may shatter on impact (tronnor)

48. The World On Mute & Silent Car Rides

"Pack your stuff up, boys," Mum orders softly, opening the door to the bathroom. "We're just going to go back to the house." The house that isn't home, the house of silence, of the sun's rays hitting the wooden floors polished until the wood is worn down, used to the point where they could still be sold in IKEA.

Dad follows her directions, throwing sweatshirts and the tie had been wearing into a bag and zipping up the edges, the silver zip the only noise made in the silence of the room.

Tyde still stands at the door, as if he isn't quite sure what to do, as if he isn't quite sure where he is, as if he can't focus on reality, as if he's still living in a dream that he can't wake up from, that no amount of pain and stinging blades can bring him back from.

I walk over to him slowly, no sudden movements, as if approaching an animal, someone less than human. I wrap my hand around his arm gingerly and immediately hate myself for it.

This is my brother. This is Tyde, the little baby boy I used to help feed dinner, the one I taught to swim, the one I looked for first when we left that damned building, the one who helped me breathe during panic attacks, this is Tyde.

And I refuse to be scared of my brother.

"Tyde, come on. We're going to pack up now."

He nods, staring at me. "A-are we leaving?"

"Yeah. Yeah, we're leaving."

"Okay."

We guide each other over to where our bags and clothes lay in a giant pile, where our sweatshirts and pants mix together in a way that we can't quite tell which ones are mine and which are his. Tyde sorts them into two even piles, concentrating on the rippling fabric and the stitches and the colorful logos.

He gathers his pile and dumps it into his own bag, the zipper closing with the tiny screech of rusty metal on metal. He does the same with mine then, working in double time, moving for two people, keeping his hands busy so his mind wasn't.

"You ready?" Mum asks, grabbing her own bag.

Tyde and I both nod and we follow her and Dad to the car, the world on mute and our hands twisted into positions where they might break, our bags swinging by the tip of our pinkies, the end of the world on our shoulders.

Dad's hand goes to turn the radio on, but he seems to think better of it, letting Mum drive in silence and Tyde and I stare out the window and try not to think. Dad taps away the silence with his fingers on his knee, slowly tapping, silently counting, waiting for the moment when the air rushes into our eyes and we can hide away in our rooms like we've been doing since last year.

His boredom travels through the car like a plague, his worries held within this iron fortress of a car and shared between all of us, the air rigid and tense and scared, the seats cold and icy, the windows covered in condensation and the hints of blue frost growing up and around the edges of the glass.

Tyde doesn't stop shaking as he slowly brings himself to lean against the glass in the way he did when we drove here, in a way that gives the image of normal, in a way that might convince his tears, his dreams, his heart that everything is as normal as he tries to act.

What did we ever do to deserve this?