That Smile (a Chansaw story) EDITING

Chapter 40: Vincent

⚠️ Trigger Warning for suicide and abuse ⚠️

Heather Chandler's POV

I opened my eyes and saw Veronica shaking next to me. I gently wrapped my arms around her to let her know that I was here but I ended up waking her up. Right away tears started to gush out of her eyes, "Ronnie, you're ok... it wasn't real. I'm here now. Baby what happened?"

"I l-lost you, JD took you and then he... he-"

"Baby I'm right here and I'm not going anywhere anytime soon."

"I don't deserve y-you."

"Don't say that."

"No I mean it I really don't deserve you."

I rolled my eyes and then gave her a short kiss on the lips.

I held her and let her cry for as long as she needed to.

"Heather, am I ever gonna be o-ok?"

I wasn't quite sure what to say, "I believe that one day you will be."

"Will you put up with me till then?"

"Ronnie, I told you i'm not leaving. Not now, not ever." I said about as calmly as I could.

"My brother used to say that." She whispered so quietly that I shouldn't have heard.

"You never told me you have a brother."

"Had."

"I'm sorry-"

"It's fine."

"Could you tell me about him? You don't have to though."

"His name was Vincent but I always called him Reed, that was his middle name." I nodded to show I was listening, "He was 3 years older than me, he always got the worst from our parents. Reed used to fight with them all the time, normally at night after they thought I had went to bed." I noticed tears starting to run down her cheeks but this time was different, she was calm, "In the beginning of my Junior year he slit his wrists, I was the one to find him. I was the first to read his note, it had to be at least 5 pages long. A whole page front and back was for me, he told me how sorry he was and how he would miss me. The rest of the note was him writing everything our parents had done to him, it was mostly stuff mom did. The stuff he said about dad was good except my brother said he was always mad that he never stopped any of the stuff mom did to us. I don't think mom shed a single tear-" That's when she broke down.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked you to talk about it."

"It feels better to talk about it, I've never really gotten to... w-would you mind if I kept talking about him?"

"If you want to you can, I'll listen."

"He was the best brother I could have asked for, when he did it he was about to start college, since I moved up a grade he was only two grades ahead of me. He was exited, he was gonna be a writer just like me, that day my mom had told him how much of a disappointment he was and how he was waisting his life. Mom used to beat us, she still did before I moved into your house. She just always had from as early as I could remember, I thought it was normal. My brother was gay, when he came out things got really bad at my house. That's why I was so scared when we told them, I was afraid that when I went home that night that she would beat me again. She used to just use her hand, then she started using wooden spoons, and then she decided to use a belt. My brother always got the worst of it until he died, then I got it 10 times worse then I ever had. We only had each other, we would stay up talking about how we wished our lives were different or how we wanted a different mom. Over the last year I've noticed how we were exactly the same. My mom also hated that we were mentally ill, she tried to "fix" us but nothing ever worked. I miss him so much."

I sat there hugging the girl, if I had to guess this wasn't the only rough part of her past. I wanted to know more but I decided she would tell me when she was ready.