p.s. written in blue ink | sal fisher

the one where you admit you're scared of having a ghost brother

Warnings: mentions of loss, grief, homophobic slang, bullying

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Stress could break down anyone and anything, including you. Especially you. Figuring out the cause could be simple or it could be searching for a needle in a haystack blindfolded. Either way, there would be painful regard at some point in the process, the feeling of "Why are you letting this get to you? It's not even that bad." You hated to admit you were used to it. Things tend to pile up when you're still learning to walk again and you know you can run. You did it before. Why is it so hard now?

One step at a time, you kept whispering. All the while you're still screaming at yourself, It shouldn't take this long! Why can't this be over yet? Is there something wrong with me? Get up. Get up! GET UP!

Schoolwork was usually the first suspect. You could blame it pretty easily when there were no fingers to point back at you. That educational-type stress had been hovering over your head since before the big move, and it'd only been gaining traction ever since. Hell, you'd nearly dropped out in New Jersey with the number of absences that piled up your freshman year. Though, it was kind of nice attending Saturday school. Gave you an excuse to not go out with your so-called "friends" at the time.

There was no threat of sympathizers crowding you there in that near-empty classroom. Your favorite teacher even gave up their weekends to get you caught up.

They still treated you like glass.

Despite the heavy amount of pressure you were under to get good grades on the upcoming finals, it wasn't your high school education weighing you down. Your mother's expectations lost all emphasis the moment you realized you never cared what she thought or barely anyone else for that matter. Any effort put forth was solely meant for your dad and the new friends you'd made on your journey to this small, rural town. You didn't want to disappoint them; they were all you had left.

So it was easier to dismiss the growing tension if you used one of those concepts. There were plenty of excuses to be made with either of them, should someone ask.

But that isn't the problem here, is it?

You could hear the whispers again, and they were strong enough to make you swallow your tongue. You'd rather choke than construct half-truths because it didn't matter if you said it was school or it was your mother or if it was the next fucking world war about to kill you all. They would all look down on you with that pitying gaze and say the exact same thing.

"It's okay. It's hard to lose someone, we understand."

Did you? Did you really?

"Don't push yourself. You're still grieving."

No, you shouldn't be. It's been over a year. If you kept using that excuse, you would never move on. You would never get back to running.

"I'm here if you need to talk to me. I know you're going through a hard time."

God.

God.

G o d .

Like you didn't know that already. Like you didn't wake up every day with that soul-crushing weight settled on your chest. Like you didn't realize your precious big brother was six feet under, pushing up daisies, s l e e p i n g w i t h t h e f i s h e s .

Couldn't they just let you use the typical excuses? Even if the core problem—the real problem—was staring you right in the face, would they just let you lie through your teeth and walk away? It's not like it wasn't there; it was no matter where you looked.