Post by JR on Dec 1, 2015 2:50:04 GMT -8
He doesn't know how often I watch him. My baby brother. The youngest of them. I have two others beside him, but I've never seen their faces. But this one, I know. I've watched him play his guitar while the six families and their associates mourned our dead. I sat across from him at a table, while he stared at me with angry eyes so like mine and did his very best to deny our connection. So I stick to the shadows that aren't mine, I let the wind that is carry the sound of his song from the corners and walkways where he plays to my hiding spots. I learn more about him watching him play than I would with any pointed deep question he'd refuse to answer anyway. I see that he's quiet, but there's glimpses of a man who knows how to smile or crack a joke when he thinks no one is listening. I see that h'es sad, in ways that he can't hide off his long face because the sadness goes too deeply and I'm terrified that he'll blame me for that. He does blame me for that. I could see that in the way he looked at me when he found out we share a father. A father who let his mother abandoned him when he was too little to care for himself. When he needed his parents most.
I don't know why Alistair chose to let me be raised in his life. I don't know why he didn't let the others, other than what he told me. He let their mothers decide. Why have children, if you're not going to keep them, I screamed at him the first time I found out I had four siblings. Four. I was twelve. He told me their names. Derrick. Huck. William. And Prudence. He told me there would come a time, when it was finally necessary, and we'd all come together. A decade and a half later, and I'm finally believing that the time is drawing nearer. He told me that Aurie has been on careful watch of all the children of his blood. Aurie, the pale constant in my life, the Fae who claimed she'd always be there whenever I needed her, but refused to answer any of the thousands of questions I've asked her about my brothers and sister in the past fifteen years. Typical.
So all I can do now is watch him. Will. Sneak by when he's distracted and drop money in his hat. Make sure he's safe. Nothing feels safe these days, and I'm hard pressed to wonder why. I can't pin it, this feeling, but it's there. Like a cold weight sitting on my chest and blocking my view of things I've always known. I'm confused and I'm leery and watching Will makes me feel like I have a little control over something. Maybe that doesn't make sense. But neither does fifteen years of knowing they are out there, and being unable to do a damn thing about it.
Unfortunately for Will? I'm growing tired of the shadows. He needs to know who he is. Who he has. Whether he likes it or not.
I don't know why Alistair chose to let me be raised in his life. I don't know why he didn't let the others, other than what he told me. He let their mothers decide. Why have children, if you're not going to keep them, I screamed at him the first time I found out I had four siblings. Four. I was twelve. He told me their names. Derrick. Huck. William. And Prudence. He told me there would come a time, when it was finally necessary, and we'd all come together. A decade and a half later, and I'm finally believing that the time is drawing nearer. He told me that Aurie has been on careful watch of all the children of his blood. Aurie, the pale constant in my life, the Fae who claimed she'd always be there whenever I needed her, but refused to answer any of the thousands of questions I've asked her about my brothers and sister in the past fifteen years. Typical.
So all I can do now is watch him. Will. Sneak by when he's distracted and drop money in his hat. Make sure he's safe. Nothing feels safe these days, and I'm hard pressed to wonder why. I can't pin it, this feeling, but it's there. Like a cold weight sitting on my chest and blocking my view of things I've always known. I'm confused and I'm leery and watching Will makes me feel like I have a little control over something. Maybe that doesn't make sense. But neither does fifteen years of knowing they are out there, and being unable to do a damn thing about it.
Unfortunately for Will? I'm growing tired of the shadows. He needs to know who he is. Who he has. Whether he likes it or not.