Page 78 of The Fabric of our Souls

Neil was dead.

My soul died during those days. I wanted to see my mom and tell her I was sorry. That it was my fault. But she wouldn’t even visit me.

Something corrupted inside me during that time spent alone. My pain was so overwhelming, damning, like waves pushing and pushing until the floodgates opened.

And then it stopped, as if someone had clicked delete on the pain center in my head. It was gone. I felt nothing. Horrible, rotting nothingness.

Nothing except guilt.

On discharge day, they released me from the hospital and I stood at the entrance bay for six hours, waiting for my mom. She didn’t come to pick me up, and Neil wasn’t here anymore.

I walked to a gas station and bought a pocketknife. I thought about killing myself, but it didn’t seem right.

I didn’t want to die—I wanted to be punished.

I cut myself beneath a dirty bridge until my hands shook so badly that I couldn’t lift the blade anymore. And I cried. I cried until some passerby called the cops and an officer came to pick me up.

He looked at me for a long time. He had a twisted, astonished look on his face.

Then he took me home. When my mom answered the door, she wouldn’t look at me. I walked past her to my room. We didn’t talk until Perry came home weeks later.

I walked to school. Cooked for myself. Took care of myself. Punished myself.

Perry was different.

He didn’t remember the crash. Even though my mother told him Neil was dead, he acted like he didn’t hear it.

It only took a few hours for his first episode to happen. He became a devil. A demon in the flesh, sent to punish me. I welcomed it.

He called himself Crosby.

That was the first time we properly met. Crosby remembered the crash and why we were all on that road to begin with. It was because of me.

For weeks he tortured me. I thought it was right. I didn’t mind because it was my fault.

Mother watched and smiled when Crosby came to punish me. She’d say over and over in that cruel voice, “It’syourfault.” I’d nod and accept the pain. Then when Perry returned, she would go back to her room and lie in bed mindlessly again.

Perry was always confused about why I kept getting hurt. My ribs were cut, my head bashed, toes broken. He couldn’t understand. He’d wrap me up and cry for me. His heart was so tender and broken.

“Why do you keep hurting yourself?” he’d ask.

I never could respond to it. Never.

He looked for Neil often. And once the school noticed his shifts in behavior, they filed a report and had him sent away. He was gone for a year.

The second I turned eighteen, I left my home without saying goodbye.

He was gone for only a year.

Then the texts started again.

Mom:

Your brother is coming to get you.

Be kind to him. He loves you.

At first, I didn’t understand. I was only upset because this was the message that haunted me. But I soon understood.

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