Page 5 of Caged Heart
I know that she’s not with us anymore, but I see her sometimes, and she tells me just to let go of life. To stop holding on so damned right. She doesn’t get it. I’m not holding on; life just won’t let me go. It won’t give me what I need from it.
I turned, facing away from the cliff. My eyes focused on the figure in front of me as her smile was almost angelic yet menacing as it always was.
My sister wasn’t all the way there, and I know it’s because our parents fucked us up. They didn’t understand what they were doing to her, how they were turning her into this hateful person inside, how she wanted to break free and get away from everyone. She did it, but she did it in a way that would make everyone always remember her. She deliberately ensured she cut her wrists, bleeding out on the floor while her broken neck lolled there with her body as she swung back and forth.
She wanted the last fuck you, and she got it.
If death was so natural, why was it so unattainable for me? Huh, big sis?
Artemis moved closer to me as her dark hair that matched Mars’s hung around her like a curtain. Her serene face was void of all emotion, and she was waiting for me to try again. For me to tell the family that they couldn’t do this to us anymore.
“Are you ready, baby brother?”
Lifting my arms to my side, I smirked as I walked closer to the ledge. There wasn’t any fear in her eyes, so I know that mine didn’t have it either.
“I’m ready,” I whispered over to her.
Artemis shoved my chest, and I fell back, shutting my eyes. My body didn’t fight the fall like the first time I tried this. Getting rid of my fight flight wasn’t easy, especially with this. It isn’t completely gone because there’s a little trickle of fear that grasps me by the throat when I hit the water.
My body trashed against the descent into the darkened waters, but finally, I stopped. Stopped fighting, stopped doing anything. My eyes opened as the water rejected me again, and my body floated to the surface.
As my body floated in these murky waters, I laughed hard, and I didn’t stop until tears fell down the side of my face.
“You’re fucking weak! You can’t even take your own life. You won’t ever be as strong as I was, baby brother.”
Artemis reminded me why she was the oldest and why she felt she was stronger than both Mars and me.
Her angered expression wasn’t hard to miss as she reached out, gripping me by my neck and wrapping her hands around my throat. She choked, dunking my head under the water as I tried to fight back, but I wasn’t a match for her. She was too strong, too bright, and calculating.
I coughed up water but nothing else. I couldn’t breathe anymore, yet the fear didn’t come. Neither did death. Just utter darkness. Darkness, so profound that I knew it wouldn’t ever be that simple. A darkness so compelling it called further to me, sinking its fangs into me. It’ll never let me go.
“Let go, little brother. Stop fighting.”
* * *
The banging on the door shocked me out of my darkness, and I quickly sat up on my couch. When did I get home?
There are times like these when I black out. I lose time and things that I did, but I somehow always make it back to my home. The banging continued, and I trudged my way over to the door.
I opened it, and an upset Carmen stood with her bags and my brother. She glared at me with unshed tears in her eyes and shaking fists to her sides. I know we slept together. It was a good night. A night where everything went quiet, but it was only for so long, and I don’t plan on repeating it because a good, peaceful night means there’s a storm brewing. Something will go wrong, and I don’t want to be caught up.
“If you don’t want me here, just say so instead of making me text you repeatedly like a crazy girlfriend.” She fumed.
I smirked and moved out of her way so she could come in. I don’t have it in me to talk to anyone. I walked, no, I limped away, clutching my side because it hurt badly.
Before I could reach the hall to my room, Mars stopped me in my tracks. He spun me around.
“What’s wrong? What happened? Was it dad? Did he show up here again?”
At the mention of our father, my body reacted, sending it into a frenzy of fear and unadulterated rage.
“Get the fuck off me! Don’t fucking touch me!”
I shoved at Mars, and he lifted his hands in surrender. He didn’t try to touch me again as I continued to limp in my still-wet clothes.
“What’s wrong with him now?” Carmen asked with a hint of an attitude in her voice.
She’s always been that way to me. I don’t know why I even offered for her to stay here, but what the fuck was I supposed to do, tell Monica no and let her stay in the streets while I had an extra bedroom?
