unspoken - phan

fire.

I went downstairs to grab a bottle of red wine, as I walked straight into my parents.
My dad leaned against the doorframe, his brown straight hair kinda messy, which was really unlike him.

He was an everything has to be clean and in order kind of guy, even though he spent his time with watching sports and work while my mum was doing the household.

He still wore that strange suit which made him look so serious, but wasn't that necessary in his job. He was an architect, quite known and busy.

And my mum stood right in the middle of the hallway, already in comfort clothing since she came home an hour before him. She worked as a realtor, which was the reason my parents even met.
My dad designed the houses and buildings and my mum sold them.
They always worked quite good together (as they told me) but as long I can remember they're fighting about everything.

I don't know when it started but at least since I went to primary school. I was six years old and already a burden to everyone. They fought about not being home with me, they fought about working all day. But in the end one of them just ran outside, the other one locked themselves in the bedroom and I was still lonely.

When my brother was born things slowed down for a few months or even years.
They both loved him with all their heart and worked less, which made me actually feel so left out especially when the bullying at my school started, but the hell came back.
Alex was a toddler and "not able to handle alone" so they kinda gave them to my grandparents most of the time and I was still on my own.
They fought every evening. They came home with strangers when the other one was on a business trip or something and all of a sudden the whole thing was too much for me.
I was ten, my life was a total mess and clamor followed me on every step I took.

"Well Tom told me that there were no business trips last week!" My mum yelled.
"What do you have to do with Tom?"
"That's not the fucking point! Where the heck were you?"
"Who cares? I doubt that you even realized my absence if you're working all day."

I just wanted to go back upstairs. To collapse on my bed and listen as loud as I could to music. But at the second I turned around my mum glared at me.

"Do you know anything Dan? You're home all day."
thanks mom for reminding me that I'm alone.
I shook my head.
"See? Your acting insanely!" My dad shouted back.
"I have any right to doubt your fidelity!"
"You? You're the slut who's cheating on me."

That was too much. They were both fucking cheaters, why didn't they just admit it?

I grabbed the blue notebook and furiously wrote something on a blank page, to hold it right into their face.

'You're both cheating just get the fucking divorce'

And in the blink of an eye, a hard pain moved through my body. I gasped and held my burning left cheek. With widened and rage filled eyes my parents looked at me, yelling something I couldn't understand.

I didn't care who's hand hit me. I didn't even care that it happened. Something just clicked.

My eyes watered and I rushed as fast as I could back upstairs, slammed my door and slid down to the floor.
Intense sobbing escaped my mouth and I tried to shut it, but it just made everything worse.

I can't do this anymore

Tears running down my cheek.

Why am I trying, it hurts so much

I couldn't control my breathing.
I lost control.

I can't do this. I can't.

I felt ripped apart and it wasn't even caused by my parents. It was everything.
Everything was way too much to hold.

I want this all to stop.

Stop.

Stop!

I wanted to scream but the only noises that escaped my lips were sobs.

Fucking food.

Fucking loneliness.

The pain filled up my lungs, my head and every cell of my body.

I can't do this anymore.

Not one more day.

Not one fucking second.

I burned from the inside out.

Until I grabbed the lighter on the floor and
burned from the outside - in.