He gave a quiet laugh, but it didn’t sound right. “Yeah, I know.” He motioned to the door. “Go read a book or something.”
I was still unsure, but he looked like he needed to be alone. So I stood and said, “Don’t leave me, Xander. I mean it. Don’t you ever leave me.”
I waited for his response, but he said nothing. He just walked back to his desk and sat down.
“Please,” I whispered.
Still, nothing.
With my shoulders heavy, I turned and walked to the door.
My eyes snapped open, and I struggled to draw in breath.
Tears fell in torrents, thick and unrelenting, stealing the breath from my lungs.
Memories surged through me like waves in a storm—sharp, vivid, merciless—though I was wide awake.
Every moment replayed in sharp detail, moments I’d fought so hard to bury now breaking through my defenses.
My mind had reached its breaking point; it could no longer hold them back.
Xander’s bruised face appeared as if he stood right before me, playing behind my closed eyelids like a haunting film. I lay frozen on the bed, trapped and powerless, forced to relive everything whether I wanted to or not.
Iwatched Xander deteriorate right before my eyes.
I saw how broken he was, how he had slowly given up.
He was resigned to a fate where escape felt impossible.
Every day, I watched him shrink into himself, curling inward even as he kept moving forward.
He spoke less. He ate less. He moved less.
And my parents saw it too, surely, but they turned away.
Xander didn’t even argue anymore. He stayed silent when Father demanded to know if he’d improved his grades. Father knew the demand was impossible, but he kept pressing just to break him down.
It was two days before the final report card was due, and nothing anyone could do would alter what was to come.
Xander got two Bs on his final tests, which pulled his overall grades down even further.
But how could that possibly be awful? His grades were still higher than most students’.
I tried to talk to him, but he just gave me a faint smile and said nothing.
I knew he was anxious, counting down the days. I couldn’t begin to imagine what that felt like—knowing exactly what wascoming. I was certain Father knew it too, and that was why he kept punishing Xander.
Mother should’ve said something. Done something. She should’ve protected her own son.
But she was too afraid of Father, too weak to stand up to him. Her own survival mattered more than ours.
That night, my parents weren’t home yet, still at the hospital, coming home late as usual.
Xander was in his room, and I was in mine.
I sat on the edge of my bed, tense, straining to hear any sound from his side of the wall. But there was nothing.
It had been that way since he got back from school an hour ago.
