The Arrangement

Chapter Twenty-Two

Anxiety unfurls in pounding waves, palms sweating and indenting the envelope with finger-shaped discolouration. No one sends letter these days, and at least for me this can't mean anything good because the address on the back makes my heart pound ferociously in my ears.

There's no text or call with the delivery, neither Mum or Dad mentioned sending something important my way over the days or therapy and non-therapy related calls they've had. Even when the rage and irritation at them for not being more present has clawed at every inch of my skin, I've picked up the phone.

Imogen's hand is tight around my wrist, and Sophie's presence by my shoulder is just the reminder I need of all the people that remain surrounded by me. Hugo paces behind the kitchen counter having an anxious phone call I was convinced that would make me vomit.

Marge- the grief therapist- keeps telling me that I can't continue running from the reality of what happened to my family. In fairness she's been saying the same thing to my parents, which is why their lack of notice has surprised me.

It hasn't occurred to me that whatever lies within the envelope may cause me more harm than good. That is, until now as my finger slides between the sealed fold of it.

It's lined paper, crinkled around the edges with one side jagged as if ripped from the from the inside of a private notebook, Sophie takes the envelope from my lap as my fingers shake. There's a kind of resignation that swims through my bones, like knowing the end of the movie before it comes.

Bentley's messy scrawl is unusually tidy, his letters pressed close together but not plagued by the usual rush that came with his confused stream of consciousness. Perhaps, like me, the trauma has settled a lot of the erraticness that came with the darkness.

twenty-november

I should have told someone what was happening, Claudia always asked and Mum and Dad always noticed when I'd come home from school a mess and yet I couldn't push it out. And now I can't, telling them won't change what happened and Idon't want to tell someone and have them make me tell everyone what they did.

That I wasn't strong enough to fight them off, stop it from happening at all when I should have been smart enough for that.

I let everyone down and I theres no facing them now, no getting better from here. I hate that I'm going to cause them pain, Claudia deserved a better brother than what she got but at least I'll be gone and bagged away before she even knows it.

I truly am sorry for doing it if you ever find my journal, just know there was never a way through this. I can't do it. I give up.

It's not much of a letter, not much of a goodbye and yet knowing what he was thinking, even if it wasn't much of a conclusion feels like closure. A morbid kind of closure that doesn't tell you much at all, one that's filled with delusions and miscalculated delusions.

Thinking that he would be gone from my mind and sight before I got there for thanksgiving, that it wouldn't be as painful because he was an awful brother. It settles something in me while amplifying the rage, Marge keeps telling me not to feel guilty for having.

I don't notice my heaving breaths or the tears that drip down my cheek onto the precious piece of paper until Imogen is taking it from my grasp slowly. Placing it on the coffee table in front of us ad letting my head drop down to my chest.

"He's so dumb" I croak out, "He was the best brother, he never failed me, ever"

"He knew that" Sophie promises, tightening her hold on me and tilting me against her chest. "Despite what he said, he knew that"

I just wish he knew that the impossibility of living after that can get better. That he could have gotten better, that it was worth trying for.

Being here, surrounded by everyone I love and having them hold me while I shatter reminds me why I didn't let myself believe the way my brain screamed at me. Pleaded me with me to understand that I can't live if he isn't.