“Alright, let’s start from the beginning, Tyler. Talking about this may jog your memory somehow and maybe some pieces may start to find together.”

“Alright… let’s see. Ahh shit, we have to through THAT part, don’t we?”

“Yep, everything.”

“I don’t really remember everything; I have a lot of gaps in my memory. I blocked out a lot of stuff from my childhood.”

“Well, let’s see what happens. You’ll start to remember when you begin talking.”

***

I

Eight years earlier…

There were nightmares some nights. Pleasant dreams on others. Didn’t help that most of the time there were gaps in my memory. At least, that was what was supposedly said by those around me. But that doesn’t make sense because this is a further flashback, so that statement shouldn’t exist in this part of the timeline. Right? It gets really confusing from this point on.

The alarm clock woke me up out of his sleep as usual. I would roll over and look at the alarm clock in an agitated state.

“Not this shit again.” I thought to myself. “I just want to go back to sleep.”

The door would swing open right about…

“Tyler! Wake up!”

…Now. Thank you to whoever said that.

“C’mon, c’mon! Get up! Mommy and daddy are waiting for us!”

“C’mon Desi, five more minutes, please?”

She always gave me a pouty face and a stern look of disappointment.

“You always say that.” She said.

“I’ll give you my bacon if you’ll leave now and come back in five minutes.”

“Deal!” She said sprinting out of the room.

That “Desi” girl that just ran out of the room is (was) my little sister. I love(d) her very much, h(e)r and my mother (a)re very near and (d)ear to my heart. I would do anything from them. Desi was just a little girl that didn’t know anything about how harsh and cruel the world was around her. Her life had just begun, she was only four years old. Or was she three? I sometimes forgot her age, that was usually something that would upset me about myself. Not knowing when my own sister’s fucking birthday was. How great was that?

I finally rolled out of the bed and came crashing down onto the floor where I laid dormant for the remainder of the five minutes that I told Desi to give me. Finally, there was peace and quiet for another three hundred seconds. They were slowly ticking away.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. There are two-hundred and ninety-six seconds left. How great.

I swore I closed my eyes from literally a wink because as soon as I dosed off, I heard her voice again.

“Tyler! Get up, it’s been five minutes already!” Desi yelled running into my room.

I knew that the peace and quiet would’ve ended eventually, but it didn’t help that I had to get up and face the world that I knew hated me. I rolled over onto my back and looked over at Desi. She walked over to me and literally sat on my chest and smiled at me. I couldn’t help but poke her little nose and watch her reaction to me doing it. I always looked at my sister as someone who would be just too innocent for the world, especially since she was only four years old. But that didn’t stop her from being the most outgoing four-year-old that I ever knew.

“What are you doing, Desi?” I laughed.

“I’m sitting on you.” She laughed back. “See? Bouncy! Bouncy!”

She would always pretend that my chest was a trampoline or some kind of bounce house that she always wanted. I don’t know why that didn’t bother me as much as it should, but I was okay with it as long as she was happy.

“So, mommy and daddy want to see me, yeah?” I asked.

“No, silly. It’s time for breakfast! Now c’mon, you owe me bacon!”

She hopped off my chest and pretended to pull me off the floor. Since I was twelve years old, it would have been literally impossible for her to lift me up. But to make her feel big and strong, I would go along with it.

We would walk downstairs and be greeted by my mother and stepfather. My father was never really had an intricate impact on my life; seeing as that he left my mother when I was really young and before Desi was even born. Fucking piece of shit, I have always hated him for just abandoning us like that. I just hoped that my stepfather wouldn’t just get up and leave us either because he couldn’t handle our shitty little family.

“Good morning Tyler.” My mother said. “Your plate is on the counter, try to eat as much as you can before you have to catch the bus.”

“Alright, thanks for making it mom.” I always said.

Talking to my stepfather wasn’t always the easiest thing to do, since he can into my life so much later than most stepparents would; it was hard to try to create a solid relationship with him. Don’t get me wrong, I did speak to him; it was just that… he had his own problems that he was dealing with. His own family, so that would have been my in-laws, haven’t always been the greatest of people. At least, that’s the first impression I got from them when first meeting them.

Especially after meeting his aunt… Andrea Stevens.

She was… how can I describe this? An “interesting” read, to be honest. At that time, I didn’t care for her like the way that my sister did. Since my sister is my mother and stepfather’s child, Andrea would be considered her biological aunt. Somehow and someway. What a joke.

“You can call Aunt Drea or Auntie if you want.” She would always tell me.

I didn’t care for calling her, my aunt. After all, we had no relations at all, the only reason why she was even somewhat close to me in any way was because of my stepfather. I had zero reasons for speaking to this person. It didn’t help that she had a daughter as well. Elise, I think her name was. I had no idea; I barely saw her…

I heard a book close abruptly.

“Good morning, Tyler.” He said snapping me out of my thoughts.

“Oh, good morning,” I responded.

“Did you sleep well?”

“I slept alright, as always.”

“Alright, well, hurry up and eat then. You have that bus to catch.”

“Alright.”

That was how the conversations usually went between us; always so boring and meaningless. Like, what was their purpose? I never had the opportunity to develop a somewhat decent relationship with my stepfather because of his shitty family. They always got in the way, and also… it was because of my inability and stubbornness to open up and talk to him. I mean, fuck, I didn’t even have a name to call this guy! Like, that was how shitty and awkward our relationship was.

The days when I was twelve weren’t the greatest. Constant nightmares about pointless shit, seeing those thoughts in my sleep. I had envisioned thoughts on violence, horror, and mutilation. You know, the usual shit. Nothing too major, at least, I didn’t think so. There would be some nights that I would have nightmares about Desi and how something bad could happen to her and that there would have been nothing that I could’ve done to prevent it. It was always a terrible experience to have. Mainly because I would usually run away screaming in complete terror and the walls would begin to close in and it felt like I was going to get caught by whatever or whoever was chasing after me. And at the end of it, the walls would close at the last second, and just before they completely closed in and crushed me, I would snap awake. Reassuring that I wasn’t dead on that my lungs weren’t completely crushed by collapsing walls.

Usually, after a horror show like that, I would get out of bed and make my way to Desi’s room just to make sure that she was alive and that nothing had happened to her. And usually, everything was fine. Usually.

One night I found her wandering around in the backyard by herself, and when I approached her, she disappeared and then I woke up in fright. I don’t know why that happened. I went and asked her about the incident, and she replied saying that she was asleep and doesn’t remember getting up to go into the backyard. However, I had reassured myself that it was just my imagination playing a cruel trick on me and that there was nothing wrong with me. After all, things like that don’t happen to people, right? At least, that was what I was told by Andrea.

And I regretted the decision of ever listening to her words.

***

“How about calling him… Pops or something?” My mother asked. “You have to call him something, Tyler.”

I thought to myself that I would never call him “Pops”, that’s such a weird thing to call him. I never thought about a name to call my stepfather because I never actually got close to him, like I said, every time that I tried to do something with the guy; it just fell apart. We really don’t have any common interest aside from some sports or something like that. I remembered him telling me that he used to watch anime growing up, which when he told me that; I thought that was pretty interesting. Finally, we had something in common; at least that was what I claimed to be true.

It didn’t help that most of the time he would always be outside either for work or for more personal reasons. Like doing drugs or some shit like that, I never really asked what he did, nor did I care for what he did. It was never my business to ask. All I knew was that if it affected my mother, then I wasn’t too happy about it.

Unfortunately, that was as far that our relationship would go.

I would usually have dreams about nothing sometimes as well. It was just blank, empty, and black. Practically, just… nothing. I would go to sleep and then I would wake up. That was it. Nothing more, nothing less. And those nights that those “dreams” happened; I sat up in my bed and just sulked with anger because I didn’t know what to think about the dreams, or in this case, the blank, empty void that laid dormant in my head.

Sometimes I would see flashes of words like, “This isn’t real. She’s going to die. You can’t save her.”

Things like that. But I usually just ignored them because I knew that they weren’t true, to begin with. Like c’mon, why would I have believed some bullshit like that? Like “she’s going to die”? What a load of shit, seriously!

But… at the same time, I couldn’t help but feel like that was true. I didn’t know why, but it lingered in the back of my mind periodically. Almost to the point where it kept me up at night. Then nights turned into days. I had the energy to get through the days where I didn’t sleep, somehow. I had no idea how, I just literally… “went with the flow” as they called it. Point is, I couldn’t sleep so fuck the world, right?

***

I still couldn’t come with a name for that fucker. I was becoming aware that eventually that fact would’ve caught up to me and ran me down. Mom was continuously on my neck about it. Why couldn’t she just have left it alone? Why was a name so fucking important? It wasn’t like he was going to die or something.

Well, that was the hope at least.

I hope I didn’t screw myself over with that sentence.

Occasionally, his family came over to our house. Primarily, his sister, Andrea, and her daughter, Elise. Or “Eli” as she preferred to be called. She was a weird kid. She was about three years younger than me but around four years older than Desi. So, literally, I was the oldest out of all of us, and whenever something bad would happen, like someone would get hurt. I usually got blamed for it. Even if I was on the other side of the house, or upstairs in my room away from those two and something happened to Desi, it was my fault. Elise never got blamed for anything.

Her reason? “Desi did it to herself.” She always said.

What a load of shit.

Why I got blamed for it and not her was because I wasn’t there to stop Elise from doing whatever she was doing to Desi. Whatever that was.

One night, Andrea and Elise just happened to be staying the night for… some… reason. I couldn’t remember why. But I remember seeing Elise playing with a lighter, presumably her mother’s lighter as Andrea liked to smoke. And then, I saw that Elise was holding the lighter really close to Desi’s arm and then she proceeded to get close to Desi and whispered something in her ear. Whenever it was caused Desi to cry and then my parents ran upstairs to see why she was crying. It was good that I just happened to be standing there because I spoke out and said that Elise had held a lighter close to Desi and whispered something to her that cause her to cry. When questioned by my parents, Elise said that she did no such thing. And when my mother asked Desi if she was telling the truth, Desi slowly nodded her head.

I felt my blood boil. How could she just lie to my parents’ faces like that? And what did she say to make Desi cry?

“She’s lying, mom!” I yelled. “I swear she was holding a lighter! Ask her!”

“Is that true, Elise?” My mom asked.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, I don’t have a lighter. See?”

She emptied her pockets and held out her hands revealing that she didn’t have a lighter on her.

“Tyler, I don’t know what you saw. But this is not a funny situation.” My mom said.

I couldn’t believe what just happened. How could she have gotten rid of the lighter so quickly and played it off as nothing happened?

“How am I making a funny situation out of this?” I asked. “Why would I do something like that?”

“Because maybe, you don’t like Elise. For whatever reason.”

“So, you would believe her over me?”

“Tyler! Don’t you say that to your mother!”

I couldn’t win that argument. It was literally a losing fight, to begin with. I just put my head down and walked back into my room.

I saw out of the corner of my eye that Elise was giving me a sinister smirk as she was rubbing Desi’s hair.

***

I laid down on the floor and just stared up at the ceiling.

“Why would they believe me over her?” I asked myself. “What did they see in her to believe her?”

I started to feel a few tears fall down to the sides of my face. I rubbed my eyes, trying not to cry loudly. But I couldn’t help by weep to myself.

“Tyler?” Someone said.

I turned to see who said that, but I couldn’t see anyone. It was too dark in my room to make out anyone.

“Who’s there?” I responded. “Is that you, Desi?”

It didn’t sound like Desi, it sounded like someone a little older. Weird. But at the same time, the voice did kind of scare me. But I tried to ignore the fear.

“Don’t talk, just listen.” The voice said.

“You’re telling your parents that Elise held a candle to Desi was a lie, you didn’t see anything. It was all in your head. Remember that. Anything, and I mean, anything, that you see or hear is in your head.”

“That’s a load of shit and you know it.” I interrupted. “I know what I saw.”

I couldn’t really move my body; I knew that I was awake. But all I could do was speak and move my eyes.

“Now why do you think that your cousin would intentionally try to harm your sister, hmm?”

“I don’t know, you tell me.”

I felt the presence of whatever was speaking to me get louder and closer, also whispering into my ear.

“Maybe it’s because she just wants your attention. Maybe it’s because she’s lonely. Maybe it’s because she wants power. Have you ever thought about how she feels?”

“It doesn’t matter how she feels. She’s dead to me anyway.”

“That’s how you feel about your stepfather’s family?”

“Yes, it is.”

“Alright then, this conversation doesn’t need to go any further.”

“Wait, what do you mean?”

And just like that, the voice was gone.

***

I woke up the next morning with a pounding headache. I don’t know why or what happened last night. It was almost a blur to me.

I looked over at my alarm clock to see that it had been unplugged. That was weird, usually, it was never unplugged. On top of that, there was a note next to it as well. I grabbed the note and my heart almost sunk into my stomach.

“So, about last night. I swore that you didn’t see what I thought you saw. Hmm… maybe it was just my own imagination playing tricks on me. Ha-ha, nonetheless, you’re a weird guy, Tyler. All I wanted to do was be your cousin, even to go as far to say, a friend to you. All the things that you saw or heard last night were false. You. Saw. Nothing. I don’t understand why you had put me on the spot like that. What did I ever do to you? Nothing. Absolutely… nothing. Well, I’ll be honest with you, Desi is a very beautiful little girl. It would be a shame if she were to get hurt. It’s an evil world we live in, isn’t it, Tyler? I know what you’re thinking, ‘Oh Elise, why did you write this?’ Well, because I didn’t get the opportunity to explain it to you last night, but you were too busy interrupting me. Even though I told you to shut up and listen. God, you’re terrible at following directions. Anyway, thanks for letting me stay the night in your bed. It was very comfortable, seeing you laid upon the floor really gave me some weird vibes, but that’s okay, we’re all weird people. Anyways, I hope you have a good day. And… I would probably go and check to see if Desi’s alright as well after you’ve read the message. Love ya to pieces. ~Elise <3”

I almost vomited. What the fuck was that?

So, she was in my room last night? It’s starting to come back to me. I did remember hearing a voice last night, but it wasn’t Desi’s. And even when I went to ask who it was, they never responded with who they were. And if Elise was coming out and saying that she was the one talking to me, then why did I recognize her voice? Why did she ask about herself and if I cared about how she felt? Why did she stop the conversation after I said that about my stepfather’s family? Why did I see her hold the flame of the lighter so close to Desi? What did she say to Desi that made her cry? I couldn’t understand what was going on. I felt like I was being suffocated by the pressure of 100 elephants. I didn’t have an answer for anything that had happened.

I covered my ears and closed my eyes in the hopes that whatever voices that I heard didn’t try to invade my thoughts again. Whatever happened last night between Elise, and me had me pretty much on edge for the entire day.

I got up out of bed and walked out of my room and found my way to Desi’s room, where she was still fast asleep in her bed. I just stood there in the doorway, just praying that she was sleeping alright and was having any bad or horrible dreams.

“She looks quite peaceful, doesn’t she?” A voice said.

I quickly snapped around to see Andrea standing behind me. She had her arms crossed in her chest like she was freezing and just stood behind me. I didn’t even realize that she walked up to me.

“How long were you standing there?” I asked.

“Oh, I, just walked up.” She said. “I saw you just standing here, so I was curious as to what you were looking at. And now, I see that it was your little sister. She a beauty, isn’t she?”

I couldn’t help but feel kind of turned off by her sudden, yet nurturing behavior. I didn’t know how to approach the situation. Was she trying to be friendly? Was she being deceptive? Like, what was going on with her? Did she realize that her daughter has been acting weird since they’ve been here? Has she done anything about Elise? Did she discipline her? Talk to her? Something?

“You alright there, Tyler?” She asked.

“Huh, excuse me?”

“You’re sweating, like, a lot right now. Is something wrong?”

I look down at my shirt to see a small sweat stain going down it and then I wiped my hand across my forehead and felt some sweat there as well. I didn’t know why I was sweating, but I was.

“Oh, no reason in particular,” I said.

That was a lie. But I couldn’t let her see that I was feeling paranoid.

“Have you seen Elise?” I asked.

“Yeah, she said that she wanted to go somewhere so she’s taking a shower now, why?”

I knew that asking Andrea about her daughter would have been a risky yet suspicious thing. But I didn’t take that she would any offense to me asking her about her own daughter. Right?

“Oh, alright. Where does she want to go?” I asked.

“Well, since we’re visiting you guys; your stepfather mentioned an amusement park that’s about an hour or two away from here and he asked her if she wanted to go, and well, she said yes.”

“I see. Are her and my stepdad going by themselves or…?”

Andrea looked around with a bit of nervous twitch, then she proceeded to scratch the side of her face with her index finger very suspiciously.

“W—w—well, no! No! I was going to go with her obviously. But then she said that she would just want to go with her uncle because she hadn’t seen him in a few years. So, I asked her if that’s what she wanted to do and she said yes, so I guess I’m stuck here.”

She proceeded to give off a very half-hearted chuckle as if she was sad that she couldn’t go, yet she was trying to play it off like she didn’t care. Either way, I had my suspicions.

“So, if you’re staying here, what are you going to do?” I asked.

“Well, get to know my new nephew, of course!” She said smiling.

She wrapped her arm around trying to give me a side hug. I wasn’t aware that she was going to do that, so I wasn’t prepared to give one back to her. But at the same time, I barely knew this woman, so I wasn’t too quick to give out a hug either.

“Well, that’s nice, I guess,” I said awkwardly. “Maybe you could spend time with my mother or something.”

“Well actually, your mother had told me that she had some appointments that she needed to go to and she… wanted you to go with her.”

“When did she say that?”

“Last night, remember? You were walking off and she that she wanted you to go to her appointments with her so you could get out of the house.”

I felt a chill go down the back of my spine.

“I wasn’t aware of that, are you sure she said that?” I asked.

“Yeah, I’m sure, go ask her yourself.” She said.

I slowly walked away from Andrea and walked downstairs to my parents’ room and knocked on the door. My mother opened the door, and she wasn’t fully awake yet.

“Good morning mom,” I said.

“Oh, good morning Tyler.” She yawned. “What are you doing up so early?”

“Oh, just had an interesting night. You know, went to sleep early and got up early.”

“Oh, alright.”

I waited for my mother to say something about her appointments, but she never got around to them. I was curious as to if she forgot about them or that she was too tired to remember them at that moment.

“So, mom, about your appointments. Aren’t you supposed to be getting ready to go to them?” I asked.

She looked at me with a confused face, puzzled at the fact that I knew that she had her appointments today.

“How did you know I had them today?” She asked.

“Well, Aunt Andrea told me that you told me that you wanted me to go with you to your appointments today.”

“Oh? Did I tell you that? I wasn’t aware that I told you to do that.”

I felt a little concerned because of what my mother just said, but at the same time, it was a little later at night when she could’ve told me that. And also, she did take medication as well, so it was safe to assume that she took them before she talked to me or something like that. But then again, why would she take her medication so early at night though? She usually took them around ten or ten-thirty. And when Elise did that shit to Desi, it was around nine or so. So, there was no way that she wouldn’t remember.

At the same time, my mom was a fragile person. At least, in my opinion, she was. And it didn’t help that she was going to her appointments by herself, especially since my stepdad was supposed to be going outside with Elise. So, maybe it was better to go with my mom and at least comfort her as she was going from appointment to appointment.

“Hey, mom?” I said. “If you don’t remember telling me to go with you to your appointments, I can still go with you anyways to keep you company.”

When I said that, she couldn’t help but shed a few tears. She tried to hide them, but they were obvious to see, and she couldn’t help it. I mean, at the same time, I never bothered to go with her half the time because it was always so boring and there was nothing to do whilst waiting for her to get done seeing all those doctors.

She finally stopped tearing up and walked up to me and gave me a little hug. Just her hugging me, I could feel how fragile her body was. How helpless she felt, so frail. It was almost like she did eat at all. Just looking at her made me so depressed every time. After a few seconds, I saw a few tear droplets fall onto her shirt.

“Sure son, you can come with me. We can make a mother-and-son day. Something that we’ve never done before, how does that sound?” She asked.

“That sounds wonderful,” I said tearfully. “I’ll go get dressed.”

“Alright, don’t worry about eating breakfast, we can eat before the appointments.”

“Okay, mom.”

I quickly ran upstairs and walked past Desi’s room to see that she was out of bed. I walked into my room to see if she was in there sitting on my bed. But when I walked in, she wasn’t in there. That was weird, she usually would be in my room waiting for me if I wasn’t there. I searched in the bathroom to see if she was in the toilet or brushing her teeth, but she wasn’t there either. Then I heard the sound of an older woman.

I walked into the guest room to find Andrea playing with Desi on her air mattress and the TV was on in the background on some little kids’ show. I was a little confused as to why she wasn’t waiting for me in my room on my bed. And why Andrea didn’t tell me that she was going to look after Desi when I went to go talk to my mother.

“Who’s a good girl? Who’s a good girl? You’re a good girl! Yes, you are! Yes, you are!” Andrea said bouncing Desi on her lap.

I tried to not get angry at the fact that she was holding my sister even though she was supposed to be still sleeping.

Andrea saw that I was standing in the doorway and turned to look at me.

“Oh, hey Tyler.” She said. “What did your mom say?”

I tried to hide my frustration.

“Oh, she said that she wasn’t aware or remembered telling me about it, but I asked if I could go with her, and she said okay with that. So, I was going to get dressed, but I usually check on Desi before I go into my room after coming from upstairs.”

“Oh, that’s your usual plan?” She asked. “I wasn’t aware of that.”

“Yeah, it’s our little ritual. If and when she wakes and I’m not in the room with her or standing outside of her door; she’ll get up and walk into my room and sit on my bed until I either wake up or come back from upstairs. I’m always up before her.”

Andrea didn’t really know what to say to what I was saying to her. I knew that she didn’t know the ritual that Desi and I had, but I would’ve preferred that she showed a little respect before doing something like that.

“Oh, well, my apologies. I will be sure to ask her next time if she was ready to get up.”

“Wait, she didn’t wake up on her own?!” I thought aloud.

“No, she didn’t. I thought she was sleeping in a little too late, so I thought I would wake her up and play with her.”

“Just because she’s a little girl, doesn’t mean that you have to wake her up when she’s still sleeping.”

“I mean, what’s wrong with that?”

“Everything. There was no reason to do such a thing.”

“Shouldn’t you be getting ready to go with your mother? I heard y’all are spending the day together.”

My heart rate started to increase. How did she know that we were going to be spending the day together if she was supposed to be up here with Desi? And what was the purpose of waking up Desi to play with her? She could’ve just waited to play with her after she got up on her own. Who did this bitch think she was?

I swallowed my anger and rage and walked out of the room back into my room and closed the door. I was super pissed at what she just asked me, yet I’m also now getting extremely paranoid because I don’t understand what is happening with those two people. Elise was apparently finding her way into the deepest parts of my thoughts, and Andrea was literally eavesdropping on my conversation and sneaking up on me. I didn’t know if it was just me or if I was starting to completely lose it. But I knew that I had to be strong for Desi, but I knew that I couldn’t be with her all the time. And she had to get older eventually, but I was scared of that fact. But death was inevitable too, it was only a matter of time.

***

II

I never had the opportunity to spend time with my mother, it was a well-needed day that I felt that we both needed. Aside from the fact, that my mother wasn’t ready phased about Andrea literally taking care of Desi and deciding to not take her with us. That was something that I would never understand. But I guess I was supposed to trust her. I mean, she was my mother, after all, I had faith in her and her decision-making.

Sometimes.

“Well, Tyler.” She said. “I’m glad that you decided to join me today even though I always thought that you found these kinds of days to be ‘extremely boring’ according to you.”

Although I found it boring for the most part, for some reason I wanted to join her this time. I don’t know why, what was the point or purpose of me coming with her?

“Yes, it may be boring, but these appointments are to help you, right?”

“Yes, they’re supposed to.”

“What do you mean ‘supposed to’?”

My mother took a deep breath and took off her glasses to wipe some tears falling from her eyes.

“Well, there’s no easy way to explain this to you. So, I’ll give you some information for now, but I’ll explain it to you more in detail as you get older; if I can make it that far.” She said.

“What do you mean if you can make it that far? What are you talking about?”

She set her fork down and put her napkin on top of her plate. She looked around to see if anyone was near and if they could hear us. She cleared her throat and took another deep breath trying to hold back tears

“Well, Tyler. I’m very sick. I have a lot of diseases that can kill me at any time without warning. Well, some of them can, and others are slowly killing me as we speak.” She said.

I didn’t know what to do with that information. Like, that news just hit like an incoming train. How was I supposed to react to that? I felt a mix of emotions; anger, sadness, depression, neutrality, just… wow.

“Really?” I managed to say. “Why didn’t you tell me about this?”

“I really didn’t know what to say or how to tell you without you overreacting or getting too concerned.” She said tearfully.

“How could I not get concerned or scared that my mom is literally dying right in front of me?”

“Tyler, I’m trying my best to get the help that I need to slow the diseases down and lessen the impact that they have on my body.”

I felt the anger flow through my blood. Did my stepdad know about these things? What has he done about it? He told us that he would make our lives better. What the fuck was he doing to fix that?

“Now Tyler, I know that you’re very angry. But please, try not to get upset. Getting angry won’t do anything to fix the situation.” She said.

She was right, I couldn’t do anything to fix it. What could I have done? I could barely protect Desi from Andrea, what could I do to protect my mother from those diseases?

Wait… why did I say that I couldn’t protect Desi from Andrea? What would cause me to say that? She hadn’t done anything to make me think about something that extreme. The one person that I needed to protect Desi from was Elise.

She couldn’t be trusted.

Actually, they both couldn’t be trusted.

But the more pressing issue was my mother and what was going on with her. Like, why was she dying on me? I knew that people had to die eventually, but why in her case would she go so soon? My side of the table had tear droplets scattered all around the space between my hands.

***

As we were sitting in the restaurant, it started to rain pretty heavily. Just to add to the melancholic atmosphere. Fantastic.

My mother looked outside to see the torrential downpour made her mood a little more depressed. We had this special day planned out for it to be ruined by the weather. She turned and looked at me still with my head down in sorrow and softly weeping.

“Hey Tyler,” She said. “Don’t worry. I’m not dead yet, I’m still here looking at you and your beautiful smile. You protect me every day whether you realize it or not.”

I looked up at her to see her smiling.

“How’s that? I can’t do anything to take the pain away.” I said.

She reached across the table and brushed my hair softly.

“You are the reason why I get out the bed every morning to deal with these diseases and the doctors not figuring out how to fix these problems. Even before you were born, I had these problems and after your father left, I had to manage by myself. However, I needed to find a reason to keep going because I was ready to end it all for myself. But then I had you, and I found my reason to keep going. So, with that I say to you, thank you for being my reason for living.”

I couldn’t believe what she told me. I didn’t know that I made that much of an impact in her life, like, how did she continue moving forward in her life even though that whole ordeal? On top of that, after my dad left, she had no reason to live. But she said that she continued because of me. But what about Desi? Clearly, Desi must mean something to her. Because Desi meant so much to me. Now that my mother had told me those things that had been plaguing her for the longest time, I had another reason to protect her and care for her.

***

We had to return home because of the shitty weather conditions, but it was alright because I finally got to spend some actual quality time with my mother. I opened the door to see Desi running up to me. I knelt down and grabbed her and picked her up and hugged her tightly.

“How are you doing, Desi?” I asked. “Did you miss us?”

She eagerly nodded her head. I couldn’t help but look at her hair and how it was styled. That was very new to me, she obviously didn’t do it herself. But at the same time, I did happen to notice that her eyes were a little red. Was she crying or something? Maybe it could have been because I wasn’t here to care for her. But I tried to keep my anxiety down.

“So, did you have fun with Aunt Andrea?” I asked.

God, I hated calling her that.

“It was okay.” She said. “She did my hair and then Elise went to watch TV with us.”

So, Andrea did her hair and Elise was here talking to her again. I wonder what things she decided to do to Desi when I wasn’t here. I only had my suspicions; I didn’t have any hard evidence against her because I was there to determine if she was guilty of anything or not. But at the same time, on the outside, Desi looked okay. She didn’t have any bruises or anything. At least from what I could see.

I handed Desi over to mom and I went upstairs to take my outside clothes off. As I approached my room, I saw Elise just sitting in front of the TV in the upstairs common area. I looked in her direction, but she was too engulfed in whatever she was doing to notice me. So, I proceeded to my room.

Once in my room, I stripped off my wet clothes and threw back on my shorts from last night because they weren’t dirty. I still saw that note that Elise allegedly wrote to me this morning, it looked like it hadn’t been moved.

“So, I see you read the note.” A voice said.

I quickly snapped around to see Elise standing in the doorway of my room. She had a very distressed look on her face for some reason. But I didn’t want to know why.

“Yeah, I did. So, you did write this?” I asked. “When did you do it?”

She laughed to herself and slowly crept into my room inching closer to me with each step.

“Well, when you decided to crash on the floor after our conversation, I took the liberty to doodle a bit into your little notebook. Oh, there was a lot of good stuff in there. Like, your likes and your dislikes. How you feel about our family, your family, some secrets, you know the usual things a boy would keep from his family.”

I felt a cold sweat drip down the side of my face. I don’t know what she saw in that notebook, but I was concerned that she may know something that my family doesn’t. But at the same time, she could have been playing tricks on me as well, maybe getting revenge for what I allegedly did to her last night.

“Oh, and about last night.” She said inching closer and closer to my face. “That didn’t happen. Nothing. Happened. You didn’t see a lighter. You didn’t see a flame. You didn’t see me hold anything, and I mean anything close to your sister. What you saw was what you wanted to see. Have you ever thought about that?”

At that point, she was literally millimeters from my face. Our lips were barely touching at that point. All of her words were practically whispering into my ears. Her hands were resting on my cheeks. Then I stared into her eyes, and I felt my heart sink into my stomach. Her eyes had a deep and dark gaze in them, she wasn’t opening her eyes very wide at all. It was more like a sinister stare that was giving me. It didn’t help that she was giving off this demented smirk as well.

After the deep and dark altercation, she slowly released her hands from my face and slowly stepped back to a more comfortable distance. She covered her mouth as she laughed then she turned around and started to walk out of my room. Then she turned her head slightly so I could only see her right eye.

“Oh, and don’t worry about sleeping in terror tonight. I won’t be sleeping alone.” She said grinning.

She then smiled and exited my room the same that she came in.

Quietly.

I couldn’t help but feel sick to my stomach. What just happened? What was that? Elise can’t be trusted. There was something definitely up with her; I just couldn’t confirm what it was. But apparently, Andrea seemed somewhat normal compared to Elise. I mean, the only thing that she did that was completely out of character was taking Desi out of her bed and then allegedly eavesdropped on my mom and me when we were talking. All in all, I didn’t know what to think, it was all so confusing.

***

III

Six months later…

It was an unexpected turn that we weren’t expecting to hear at all. In fact, not one of us was expecting to hear what happened to him. It was like, he was here, now he wasn’t. They said that he died in an accident while working. He was sent away overseas to do whatever job that he was doing. I didn’t know what the job was, he never told me what his job was. Not that really cared; I mean, the man took care of us, so who am I to ask him what his job was or if he somewhat enjoyed it. Nonetheless, I was pretty neutral to hear about his death. The company’s CEO came from another part of the country to tell us that he had died in that accident. Desi, of course, was not present when the CEO came and told us the news. Mom didn’t want her to worry about what had happened, but at the same time; I didn’t even think Desi understood the concept of death at all. I mean, she was just a four-year-old girl. It wasn’t like she was at all knowledgeable when it came to such a topic.

“So, what does that mean for us?” My mother asked.

“Well, at this point, we would give you money to pay for his funeral and also give you the insurance policy money that he made before signing with the business. So, you should be set to live off that. The only thing is that he wouldn’t be coming back, and that’s the money that you would get, unfortunately.” They said.

“Wait, what about liability?” I asked. “Isn’t the company liable for the accident, like was it the company’s fault or was it his fault?”

The CEO took off their glasses and sigh.

“The accident was unintentional, there was never meant to be an accident. I wasn’t there, so I can’t say for sure what had happened. I’m sorry.”

That answer wasn’t good enough for me, let alone my mother. How were we supposed to take a bullshit response like that? It was an unintentional accident, like how does that make sense? Now, what were we going to do? How was my mom going to take care of us?

The CEO saw their way out and that was the last that we ever saw them.

***

The funeral went as any funeral would have gone. Completely boring and a waste of time. My stepfather’s family came of course to see their loved be buried into a pile of fucking dirt. They couldn’t even find his body fast enough; it took them like two or three weeks to find it! But that was in the past, I couldn’t do anything for the man anymore. I didn’t even come with a name to call him. I always just walked up to him, or he would start the conversation. Did I regret that? Yes and no. Yes, because I felt like I could have done more and tried to build a somewhat shitty relationship with him. But no, because at the same time, I didn’t even think that he liked me. I mean, I wasn’t even the guy’s biological child. He had Desi as his flesh and blood, and of course, he had Elise as one of his nieces. So, basically, I was alone in that shitty family with just my mother and even then, we both started to feel like we were outcasts in that family.

At the end of the funeral, Andrea happened to run into us, and she wasn’t really too sad to hear about what happened.

“I hope you guys are doing alright.” She said. “It must’ve been hard to hear the news about him. I know that Elise and I were pretty sad to hear about what happened.”

Neither I nor my mother responded to her statement. We were too emotionally defeated to say anything.

“But hey, don’t worry. You can move in with us. It will be like a whole new family. You’ll have our love and support and don’t need to worry about needing a place to live, because that money will run out eventually.”

Wait, how did she know about that money? There was no way that she knew about that. But I couldn’t say anything because it wasn’t my place to say anything, even then, I didn’t know much about it, to begin with.

“So, you want us to come live with you two?” My mother asked.

“Well, three of us actually. Elise and I and my new boyfriend.” She said. “Don’t worry, he won’t bite. He barely comes over anyway.”

“But you said three? So, what are you implying?” I asked. “Does he live there or no?”

“Well, we’ll just say… he sleeps over a lot.”

“Right.”

“Anyway, so what do you guys think? Sound like a good plan?”

My mother was full of depression and sadness, she knew that she didn’t have the capability to take of Desi and me. But I didn’t know what she was thinking about or what was going through her head.

“I mean, I don’t see why not.” She said. “I could use the support.”

“But wait, what about your appointments?” I asked.

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Andrea said. “We can have them switched around so that they’re closer to where I live.”

“Well, if you going to put it so gently. I don’t see why not.” My mother said.

Andrea’s face lit up with happiness.

“Great! I’ll be sure to pick you guys up within the next few hours.”

And just like that, she walked away, leaving my mother and me to look at each other in complete confusion. Like, what were we supposed to do in that situation?

“Well, at least they were willing to help us, right?” My mother asked.

“I mean, I guess,” I said. “I thought you would be strong enough to take care of both of us.”

“I am, but using an extra pair of hands wouldn’t so bad now, would they?”

I couldn’t necessarily argue with that logic.

After arriving back home, my mother started packing her clothes and her belongings into a bunch of suitcases. She even grabbed the picture of her, and my stepfather; I caught a glimpse of her crying to herself. I would have gone to go say something, but I knew that it would have been a bad idea. So, I went upstairs and pack my belongings up first, and then when I was done, I went to Desi’s room and helped her pack up her things as well.

We heard the doorbell ring. I went down to answer the door to see Andrea. I tried to mask my neutrality with a half-hearted smile.

“Hey Tyler, how’s it going? You guys ready to go?” She asked.

“Just about, my mother is just about done packing and I have basically packed up both Desi and me.”

“Great, well, I can help you start putting your things in my car.”

She let herself in and I just stepped out of the way. I closed the door and went upstairs to grab my belongings and started putting them in her car. After a while, all of our things were packed away in Andrea’s car. My mother said her last goodbyes to the house and then she and Desi got into Andrea’s car.

I was the last person to walk out of that now vacant house. Why were we leaving this house? Couldn’t we just have stayed here? What will happen to this house? Clearly, mother couldn’t keep up with the payments. But since, we were moving in with Andrea; she could potentially save her money. I didn’t know what to think about the situation. All I knew was that something was bound to happen.

And I didn’t know what was going to transpire next.

I closed the door and locked it and slowly backed away from what was my shelter for the longest time. Now I’m going to a new situation not knowing what to think and not knowing what was about to happen.

Surely, nothing was going to go bad, right?

At least, that was what Andrea told us on the way there.