It Wasnt My Fault (DNF)

Part 2: Chapter 34

Astro pov

I was terrified.

Here it was.

My leg was shaking, uncontrollably bouncing on the cold floor, sending dull thuds reverberating into the ground that matched the obnoxious beating of my too loud heart.

I felt like I was sweating, but there was no precipitation there.

My stomach hurt, and I tried to calm my nerves, but it only made the pain more unbearable.

Every time I tried to speak, it felt as though tears would be the only form of communication I'd be able to offer in this conversation, but even they refused to come out.

Come out.

Out of the closet.

Lay out the truth for the two boyfriends in front of me to speculate and discern their verdict.

I combed through my memories, trying to make my actions seem better than they looked to me in an attempt to justify the now-dead brother.

But, looking into George's eyes, into his hard, cold brown eyes that couldnt have been further from resemblance of Ken's, I knew that nothing I said, and no matter how I worded it, would reconsider the infliction of pain he clearly and so desperately wanted to cause.

So I sighed, looking up at him through my sandy hair, hopeful, but in vain, deciding to tell the story as it was, wishing them to be silent as I spoke.

"When I was ten my brother was killed by a girl named Viper." The brunette's face softened slightly to allow shock to press forth.

"My mother, too, was threatened, and his death was caused by a mere innocent school fight and her bloodthirsty vengeance." My voice was as hateful as George's eyes as I stared into them, but my rage was aimed at the snake that curled around my past, causing so many casualties.

Casual.

I tried to be normal, but the last thing pain that I'd felt that was normal was that between two elementary friends, having a go at each other.

And it resulted in a knife protruding through my little brother's chest, blood dripping onto the V-neck our grandmother had given him before she met a similar fate to his.

I sigh, my anger washing away as I felt another warmth wrap around my shoulder, knowing it was the ghost of my lover.

"We moved here before anything could happen to Mom. But she somehow followed, recruiting me by force into her gang in exchange for the spared life of my only parent.

"I was 12. But I'd met Ken when I was ten." I say, a slow smile etching its way onto my cheeks.

"Your brother..." I looked George in the eye once more, being met with a calmer expression, but it was still shuttered, as though he were considering my awaiting punishment with care.

"Your brother and I were close friends, and I had, unknowingly, formed a crush on him really soon after us meeting.

"I didnt know, for years, that he liked me back. Even though I definitely should have as I was an awesome kid." I say before I could stop myself.

"Yeah, what an awesome kid. You got your baby brother slaughtered." George says harshly.

I glare with him with such a ferocity that it surprises me, and I redirect my gaze to the ground seconds later, relaxing my appearance.

I couldnt allow myself to become impulsive.

You cant take old practice out of a person.

Habits can still be used after being abandoned.

Skill might be rusty after a couple years, but it only takes a rough surface to make a blade shine once more.

I couldnt let that happen.

I was changed.

I had changed.

Had.

Past tense.

My past.

My eyes welled with tears again, but I forced myself to keep talking.

"We started dating when we were 17. He never told me anything about you, or his home life. I never knew his last name. I never knew your first one. I didnt know.

"But he did.

"Despite my best fucking attempts at keeping him from the truth about the gang, he found out. And I couldnt save him from the penalty.

"Three men ambushed him while he was at work and shot him while I killed Viper.

"I was there, holding him when he brethed his last. When he became a ghost for the first time. He told me to find you. To care for you. He told me, until then, he would be with you because you needed him more than I did."

I looked past the two at last, peering whimsically at the grey walls behind their head with hope in my eye and a dopey grin on my face despite the tears that threatened to cascade out of my ducts.

"He told me that I would see him again when I found you."

I was done.

I'd done it.

I'd found George, my boyfriends little brother, and by titan, he was as little as Ken had always said he was.

I looked at the teenager in question, studying him carefully, my face neutral.

His hair was just like the chocolate my boyfriend had pointed to when he described it to me.

Hie eyes were just like cocoa powder when he wasnt angry, soft and dark.

His face was as pale as Ken had said.

Ken was right.

Because as I looked at the small boy, I could not only see the features that had been described so fondly and precisely to me validated, but I could see the broken soul that had developed in the wake of my faults.

Fault.

It was my fault.

I had payed the truth out before everyone here now, but as my life unfurled like a piece of parchment that had spent decades rolled up for delivery, I could now see everything as it stretched out flat once more.

As the creases were allowed to protrude from the story that was written in unerasable ink, I was able to see where I had truly fucked up.

A tear that would have been followed by many rolled slowly and gently down my face before I heard a voice in my ear.

One that I had longed to hear for two years, but for what felt like an eternity in hell.

A whisper entered my ear, shutting the mouth that whispered my insecurities in my mind for only me to hear.

"It wasnt your fault, Astro."

I'm already writing the next one, no time for a A/N, sorry, luv you all, gotta type, sorry for the late upload, byeeeee!

1084 words