Page 57 of Tortured Whispers
I didn’t get upset until I saw angry red scratch marks peeking from beneath her jacket sleeve. “What the fuck did you do, Brooklyn?” My voice swallowed the space around us as I put the car in drive. I had to do something to stop myself from yelling.
She wouldn’t answer me but I saw her lips trembling and I heard her sniffles. I prayed that she hadn’t done something stupid like cut herself again. “Did you cut?” I asked, nearly breaking the steering wheel.
“No,” she whispered. The free fall regression was heartbreaking. I sped home while beside me, Brook shrank more and more. She slipped deeper inside of her head and all I could hear were Ant’s words telling me that she would be fine if she could just get out of her head.
I whipped the car into the driveway and Brook stormed out, unlocking the doors and slamming them behind herself. I wanted to scream. She was upset and she was shutting down.
“Brooklyn,” I called out when I walked into the foyer. I found her in our room, peeling her denim jacket off and tossing it to the floor. She thrust her forearms in my face and with her teeth bared she let out the most painful growl of frustration. Deep red scratch marks marred her arms. She was a road map of anguish.
“I didn’t have anything to cut with so you know I did, Caesaw? I dug my fucking fingernails in and scwatched. I twied to draw blood. I wanted the pain. I needed it. Because I wealized I’m not normal. You need someone normal. I’m fucking your head up too.”
The quick thump of my pulse made me hyper-aware of how tense I was and how any little thing would cause me to snap and explode. “Brooklyn, you’re not fucking my head up.”
“Yes, I am!” Her voice came out a powerful shout. A cry for me to hear her. So I listened.
“Why do you think that? Haven’t I shown you from the beginning that it’s not just you?” I took a step toward her and she took one back. “I love you the same way you love me. It’s not right and people will think it’s fucked up but the entire world is fucked up and we’re not going to be the ones to throw it off its axis. Not by loving each other,” I told her.
“You need someone normal,” she said again. “I’m not. I’m fucked in the head. I’m tortuwed. I’m filled up, bursting at the seams with fucking sorrow cutting helps it bleed out.
You. You helped it vanish but I can’t have you. I don’t know why I thought I could.” Before I could speak, her phone chimed and she grabbed it, reading the text.
“Brook, please listen to me,” I begged, reaching for her hand. She snatched it away and picked the jean jacket up from the floor. “Where the hell are you going?”
“To a pawty. It’s Ashley’s biwthday.” She narrowed her hazel eyes at me because she already knew we were about to bump heads.
“No. Fuck no. You’re not going to a party in this fucking condition,” I boomed.
“Why not? You think I’m going to cut?”
“Yes! Of course I think you’re going to cut. You’re upset and we need to talk. You can’t run away from that.”
“Dr. Hollows says I need to have normal expewiences. I need to make fwiends and she’s my only goddamn fwiend.”
“I’m your friend Brooklyn. She doesn’t even fucking know you!”
“So what! Are you going to tell me I can’t go? Hmm? Uncle Caesaw?” Her words sliced through me unexpectedly as she pushed past.
“I’m asking you not to go. I’m not asking as your uncle, Brook. I’m asking as…”
“As what?” She asked, her lips pressed into a trembling line. I didn’t know what to say. Words escaped me. “Exactly. You know we can’t weally be together either. We need to accept it, wight?”
“No! That’s not what I’m saying. I just want to talk.” My voice softened as I tried to get her to calm down and have an actual discussion about our future. She didn’t want to hear it though.
“I’m going to Ashley’s. I’ll be back,” she said before slamming the door. The house was empty without her. I fisted my hands and stalked into the living room, crashing to the couch.
Maybe she was right.
Maybe we shouldn’t be together.
It was selfish to love her the way I did. It was selfish for my heart to bleed for her and want to keep her protected and close to me. It was selfish for me to think she was far too beautiful and too perfect for anyone else.
She completed me. We fit together but if we were ever going to be safe and normal we couldn’t be together. Safe and normal didn’t mean fucking your niece or falling insanely in love with her and everything about her.
I was sitting at home on a Friday night staring at a movie that I didn’t really want to watch because it made me feel closer to Brooklyn. It made me feel closer to Ant. Nostalgia washed over me and I played back the last memories I had of my big brother.
Family movie nights.
He’d murder me if he knew I was in love with his daughter. I had no doubts in my mind about it. He was gone though and the grief we experienced stitched Brook and me together in ways we would have never imagined.
