself away from reality for a while.

The problem was that he was closer to the door than I was, even if he wasn't, he's still faster than me, and Romeo being who he was, wouldn't let me get there, he needs to know everything.

'What happened, what's wrong?' He took a quick scan of the room before focusing his attention back on me. His eyebrows ruffled in concern, and his lips slightly parted.

Those were the questions I was trying to avoid, and since I couldn't physically manage any words right now, I started to move quickly towards the bathroom.

He moved at the same time, so quickly, that after my first few steps, he had already caught my waist, and had spun me around in one swift movement, so that I was facing him, looking directly into his hard eyes.

He had one arm on my back, and one on my arm, restraining me from running again. I looked down and lost all control again.

My eyes welled up yet again with fresh tears, and I started shaking. I couldn't help myself, I allowed myself to fall forward into his chest. He was only wearing a skin tight t-shirt, so it didn't offer the comfort I would have preferred. That was until he moved his arms around my small body, joining his elbows around my back. He held me up with no effort as my knees grew weak again.