With my knees drawn to my chest, I was watching the night sky when I noticed my mother's car pull into the driveway of our house. With a surprised face, she was frantically motioning for me to get back inside. She was clearly worried I would fall to my death or something. Doing as she said, I backed away from my window and decided to head downstairs since it wasn't often we crossed paths on one of her workdays.
She was stood in the darkened kitchen, the microwave whirring being the only glow in the room. The bowl inside rotated slowly as she leaned against the counter, watching it go round. It was obvious to me that she was tired because she didn't even realise I was stood at the kitchen doorway until the microwave pinged, pulling her out of her own thoughts.
She looked pleased to see me, all the same.
"Thank you for saving me some dinner, sweetheart." She placed a soft kiss to the top of my messy hair, "You wouldn't believe the shift I've had tonight."
She kicked off her shoes and let her hair down, collapsing into the dining room chair with her now-warmed pasta bowl. She was young, only thirty five, but she looked aged. I suppose, in a way, she looked like me with her pale skin, dark eye bags and grey-speckled black hair. Or, rather, I looked like her. The twins, on the other hand, looked remarkably like Dad and I think that made it hard for her at times. Especially Andy, who even shared his same lopsided smile.
"Tell me about it." I began to make myself a mug of warm tea, brewing her one too.
"Well, this kid, just a little bit younger than the twins, ended up in accident and emergency because his mum found an empty packet of rat poison! She kept them under the kitchen sink and she found the empty packet shoved between the sofa cushions, so she rushed her son to the hospital, just in case." She explained, accepting her brew with a smile.
"Did he eat it?"
"The kid thought the powder was like the sherbet you find in a dip and dab, so he was sticking a lollipop in and licking the rat poison off." My mum groaned, "It was a nightmare, but he's completely fine and being monitored tonight. Poor mother had the fright of her life."
I laughed at that. It sounded like something Angel would have done. My smile was quickly replaced by a frown.
"Andy has been acting..." My sentence trailed off as I was at a loss for words, "I'm concerned about him, is what I'm trying to say."
"His suspension? He hasn't been in trouble for a while, so I thought everything was okay." Mum creased her brow.
"It's not just that." I sighed, "He's been having a little bit of trouble with the other kids at school and it seems to be really taking an effect on him. He also asked me about me moving out, earlier, like he was scared I was going to leave or something."
I considered telling her about catching him fighting with Jimmy, but decided against it. Some things were just better kept between siblings; she would only get mad at his actions and lose sight of why he was acting out like this in the first place.
"I'm sorry that you've had to deal with this, sweetheart."
Ducking my head, I let the silence wash over us. Helping to raise my siblings had never bothered me and I had never resented her or anything for working so much, but I was slightly at a loss for what to do. Andy was very different to me and his reactions and emotions were just another thing that reminded me of our dad. He had that same craving for belonging mixed with bittersweet anguish towards the world. It was probably why Mum didn't know what to do with him, either.
Mum had always appreciated the help and I loved looking after them, so I didn't mind trying to work through this with her.
"I'm going to start taking them to football on a Saturday. Both of them." Mum hummed, "I think some time together will do them some good, outside of just in-school football with the same kids they see every day."
"Angel will want Mary to come."
"Well, I'll have a word with her mother, too. It would be great if the three of them got along a little better."
I nodded, but I knew it wasn't going to be a solution to the problems Andy had. As much as I didn't want to upset Mum, I could tell there was something quite dark in Andy's mind. Sometimes the smallest thing just rocked him for days and it concerned me.
"I like that Connor kid, Daxx. You chose well."
A smile spread across my lips at that and I nodded in agreement. I had.
"I'm going to head up to bed, okay?" Mum smiled, "Get some rest soon, you look sleepy."
Sipping the last of her tea, she placed the empty mug to soak in the kitchen sink before heading up the stairs to bed. Running my finger along the rim of the mug absentmindedly, my mind ran riot with thoughts of Andy and Angel. Things had been getting worse for a while now, long before Mary had shown up, and not knowing how to stop it was making me feel so helpless.
Noticing the upstairs light turning off, I knew it was safe to head out now. The house seemed still with all of the lights off and it was eerie. My mind kept wandering to the looks on Angel and Andy's faces when they thought I was going to leave them and my heart clenched.
I had decided to apply to a local University, not too far away, but I knew I was going to continue living at home. With my condition, it would be too hard to live on campus, but the main reason was definitely to continue helping Mum out. Without me, I'm sure this place would fall apart.
Heading upstairs, I changed quickly into shorts and a t-shirt, slipping on some shoes and heading to the window. Looking over at Connor's house, I could have sworn I saw his curtain move, but it was probably my mind playing tricks on me.
My brain started doing that whenever I got a little too sleepy for my own good; usually when it had been a little while since I had last slept. Seeing shadows in the corner of my eye or thinking I saw flashes of light could get quite frequent.
Gazing over for a second longer, I waited to see if I was really imagining things or not. Alas, the curtain shifted slightly in the wind and I realised it was just the strong summer breeze moving the curtains and not Connor peeping through to watch me. Slight disappointment settled in my chest, but I pushed it down. We had agreed for him to stay in, so I was glad he was, but I would undoubtedly miss the company.
Making my way out of the window, I landed on my feet and breathed in deeply. Grabbing my skateboard, since it was something I didn't get to do when Connor was around, I set off. The cool, night-time summer air whipped through my hair as I skated down street after street. They were empty, of course, but they seemed more lonesome than usual. It was weird not having Connor by my side these days, running his mouth a mile a minute about any random thing.
Sure, sometimes it gave me a headache, but it was one of the things that made him so sweet. His voice was comforting and I could listen to him talk forever, even if I wasn't focusing on what he was saying; sometimes I do focus and he'd be talking about the weirdest things, so usually I tune the meanings out. One time he had a full conversation with himself about the price of toilet roll. It was strange, but sweet.
Looking up at the sky, it seemed like a particularly cloudless night and the moon was in full view.
My eyes were watering from how fast I was going and I began to feel a little dizzy from moving about so fast, so I headed to the skate park for a rest. My muscles were getting increasingly tired from all of the pushing myself about and an ache had started to form in my ribcage. I made a mental note to talk to my doctor about my lethargic symptoms the next time I saw him, since they seemed to be getting worse lately.
I had intended to bring my book on constellations with me, but had forgotten it, so I settled for leaning back against the metal ramp with just some music playing through my headphones. Turning it up loud, the piano soothed me until my side stopped aching and my muscles stopped screaming.
Without my book, it was a little hard to identify the patterns in the stars, but I tried to find a few constellations that I had memorised. The one thing that annoyed me about living in town was that I couldn't see the stars clearly. The light pollution dampened how they looked and they just weren't that bright. Soon, I wanted to take Connor on a date to the countryside to star-gaze where they could be seen in their full beauty.
Maybe I'd even buy a telescope to amp up the experience.
They were still pretty, even with the dull orange glow at the sides of the horizon from the light pollution. I truly loved stars, although I wasn't sure why I loved them so much. They were really relaxing and they also reminded me of Connor now and the first time he tagged along for one of my night trips.
A lot of things reminded me of Connor. I could barely go five minutes without him popping up in my head.
My eyes drooped and my head spun as the cool metal throbbed against my back. The cool air softly caressing my skin was relaxing and my eyes began to sting, reminding me of how little sleep I had had over the last week or so. I knew this feeling well, and I knew that I had to get home and get some sleep before I began blacking out.
Shaking my head to try and wake myself up, I jumped to my feet quickly. It was in that moment, however, that the blood rushed to my head after laying down for so long. The world tilted and my eyes rolled, un-focusing from the area around me. Whether it was my anaemia or my insomnia, I wasn't sure, but I didn't remember much after my world went black.
Other than the fact that my head hitting the bare concrete at the bottom of the ramp hurt like a motherfucker.