Foggy Mirrors | Max Verstappen

Chapter 19 - THE PAST

Two weeks later, Leanne was coming home exhausted. It was hard to keep going when all she wanted to do was stop and reach for Max's hand to go with her. It was hard to be on a team with him when they had volleyball matches, it was hard to watch the football practise and to sit next to him every day at school was agony. All of it was tiring. When the one thing you wanted more than anything was right beside you but still you couldn't have it.

But what Leanne wasn't aware of was how hard her brother's life had been. She wasn't aware of how dark the place was where he had imprisoned himself. She was right next to him but she did not notice. She noticed way too late.

She was ready to keep ignoring her mother, still wondering where her father had gone and just falling into bed, but something was off that day. And then she heard that sound.

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"Can you tell us what happened?" The grim looking police officer asked her after approaching the young Dutch woman. Leanne was seated by the kitchen table starring into the distance in the garden. It didn't make any sense to her. Leaving them all behind like he never cared in the first place. Leanne didn't understand his actions, but at the same time, she understood very well. It scared her. It scared her that Isa would come home soon, and she would have to explain to her what had happened to her big brother.

Every time she closed her eyes, she saw his lifeless body hanging from the crossbeam in the attic. His face purple and puffy. A picture she will never be able to forget again. It was the strange crashing sound of the chair, she later realised that made Leanne wander into the hallway, only to see that the stairs leading to the attic had been pulled down. She called out to see if anyone was up there, but when she got no answer, she went to see for herself. The young woman wished she hadn't, or that she had understood earlier what that noise meant. Maybe then she would have reached him in time. She would have been able to offer enough support with her comparatively weak body, until someone would come to help her cut him loose, but she was too late, and no one was in the house to help her anyways. Isa would come home soon, she had to think of something to tell her.

"Miss Van der Verden?" The younger officer called, pulling Leanne from her thoughts.

"You don't happen to know why your..." The younger officer started to ask, but Leanne was fast to stop him. She had told the detective once what had happened, she wasn't in the mood to repeat herself over and over again. He was dead. No need to play it out in her head any longer.

"He just said he was stressed about school." Leanne uttered. "I didn't think anything about it."

"Do you happen to know where your parents are?" She was asked causing her to look at the officer. "My father left a few weeks ago, I don't know why. My mother is like the wind. She's not reliable. I take care of my little sister mostly. I need to tell her about... I don't know what to say to her." Leanne told the office, still too shocked to cry. She wondered why he did it, what it ultimately was, that caused him to do it.

"Is there anything else maybe?" The older officer asked hoping for an answer.

"I need a break." She announced instead, causing the older officer to get ready so he could tell Leanne, that she would get her break after answering every and each of his questions, but the younger one stopped his colleague before nodding at her in sympathy. After all, she just lost one of the most important people in her life. She lost her big brother.

Not paying any attention to the retreating police officers, Leanne was staring straight out of the window towards the tree in the garden, while unconsciously placing a hand on her stomach. She would have done it there. The same scenes played out over and over again in her head.