Revelations (South, Manda, Alex)

No more tears, no more pain,
No more crying in the rain.
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When she grabs my hand, I look down uncertainly, and then glance at her. Her hazel eyes mirror the uncertainty and excitement that is swirling around me, seeping through that tiny hole in the stone that encases my heart and filling me with a kind of fear that I don't exactly understand or welcome. However, through this all, I still feel so far away from her, and her hand in mine is a feeling that is familiar from our childhood but also foreign, and the ice inside of me forbids this careful connection with her. Almost gently, I slip my sweaty hand out of her cool one, allowing the icy fire to crackle just once in my eyes as I shake my head ever so slightly.

Time speeds up again quickly and the looping metal links of my bracelet jingle as I glance at the unfamiliar boy once again. The moment before the door hit the wall, I saw some sort of satisfaction in Imi's eyes. A satisfaction that neither of us is allowed to feel, because he left and things aren't supposed to be right anymore. And I feel anger and envy flare up in me momentarily as I eye the boy coldly, conveying that he isn't welcome here. This is a delicate place, like a house of cards, that is steady and still standing but ready to crumble at any moment.

I quickly make the connection that Imi has feelings for this boy, and I become tense. He is a puzzle piece that doesn't fit into the hole that Luke left, no matter how hard Imi tries to shove him into it. The light above the kitchen table flickers in a familiar way, and my eyes dart toward the counter, immediately invisioning my mother standing there, pouring milk into an empty bowl until it spills over and drips like snowy tears onto the floor. He can't see the multiple memories that haunt this room. He doesn't feel the undeniable tension in here. He doesn't know what's behind the locked door at the end of the hall. And he has no right. If he doesn't share our pain, then he doesn't deserve the be here.

I press my lips tightly together, debating how to handle this situation. I've never had feelings for a boy in the way she seems to. I don't know what it's like to actually like someone that way. I've heard it's really nice. But emotions are emotions, which I decided I wouldn't feel anymore. I eye the boy again, anger flashing once more in my hazel eyes. I know I should be careful about Imi's feelings, but I honestly can't feel sympathy for her right now. Not when she's been keeping this from me for so long. I'm about to yell about her about it when my reasons for coming back to this empty place hit me hard, and I turn back to her with a mixture of urgency and annoyance in my eyes.

"He's in the old bar we pass by on our way to school," I say quickly. "I overheard some guys talking about it on the street. They were talking about 'the Marling boy'. Imi, we have to go, and we have to go now! If we don't we might miss him!"

The idea of actually reuniting with Luke is so unreal. Like the space in our home has been there for so long that there's no way it can be filled again. Maybe, secretly, I gave up all hope of finding him a long time ago. Searching just became a habit- I didn't believe I would find him. All those wishes for him to come home were hollow. And now that it's so close, this is all starting to feel like some crazy dream. And when I wake up with Imi watching me, I'll start crying because I want so badly for it to be true. But these emotions are too real for it to be a dream, so I reach out and grip her arm, pointing with my other hand at the boy.

"Look. I don't care who he is or why he's here. I just want him out of this house. Now. He can come with us as long as he stays out of our way and keeps his mouth shut, or he can just go home. Either way, he is not staying here." My tone is in no way friendly, but I honestly don't care. I glare over at him. "Decide fast. I don't have time for this."

Is this real? Is it pretend?
I'll take a stand until the end.
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The silence that once haunted the air between us is no longer weighed down by tension or anger. Since we can no longer find words to communicate our excitement, we now just allow our emotions to flow toward the other quietly, in a way that very few would ever be able to understand. Although I'm still very alone, trapped in a place that is far away from my sister, farther from my parents, and farther still from my brother, I feel a kind of foreign warmth in my ice cold solitude. Glancing sideways at her, I wonder if she can feel it too- her dungeon, once just as cold as mine, now appears bright and warm and alive, thanks to the mysterious boy who follows (her) us now. I can detect no change in her, although it has been a long time since I have been able to read her like a book, and even longer since she has been able to read me (she thinks she has seen the chaos inside, but really she has only scratched the surface of who I am, and who I've become).

Once we've finally arrived at the door of the bar, I feel myself hesitate. I glance at Imi once more, the odd pink light of the flickering neon sign above us making her caramel colored skin glow in an unnatural sort of way. The light is reflected in her eyes, two pinpoints of bright pink in a see of hazel. Unable to read her face, I turn my head back, at the boy behind us, my words echoing in my ears. "You don't get it, do you?" Now, it seems, he is as close to understanding it all as he will get, his eyes large and round. I nod, and murmur, "Here we are."

For a moment, I am frozen. So many years of trying to find him, and hope became habit as I searched the district again and again, asking strangers for any information they might not have on him. Not even Imi knows how hard I've worked just to make sure he was okay- on occasion, I would find a person who knew of our brother but would not give up the information without money. I did so much just to make sure that our selfish brother was in decent health, and now I'm actually about to see him?

I want to feel joy. I want to feel it so badly. As I reach out and run my hand down the door, I want to feel a sort of happy excitement that makes my heart rise in my chest. I want to be smiling, and I want to feel love. When I go in, I want to know that the first thing I'm going to do when I see him is run up and hug him, talking about how I missed him. When I see him, I want my eyes to light up in a way that they haven't in years. The only thing I want to feel is excitement and happiness and love toward him, with hopes of a brighter future. I want to believe that everything is going to be okay now that I've found him.

I just want the heartache to go away.

But those feelings that I want are not there, and instead when I reach deep within myself I find rage and sorrow and fear eveloping my heart that is already made of stone. I never thought that I would ever want to feel again- after he hurt me I curled up into a ball and felt so much pain that I was willing to sacrifice anything just to not feel it anymore. But now that he's returned into my life I give myself quiet permission to allow the emotions to gently swirl around my heart, not quite touching it but close enough to feel something other than nothing. However, these emotions aren't the ones I want to feel. They are the ones I tried so hard to lock out, but now I don't dare try to push them away- after all of my running and yelling and fighting it seems that they are the only source of energy I have left.

I press my lips together, taking a deep, shakey breath, and push open the door.

And even after all these years,
I'm still crying all these tears.
Can't find myself in this broken mirror.
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Four years.

Four icy winters when the nights were too dark and the snow was too cold and there were no snowball fights filled with laughter. Four chilly springs that were wet and cloudy, but the world was melting, mocking me because the same couldn't happen to the eternal winter raging on inside of me. Four summers that were far too hot, with burning rays of sunshine that lit up a meadow that hadn't been visited in ages. Four bright, colorful autumns, when the world began to die again and the flames that lit up the trees when the sun hit those bright leaves just right mimicked the fire that could no longer start again inside of me. Four years of watching my sister drift away from me. Four years of hiding behind a mask of carelessness and a feeling a heart of stone. Four years of knowing that I was fading, fading, fading but not being able to do anything about it. And now, watching our brother dive off of the stage and trip on air in a way only Luke could, I realize something.

He wasn't even worth it.

The Luke I saw for a few moments was older. His voice was ringing out clearly in a way that I remember from such a long time ago when father would pull out his guitar and the five of us would gather around and raise our voices to join his low, strong one. After Luke left, I never heard my father sing again. As for me, I had no real reason to continue- I did not inherit my father's lovely voice. While my mother and Imi were both pretty good, my brother was always the one to steal the show when we would sit on the old worn out couch after dinner. Those memories should be warm, but instead it's like someone has burned me with something that is ice cold. Those memories were banished as far away from the dark prison my mind occupies as possible. They are filled with too much sunshine and too many butterflies and a happiness I know I will never feel again.

That moment of memories is over with as soon as it started, and I tilt my head to the side ever so slightly as I watch Luke dive into safety. Part of me knows I should be stung by this- doesn't he want to see us again?- but instead of being hurt, I feel a haunting nothingness as the ghosts of emotion vanish and I am left watching him crash into the table with a smile of cold amusement. The floor beneath me creaks as I shift my weight ever so slightly, allowing the silence to reign for just that one moment. Allowing reality to sink into him as he lays there, as helpless and hopeless as he left us. Part of me gets cruel satisfaction in the way it all hit him in that one blow- part of me wants him to feel the same pain that I felt. And suddenly, I don't want my older brother back. Because it turns out that all of that searching was a waste of my time. Here he is, healthy and obviously doing good. I should leave now. I really should.

But then another part of me shines through. The part that needs him to realize that I've been hurt and it's all his fault. I want him to know that I've been crying myself to sleep because of him. I want that guilt that turns into apologies that spill out of his lips faster than I can gather them up off the cold ground and hold them up as my empty trophies. Part of me wants to scream that he made a silent promise that he would always be there and he broke that promise, and that my heart was shattered because of him.

My steps forward are slow and easy, as casual as casual can get. Eyes that are a bit too unfocused gaze at me, a young face where a young face shouldn't be. I keep my eyes focused on him. Gradually, talk begins to start again. People know that this is not their business, though most keep one eye on us while keeping up conversations that barely make any sense. Their musical act gone, they have nothing to drown out the way that their voices are too loud and too uncertain. I don't care if my sister or her silly boyfriend are following me. I just know that my brother is in front of me, and despite what I had hoped so desperately, I am not a happy person. I finally stop right in front of him, towering over him. My eyes narrow dangerously, and I brush a lock of hair behind one ear, the sign that I'm about to start yelling.

There are so many things I should say to him, and oddly enough, I missed you and I love you are not among them. I want to call him the worst brother in the world, and tell him that he is a horrible person. I want him to realize that I looked up to him, and now I feel like I'm staring at the worst person imaginable. I want to tell him about all the horrible nightmares, including the one where I'm drowning in a river and he's refusing to help. I want to ask him if he even felt anything when he left. I want to remind him of all the promises he made but never kept, and make him understand just how much he hurt our parents. I want to hold up my wrist and make him realize that a charm bracelet could not mend the gash he left in our family. It cannot fill the emptiness in our home. It can't make the light stop flickering and the milk stop spilling. It can't make those horrible memories go away. I open my mouth to tell him all of this.

And then I sink to my knees in front of him, bury my face in my hands, and burst into tears.