TANGLED

by Simone Elise

  So I didn’t speak to him. I didn’t make eye contact. In fact, I hadn’t even really looked at him. I just walked straight to my car and he followed.

  I wasn’t going to talk to him. He had no idea what impact he had on my life and my parents when he decided to leave.

  Every birthday of mom’s I knew she waited for a card from him or a phone call. And every birthday of Ryan’s, Mom and Dad would be extra quiet.

  Even though it killed me to see pictures of Ryan throughout the house, Mum and Dad had still put them up in our new house. I hated walking up the stairs, seeing pictures of Ryan and me together.

  I lost my best friend, my brother, and my family the day he decided he didn’t want to be a part of it anymore.

  So what the hell was I meant to say to him now? How has the last five years been? I wanted to scoff. Nope. I had nothing I wanted to say to him.

  The car was silent.

  I think he finally realized I wasn’t going to speak. And I hoped he respected me enough to keep his empty words to himself.

  I heard him sigh, and out of the corner of my eye I saw him run his fingers through his black hair. Something he used to do when he was facing an awkward situation. Then I felt his eyes on me.

  “Well, you’ve grown up, Soph.” He decided that was the best line to break five years of silence.

  I ignored him.

  “Guessing the parents must be real pissed with me not to show up. I don’t blame them. Still, you didn’t have to take pity on me and bail me out.” He was speaking like my parents would actually ignore him.

  I didn’t want to say it cause I didn’t want to speak to him. I knew I had to correct the flaw in his reasoning. Mom and Dad would have been at the station bailing him out if they were in the country.

  “Mom and Dad are in Africa,” I said. I really hadn’t wanted to, but I did. “So I didn’t get a choice in picking you up or not.”

  I changed lanes, putting more focus on the road than him.

  “What, on a holiday? Mom and Dad don’t do holidays.” Ryan sounded surprised as well as interested. He knew our parents never took time to relax and a holiday would be a nightmare for them. Not helping people. Not having a purpose every morning. Yep, they would hate it.

  I glanced at him. I couldn’t stop myself. The expression on his face told me he cared. He cared where Mom and Dad were.

  “They aren’t.” I put my eyes on the road. “They do mission work.”

  Ryan was silent for a minute. “So they fly all around the world helping people?” Seemed Ryan did have some idea of what mission work was.

  “Yep.”

  “So you’d be left on your own a lot then?”

  I glanced at him with a blank expression and nodded my head.

  “When did they start the mission work? Was it not by choice? Cause Mom and Dad wouldn’t want to leave you behind.”

  I gritted my teeth. Yeah, the version of our parents, back when he was still in our life, couldn’t see Mom and Dad leaving me at all. But Ryan wasn’t factoring in they stopped being those type of parents when he left.

  I didn’t answer him. I wasn’t going to tell him that he sent our mom, the strongest, bravest, smartest woman into a depression so bad she didn’t get out of bed for a year. All she did was take pills and sleep.

  Then there was Dad, the family man, who made sure to be there for big and small events in your life. He would even turn surgeries down if that conflicted with whatever was on in our life. Then when Ryan left Dad stopped being the family man.

  He worked and worked and worked. And when he wasn’t working, he was trying to convince Mom to eat something.

  Then their relationship fell apart. Dad started sleeping in the guestroom on the rare occasion he was home. Mum wouldn’t even leave the house to get her pills, she sent our house keeper.

  So the parents Ryan was referring to died the same time he left us.

  “So how often are Mom and Dad in the country now?” Ryan was still talking about them like he actually gave a fuck.

  “A couple of months or weeks of the year,” I answered simply with no emotion. “They try to be here for holidays, but usually Christmas and Easter is when they are needed the most.”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  I glanced at Ryan, seeing his shocked expression. “What?”

  “Mom and Dad aren’t even home for Christmas and Easter? You are seriously telling me they are barely in the country? Did they forget they have a daughter!” Ryan’s words had heat to them. I think in his head he really thought Mom and Dad would have accepted him leaving their life.

  Should I give him a reality check?

  “When did this start happening?” Ryan’s words were firm. He really wanted to know.

  I looked at him, and I couldn’t stop my eyes narrowing. He couldn’t be fucking serious. Was he really that bloody dumb!

  I took my eyes off him and back onto the road. “What did you expect to happen, Ryan?” My words were cold. “You left.”

  “So what happened… I left and suddenly they headed overseas?” Ryan was trying to piece together the last five years with only limited facts.

  “Nope.” I felt the rage boiling. “First Mom went into depression for a year, didn’t get out of bed and just popped prescription pills. Mind you, she wouldn’t leave the house to get them. Our house keeper’s list of jobs went up.” I was trying to resist the urge to yell at him. “Then Dad threw himself in work, stopped coming home. And on the odd occasion he did, he slept in the guestroom.”

  I glanced at Ryan, whose face was blank of expression. “Then one day Mom got out of bed and Dad came home from work and they told me they had joined the mission. They left the following Monday and have been coming and going since.”

  I saw his fists clench. “So they just forgot they had a fucking daughter! They just left you!”

  I slowed the car down. “No.” I didn’t hold anything against my parents because I knew what they were feeling. “They were grieving a son and found a way to cope.” I pulled in the driveway and looked at Ryan. “The way they found cope didn’t include me.” I put the car in park.

  I saw the frustration in Ryan’s eyes. But what did he expect? He left our parents, causing them to fracture into pieces.

  Ryan looked me in the eye. He was about to open his mouth, but I didn’t need to hear him say the word sorry. We both knew he wouldn’t mean it.

  I opened up the glove box grabbed the envelope and handed it to him. “Mom and Dad wanted to make sure you got this.” I let go of the envelope as soon as his hand gripped it. “There are two checks in there. One from the apartment they bought you in New York. The other from a beach house they bought you.” Then my eyes landed on the house we had pulled up at. “And the titles to this house. This one Mum couldn’t bring herself to sell on your behalf. All your stuff is here.”

  I sighed and looked back at him, seeing his shocked expression.

  “They bought me houses?” He had opened the envelope. Shock wasn’t just one his face, it was in his voice.

  “One when they adopted you. One when you turned eight-teen. And another when you turned twenty-one.” The memory of Mom and Dad purchasing his house for his twenty-first ran through my mind. And then the pain on their faces when the private detective they hired told them they couldn’t find him.

  All Mom and Dad wanted was to give him money. To make sure he had money behind him. They didn’t expect him to come back to the family; they respected the fact that he wanted to lead his own life. But they wanted to make sure he had money behind him so he could follow his passions and not just have to work for the sake of it.

  “They only ever wanted to make sure you wanted for nothing. These houses are investments, to be sold when you wanted the cash. But people kept making offers. Mum and Dad had this delusion that if they sold them and got in contact with you and gave you the money you wouldn’t end up on the streets.” My hands tightened around the stirring wheel. “But they never
found you.”

  Ryan was extremely quiet. I guess if he was like any other human he would be feeling guilt right now. But this was Ryan; he didn’t give a fuck when it came to other people’s feelings. Him leaving the way he did proved that.

  “You can get out of my car now.” I wouldn’t look at him. The rage I was feeling was unhealthy and I knew if he gave me even just one excuse on why he left I’d kill him.

  Because, if he had a real reason to leave, he should have told us. Hell, if he didn’t want everyone to know he should have at least told Dad. Dad could have comforted Mom when she realized her son left, instead of hiring every person possible to find him.

  Ryan made sure not to be found.

  And he had been successful.

  “Give it back to them. I don’t want it.” Ryan dropped the envelope in my lap. “And I’ll pay you back for the bail you posted.”

  He could not be fucking serious. I was forced to look at him and he was about to get out of the car when I pressed the automatic lock button.

  “You have hurt them enough. Don’t you dare insult them again.” I couldn’t stop the anger I was feeling from creeping across my face. “You have dragged them through mud. You wanted out of their life. Fine, you got it. But they never let you leave their life. They fucking hoped and prayed you would come back.”

  I was so angry. The word angry didn’t even cover what I felt right now. “You really think that not taking their money will prove something? Like you are too good for them? All they ever did was love you and how do you repay them? Fuck off as soon as they weren’t legally responsible for you. You may have stopped loving them the day you left, but they didn’t stop loving you.”

  I threw the envelope back at him. “You know I used to imagine what our first conversation would be like when you came back. Then after a few years I stopped because I never wanted to fucking see you again. So take the money and get the fuck out of my car.” I unlocked the car. I wanted him gone. Out of my car. And back out of my life.

  I was so upset, so furious that I couldn’t stop the tears if I wanted to. He never understood how much I depended on him. How much I loved him. How much I needed him. How I needed him in my life. He was my best friend. He was my brother.

  And he left.

  When it came down to it, it was his fault that I was so hurt over Kyle. Losing Kyle reminded me of losing Ryan. I had been fooled again. Ryan said he would always be with me. He left. Kyle said he would always be there. He left.

  “Soph.” Ryan’s hand went to my knee. I didn’t want him touching me. I wanted him gone.

  “Just fuck off, Ryan. Don’t take these tears as sadness.” I pushed his hand off me. The sooner he left, the sooner I could forget he existed.

  “No.”

  My head snapped towards him. “I said fuck off. You fuck off.” I spoke very clearly. “I paid your bail. I’ll call the judge and get the charges dropped. All I am asking in return is for you to fuck off.”

  The hate in my voice was clear but also was the pain. The pain he caused me. The pain I felt every time I looked at a photo. The never-ending pain, when it came to him.

  He still wasn’t leaving. And I couldn’t keep myself together much longer.

  “Please, Ryan, just leave.” My tears were flowing down my cheeks. I was so used to crying these days. Usually over Kyle though. I had stopped crying over Ryan a long time ago. But it looked like, when it came to it, I still had tears left for him.

  He looked like he was in pain himself. I didn’t understand why. He left. Not me. His fingers ran across my cheek.

  “Please don’t cry Soph. You know I hate it.” His leaned in closer to me. “I never wanted you to cry over me.”

  I scoffed. “What the hell did you expect, Ryan! You were my brother. There one minute, gone forever the next! You didn’t even say goodbye!” I pushed his fingers off my face. I didn’t need him to comfort me. Well, I did need him too—years ago. “You wanted out of our family. You got it.” My words were bitter and covered in hurt. “Stay in the house. Don’t stay in the house. Cash the checks. Burn the checks. Just do whatever you want.”

  Because when it came down to it, Ryan always did what he wanted.

  He sat back in the car seat, looking like he wasn’t getting out.

  “You moved,” he said firmly. “All your numbers changed. Mom and Dad weren’t at the hospital anymore. I tried ok, Soph. Every one of your birthday’s I tried to reach out for you. But I couldn’t find you.” He turned and looked at me, honesty painted on his face. “You think I didn’t hate myself every time I couldn’t find you? Every time your birthday came, every Christmas, every Easter, I hated myself a bit more. Cause I knew I was letting you down.”

  I couldn’t believe what he was saying, so I just stared at him. Silently the tears rolled down my cheeks.

  “On your eighteenth I drank myself into a fucking coma. I knew I had let you down. More on that day than any other because we had plans. I remember every detail of what we had planned.” His eyes were locked on mine, and I saw his pain—actual pain. “I made promises to you, and on that day I knew my time to make it up to you was over. You wouldn’t need a brother anymore.” His eyes dropped to the envelope. “I failed you, Soph. And I am sorry. But I can’t make up for five years of broken promises to you. I’m not that stupid to even try.”

  I nodded my head. He was right. He couldn’t make up for being absent for five years.

  “The last conversation we had was about you starting high school.” He looking me in the paused. “I always wanted to know how that went. I guess you most likely don’t remember it. You would be in your final year now, right?”

  I just blinked, tears dropping down. I remembered my first day of high school really well. It had burnt a permeant memory in my brain. I opened my mouth and I wasn’t sure if I was making a mistake by telling him.

  “Mom hadn’t got out of bed for months. She wouldn’t have known if I went or not. Dad forgot, which I understood because he hadn’t been home for a week. So why would he come home for my first day. I walked the hour to school, in the rain. When I got there, I didn’t have textbooks.” But that wasn’t what I remembered the most. “Mom and Dad forgot to pay my tuition, so I wasn’t officially enrolled. I ended up paying my tuition with my credit card. And Uncle Kane came and signed the papers.”

  Ryan looked speechless. He opened his mouth and then closed it, like he didn’t know what to say. He was most likely thinking how unbelievable it was that Uncle Kane was sober enough to do anything involving paperwork.

  “I don’t know what to say. I just can’t believe Mom and Dad would do that.”

  I shrugged. “Wasn’t a big deal. It turned out alright. For that year Uncle Kane took care of me.”

  “Are we talking about the same Uncle Kane? The alcoholic?” Ryan looked at me with disbelief.

  I nodded my head. “He basically took care of me when he realized how messed up Mom and Dad were. He stopped drinking to the point of passing out. He used to have a ‘Soph limit,’ he called it, where he would drink a certain amount and stop in case I needed him.” I opened the compartment in the middle and pulled out a photo that I kept in the car and handed it to Ryan. “That was the opening of his first bar. It’s called Sophia’s.” I smiled just slightly remembering that night. “He has made it into a chain now and he has bars up and down the coast. Still bartends at that one though.”

  Ryan was staring down at the picture. “When was this taken?”

  “I was fifteen.” I remembered it clearly. “Mom and Dad never made it. Dad was working and Mom wouldn’t get out of bed.” Those two facts didn’t change for a full year. Dad was always at work. Mum was always in bed.

  And Uncle Kane went from the no-good alcoholic to the only family member I had. Uncle Kane thought it was best that Nana and Grandad didn’t know how Dad was coping. He always decided not to tell my other grandparents that Mom, their daughter, was battling depression.

  Mom hated anyone se
eing her weak. So I understood why Uncle Kane made sure that my parent’s behavior was kept to ourselves.

  “I really fucked them up didn’t I?” Ryan’s words were coated in disbelief. “I thought they would be ok. I thought, they would be relieved not having to pay for my university or my way in life anymore.”

  I frowned. “You were taking a gap year? You weren’t heading to university.”

  He scoffed. “Yeah, exactly, as if they would ever want their son not striving to make a career.”

  “They bought you a year tour of Europe,” I said the words and his eyes snapped off the picture and on to me. I smiled. “You were meant to leave the following week.”

  “They were actually going to let me go overseas?” He sounded so shocked.

  I shrugged my shoulders. “You know all they ever did was support you. I think Mom was counting on you being a drummer. They just wanted you happy. Didn’t care what you did.” I took the photo off him. “Anyway, you didn’t want that.” My eyes ran over the picture and then I put it back in the compartment. “I should go.”

  It was late, and I knew once he got out of this car he would disappear from my life again.

  “Don’t.”

  My eyes snapped to him and I frowned. “Don’t what?”

  “Don’t go.”

  I was puzzled for a minute. Was Ryan seriously asking me not to leave? I couldn’t believe it. Ryan had lived the last five years making sure we weren’t a part of his life, and now he was asking me to stay?

  I just stared at him. I don’t know what was more shockin: him wanting to spend time with me, or that I was actually thinking of going inside.

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Soph

  I wiped the tears away but they just kept falling. It was a song. A stupid fucking song! That was all it took for me to come this blubbering mess.

  I can’t believe a song could get this reaction out of me. It wasn’t just any song. It had a memory attached to it. A memory with Kyle. I thought after all this time I had fixed myself—you know, got myself together to the point I was over him. But just hearing that song reminded me I was so far from being back together.