A fresh start is exactly what London McLaren needs in order to forget the demons of her past. A new last name, a new town and a new school.
She's about to start her final year of high school, ready to obey her parent's orders to keep her head down a...
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Sunday, June 7th, 2020
I'd given my parents his letter.
Schizophrenia. Without a diagnosis, it could never be determined if Nix had it, but it was plausible.
I knew my parents were upset that they hadn't noticed anything out of the ordinary. He'd been able to cover up his feelings so well. They may have believed something was wrong in the beginning, but he'd hidden everything.
He never seemed to be hurting.
My parents were taking a drive today. Mum needed to get out of the house and dad had offered to take her to some waterfall she had always wanted to go to nearby. They'd asked me if I wanted to go but I still had a lot of packing to do. Besides, I knew they needed some time together.
I had gotten as far as packing up my wardrobe. The only thing left inside was the box of things that reminded me of Nix. Photos, mostly. And now, his letter.
As much as I had wanted to, I couldn't get rid of it. I had thought about burning it but then I saw mum's face when I read it to her. Something changed in my parent's last night. I'd never seen them so quiet.
Mum was different this morning, almost like her old self again. I had seen her changing over the past few weeks. I had started to notice how she'd been calling me pet names again, which may have seemed insignificant. It just wasn't insignificant to me.
I close the lid on his box, ignoring the photos that used to hang on my wall. Those were from the past, a life that I felt detached from now.
It wasn't just my parents who were acting different since the letter, I felt different too. Somehow, the letter made me realise just how little I could have done for my older brother.
For months I had been fighting a battle within myself. I had truly believed that I could have been influential enough to stop him. But I know now that my brother could only listen to himself. No one could have stopped him.
Some people can only truly be helped if they ask for it. Others are just good at hiding it until it's too late.
Mrs Thornbury was right about one thing. I'd only ever truly be at peace with myself when I accepted who I was. No amount of counselling sessions could have fixed that.
But a letter did. It brought me closure. The type of closure I didn't even know I had needed.
I'd taken up Mrs Thornbury's advice at 2 am, researching university courses. I'd never looked before because I had never really thought about my future beyond finishing year 12. For the past six months, I have just been taking life day-by-day but now I was ready to really start living.
I'd researched for hours, only stopping when my eyes were so raw that I could hardly focus on the screen anymore. But I knew roughly what I was interested in doing.
