Her eyes

Chapter 34

I felt like my privacy had been stamped on like Archer had seen a glimpse of me I hadn't wanted him to see. I was humiliated because my darkest secrets had been exposed. Mostly I felt this deep shame settle over me, the things I drew were things needed to get off my chest, and they weren't something I was proud of, by any means.

I let go of my drawer and sat at the edge of my bed just staring at my floor. I wanted to cry but nothing came out. I didn't know if I was angry at him or myself, he had seen something I hadn't wanted him to. But how could he know that my drawings were something I held this close. Humans were curious in nature and if the roles where reversed I probably wouldn't have been able to stop myself from looking either, no matter how morbid.

I think I was mostly angry at myself though, because if I hadn't drawn those pictures in the first place we wouldn't have been in this situation. I sent him away because I couldn't dare to look at his face now that he knew that my mind was a dark place.

So far I had tried to come off as normal as I could, but the pieces of tape I'd placed over the cracks couldn't hold anymore and the shadows that had enveloped me like a second skin my entire life were seeping through. Like voultures circling a dead carcass waiting for the coast to be clear so they could pounce.

Archer wasn't like me he had a normal loving family and from my understanding, a relatively normal childhood. My deepest fear was coming into fruition, he was going to drop me after this, his perception of me changed. I felt it in my bones. Because why would he keep me around? And I couldn't even blame him for it.

I was so humiliated that my rouse of being a normal girl was up, so, I had pushed him away before he could do it to me first. Because when he did I wasn't sure if I would be able to come back from it.

No matter how desperate I had been for a friend or any type of connection with someone, I had always in the back of mind never planned for them to see all of me. My past wasn't something I was willing to share to with anyone. Mostly because it was too painful and honestly I was ashamed, even if the circumstances were out of my control. I still felt this deep mortification and discomfort thinking about what I had worked so hard to leave behind.

I mean for fuck sake I had practically been complicit in murdering my own brother, or at the very least been the catalyst for his death. Whenever I thought about that all I felt was guilt. I had done that to my own blood.

I also felt responsible for my mothers downfall. If she hadn't birthed me, she would only have Leo to focus on and when we were younger he would tell what little he remembered of her. She was loving and loved to sing to him, she gave him everything she could but what he remembered the most was that she loved to hug him and hold him. She had never held me.

And when I came around she changed, when I was old enough to understand I thought it might've been because my father broke her heart so badly she had no other option but to escape in some way, it was just unfortunate that it was through drugs. But the more I thought about it perhaps she just couldn't cope with two children and living off of meager benefits from the government.

I had always been in the limelight in the closing scene of the people I loved, and all I did was play victim. I wasn't a victim, I think it was time that I admitted that I wasn't that good of a person. I deserved every bad thing that was coming for me. Maybe losing Archer was the beginning of those bad things.

And perhaps never picking up a pen was the second. I was never going to draw anything ever again, I never wanted to look at one of the pages I had filled in my stupid book. The third thing I deserved was to sit in my feelings as punishment for all I had done.

                                          •••

I had laid in my bed for almost two days now, sitting with only my mind for company. I watched the sun set and rise through my grimy window with disinterest. I hadn't changed out of my clothes, I hadn't eaten or gone to the bathroom. My phone was somewhere in my bag but it didn't matter because he hadn't even called.

But what did I expect? I had not only gotten mad at him but then I proceeded to kick him out. Like he meant nothing just because I wanted to spare my own feelings. I was selfish, as I'd always been.

All I'd done was stare at the wall my eyes hadn't cried, I was just numb. A similar feeling to the day I found out brother had died. He was set to have a hearing, being accused of armed robbery. Which wasn't surprising, he was a criminal after all.

A few months after he'd turned 16 he had joined a gang. I didn't know a lot about them but I know they were bad. He was always running around town disappearing for days at a time. As time went on I guess he climbed the ranks, he would sometimes even send the younger men in the crew to accost the people that owed him money. That was as far as my knowledge of his business went.

But as they say, the people at the top fall the hardest. I guess his business dealings went wrong or someone he trusted deviated from the consensus. And that's when everything went to shit for him. He fell out with previous friends, he was always screaming at people on the phone. Sometimes he would stay home for weeks, I think he was scared to go out because he'd made to many enemies. It wasn't unusual that people got shot or stabbed if they'd pissed someone off. It was actually the norm.

When I was 18 right before I was set to graduate I got a call from his public solicitor asking me if I could be his character witness in a pending case. His solicitor had told me that my brother who was 23 at the time had driven a few towns over and tried to rob a convenience store. When the man behind the register refused to give up the money, Leo had shot him in the hand

At the time of that call he hadn't been home for a few months, and I of course wondered where he was but I didn't know who to ask. At first I had said no, if he had shot an innocent man he deserved to go stay in prison. But when the solicitor kept calling and pestering me, my resolve lessened.

But what truly made me crumble was when I got a call from my brother and practically begged me to do it and apologized for when he'd been mean to me. He promised that if I helped him he would come home and it's be like old times when we were younger. So I agreed I only asked one thing of him, that he never hurt anyone else, ever again. He had eagerly agreed, all I had wanted my sweet older brother back and now I wouldn't feel so alone anymore. I had been so desperate and weak I was willing to break the law for him.

After I had done my job of lying to a room full of solicitors and police officers the sentencing came, he gotten a reduced sentence being a first time offender and he was out after a few months. By then I had graduated. But I still postponed my own escape because I wanted to wait for him to get out.

The first day he got home, I ran towards the door ecstatic that he was here and believing that everything we could finally work on our relationship. When he had entered through the door I had embraced him eagerly expecting for him to embrace me back for the first time in 15 years, but all I felt was his arms snaking in front of him and a sudden  hard push.

I fell to the floor shocked, and all he had said was "Get off me." As he walked passed me to his room. I didn't even get a thank you for all that I'd risked for him.

A week after that I packed a few of my things and got on a bus too Workshire a bigger town about 3 hours away. As time passed I accepted that he had manipulated me to do his bidding. He was a liar and a user, nothing he had done to me before had cut as deeply as that. But this was the straw that broke the camels back, after that I grew to resenting him. I could've gotten in real trouble with the law and I had been willing to throw my whole future away for an ungrateful bastard.

A year after I had escaped my home and that cursed town, I got another call from his solicitor, once again asking if I could be his character witness. But I'd learned my lesson. That same week Leo called me from a prison phone, asking for my help once again using the exact same script he'd used a few years ago. I had hung up and blocked the number without saying anything.

A few months passed with no news, and that's when I'd gotten a call from the governor of the prison he was in, because I was listed as his next of kin. I was the one that received the news that during the night Leo had been stabbed 28 times by another inmate.