Excessive (Harry Styles Fanfiction)

Chapter 23.

We carry these things inside of us. That no one else can see. They hold us down like anchors. And drown us out at sea.  

Anxiety.

I never really understood the term as a kid. My mother had it her whole life and still to this day she does, but I never knew why. After I learned the story of my father and who he was, I assumed it was the main reason for her to always be so anxious about everything. Maybe it was because I didn't really know the reason of her stress or I just too young, but whatever it was that made her get so nervous had also got passed down to me.

I hated it. Everything I do is always followed by fear of somebody saying something back to me or calling me out on something. Meeting new people terrified me, especially considering most of the people I had meet held weapons of combat with them at all times. But I knew there was nothing I could do about it, I could try to avoid it but you really can't when you have it as bad as I do. It is completely out of my hands.

You can never control the way you were taught as a child. You can't control the way that the people who are around you acted towards you. You can't control the people who love you and the people who hate you. You simply just can't. We adjust everything in our life that we possibly can at any time we want, but we can never altar the way we were brought to this world or the people that fill it.

I grew up living in a patriarch household. My mother never worked a single day in her life outside of the house. She cleaned, cooked, and ironed all day, much like the predicament I am in now with Harry. My father used to go out and work the entire day from six in the morning to six at night. None of us kids really went to school, my father told me that all I really needed to learn was from my mother and at the time I didn't really know what he meant but I went along with it anyways. My brothers went out with my dad to work with him to carry on our name.

When I was younger I didn't know that our family was different, I didn't understand, I still don't up to this day. I never really perceived the reason to why me and my mother were never aloud out of the house without one of the boys. I never understood why my brothers were driving at the age of fourteen while I had to wait until I was well over sixteen. I especially didn't grasp the concept of my brother being able to drink alcohol with my father when they were thirteen while I wasn't aloud near a single drop.

It was odd to me and I never dared to questioned it because of the one time I asked, I had gotten in trouble by my father and was sent to my room. After that I was scared that I would get in even more trouble and never brought it up again. But it didn't stop there it only got worse as I got older. My role became more visible as the days past. Once my father died it had started to become even worse as my brothers were basically in charge. 

The second they came home, me and my mother had all the food prepared and ready for their hungry stomachs. Day after day it happened until they left for a job out of the area. After that we really had nothing else to do except worry. We did get calls which gave us some closure but it was never enough. It was scary, we already had one down and the last thing we needed was second or third.

We managed on what we had, which was not much because the lost income of my father's death. I thought our life was normal and everybody had something in their life that was difficult, but I knew nothing. As I grew up I only grasped a small concept of why my life was the way it was. My mother had to be very obedient as well as us kids towards my father because if it didn't happen the way he wanted to, it would be even more stress on him.