Secrets

Green

Caesar rose from his bed early in the morning, ready for another long day of school. He collected what he needed and headed in the shower. He could hear movement downstairs and knew it was his father that was making breakfast. Once he finished getting ready, he woke up his little brother which was always a fight.

"Mally. Maliek. Wake up, you have to get ready for school." Caesar little shook him.

"Nooo." He mumbled. The young boy flipped over to face away from his brother.

Caesar sighed, for some reason today the boy was being more difficult so Caesar did what he always does when he was. He reached under the covers and grabbed the boy, pulling him right out of his bed. "Noooo." He moaned in annoyance once his feet touched the floor. "You couldn't let me sleep a little longer?"

"No because you know you have to go in a little earlier today."

"Whatever." Maliek shoved past his brother and went straight towards the smell of food. He never wasted time when it came to eating however.

Caesar shook his head, making his dreads move at the same time before going to wake up the girls. Just as he was going to knock on the door, it swung open. He looked down and saw his little sister looking up and him but she looked upset.

"What's wrong?"

Melody looked back in the room before looking at Caesar. "Royalty was crying last night. She just went to sleep."

He looked between his sister and the room. "Ok, thank you. Tell dad and go have breakfast."

She nodded and did as she was told, leaving Caesar to do some investigating.

He tip toed quietly into the room and looked over to her side of the room. She had thrown the blanket over her head and was quietly snoring away. He slowly pulled the blanket away to see her face and could just tell she was in a deep sleep, there was no chance of waking her up so he decided it was best to leave her. From what Melody told him, she had a long night and he didn't want her to be at school tired because then she would barely be able to function and if she fell asleep in class, he knew she was going to get in a lot of trouble and if a teacher was going to lecture her, she was going to say things very colourful. No one wanted that to happen.

He did his best to leave the room making minimal noise as possible and made his way downstairs. He could hear the light sound of talking and plates so followed it to the kitchen.

"Morning." He greeted as they were brought up to always say.

"Morning." They all greeted back.

"I heard about Royalty... did you check on her?" Marlon asked his oldest child.

Caesar nodded. "Yeah, she was knocked out sleeping. I don't think she'll be able to come into school today."

Marlon sighed. "Yeah I wouldn't expect her to. I want to take off work so I can look after her but I can't today... every time I think she's getting better, it just back tracks."

"That's the thing dad, it takes some time, especially with the trauma she experienced. Depression has no on or off button, it just happens."

He knew it all to well. Losing his wife was the hardest thing he had ever had to go through. If it wasn't for his children, he would've been a mess, they really saved him from a complete downward spiral.

"Yeah. I'll check up on her every hour or so." The father and son nodded. "Melody, Maliek, finish up and go and get ready before we're late. That's the last thing I need today."

Caesar took the seat his brother just left and collected his plate of food, he couldn't help but worry about Royalty but doing that wasn't healthy for either of them. He would just have to check on her when he got back home.