Page 43 of Oblivion
I was never a girly girl, always more on the tomboy side than the dressing-up type. Ava was the one who always had to drag me to do something fun. Dresses reminded me of my father and his constant need to have me looking like a princess when I was anything but.
Yet, standing here, holding this dress, made me realize that I yearned to have something normal in my life. Calm, even boring. I was tired of the constant running, the constant fighting, and I wanted a life where I didn’t have to look over my shoulder every single second.
“Thank you,” I whispered, standing in the middle of the room, at a loss of words. “I-I don’t know what to say.”
“You’re not alone, Birdy. You were never alone. But you need to let us help as well. This,” he pointed at the dress, “is nothing. After everything we all went through, I think we all need someone to hold our hand from time to time. Someone who can help us. Someone who can save us.”
Shadows hid behind every word, and I could hear the hidden meaning behind it all.
We’d been fighting fights that weren’t our own. All of us—Kill, Kieran, Tristan, me, my sister, even my traitorous brother—were all thrown into a world we never wanted to be a part of, but it wasn’t as if anyone ever asked us.
“We’re family, you know,” he mumbled, staring at the floor. “And family helps each other.”
I wasn’t someone who cried often. I wasn’t someone who knew how to articulate her emotions. But in that moment, I wanted to cry for the little boy hiding behind that tough exterior, scared and broken, but still standing regardless of everything that had happened to him.
He rarely talked about the monstrosities he committed, or the ones he saw, but the scars were there, pushing to the surface. The demons he battled, the vices he had, they were all he could use to forget about all those things that were shoved right at him.
“Kill,” I said and placed the dress on the bed, then walked toward him. “I hated my brother,” I mumbled, looking up at him. He still avoided my eyes, but he needed to hear me. I took his face in my hands, rubbing his right cheek with my thumb. “But you are the brother I always wanted to have.”
He shuddered as soon as the words erupted from my mouth. Before I could react, he had me engulfed in a hug, holding me tightly.
His face disappeared in my hair at the crook of my neck, his entire body bending down as if he could disappear into me. Body trembling, hands shaking, he held onto me like a lifeline, and I let him, because I knew how hard it was letting go.
We all carried our emotions locked tight, hidden from the rest of the world, because we were taught that they were nothing but distractions. They were nothing but weaknesses.
It didn’t matter if it was love, fear, anger, pain, or happiness. All those could be used against us if our enemies knew where to look. Mental health meant nothing to both of our fathers, and everything Cillian was going through was always swept underneath the carpet, ignored until the point of breaking.
And when he broke—and he did—they all pretended as if they couldn’t see that the reason for his pain was standing right there in front of their mirrors. Even Kieran ignored what was going on with Cillian because he couldn’t face the truth.
He couldn’t face the fact that his brother, his twin, wasn’t as strong as he wanted him to be. But if strength was walking numbly through life, ignoring everything that ate our souls, then I didn’t want to be strong. If falling apart and asking for help meant getting better, finally getting happier, then I would rather fall apart ten thousand times than pretend that everything was okay.
“Kill,” I murmured against his shoulder, rubbing his back. “Why didn’t you sleep?”
He tried getting away from me, but I tightened my hold on him, locking him in my embrace.
“You know you can’t keep going on like this,” I said matter-of-factly, knowing full well that this might blow up in my face. “Does Tristan know?”
He groaned as soon as the question rolled off my tongue, and I knew the answer. None of them knew. Whether or not they noticed, I had no idea, but they had to start noticing, and fast, because he wouldn’t last long enough if he kept going on like this.
Cillian was always leaner than Kieran, taller as well, but now as I hugged him, I could almost count every single one of his ribs, and that had nothing to do with him deliberately not eating. Those scars on his body, the track wounds, the fact that he barely slept, it was a perfectly paved road to death. I didn’t want to lose another person I cared about.
His cheeks were sunken these days, light completely missing from his eyes, and if it wasn’t for those bags filled with white, I knew he wouldn’t be able to stand here in front of me. I was afraid to even ask what he had rolling around in his veins.
“I’m not going to tell you what to do,” I whispered, hoping that this time he would truly listen to me. “But you need to get help. You need to do something, Kill.” My voice broke, and I shut my eyes, unable to think about the different outcome. “I can’t lose you, too.”
“Birdy—”
“No.” I shook my head. “I know.” I shuddered. “I know we all have our vices and our demons, but Kill… This is quite literally killing you. This is taking you away from us. I know your brain might tell you differently, but you are so loved, Kill. You are needed.”
I took a step back and took a hold of his hands, holding him tightly. “I need you.” I sniffled. “Your brothers need you as well.”
His eyes were glassy, bloodshot, and I wished I could erase those dark circles around them. “They’ve already lost Ava,” I continued, uncaring how much this could hurt. “They won’t survive losing you too.”
“I know,” he mumbled.
“You told me you would get better,” I exclaimed. “You promised me, yet you’re only getting worse and worse.”
He stepped away from me and leaned against the door, looking at the ceiling. “Because I don’t know how to stop,” he said. “I don’t know how to close my eyes and erase all those people I’ve killed from my vision, from my memories. They’re all around me, all the fucking time,” he gritted out. “I know you understand.” He looked at me. “I can hear you sometimes, screaming in your sleep. I know they haunt you, too.”
