Page 39 of Drowned In Silence

He slips between the trees and I follow him with my eyes and the point of my knife. When he trips and falls onto his stomach, I pounce. I land on top of him, pinning his body down with mine.

I grab his hair in one hand and lay my blade against his throat.

“Speak,” I growl at him, forcing him to gulp. I can feel it beneath my blade, I can feel how terrified he is of me at this moment.

“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! I didn’t know how to tell you! You’ve been adamant for so long about finding the girl and you wouldn’t listen to anything I’ve ever said! I tried to get you to not go to that town, but you wouldn’t listen,” he sobs uncontrollably.

“You lied to me, Spencer,” I whisper, bending down to talk in his ear. “You kept this from me for so long.”

“Please, Elliot! You’re still my brother. I have been okay with whatever you do for this entire time. Don’t kill me. Don’t lose the rest of your family, too,” he pleads.

“Family?! You want to talk about family?!” I move the blade so it nicks his throat, letting the tiniest bit of blood seep out. “You had all this time to tell me the truth about her! You all did! No one told me that me and Dynah are fuckingstep-siblings!”

“I’m sorry, Elliot! Truly!” He wiggles around beneath me, trying to flip himself over to look at me.

I allow him, only so I can see his eyes and see the fear he holds within them. Eyes are the pathways to the soul. If he isreally remorseful and sorry, then I will try and forgive him. Family or not, Spencer has been by my side for my entire life and I don’t want to lose him. Even though he has been keeping this secret from me.

When we lock eyes, I can see inside his mind. He really is upset. He looks at me pathetically, sniffling, and still crying.

“I love you as my brother. I’m sorry I didn’t say anything,” he whispers to me.

I release my blade that found its way back to his throat, and stand up slowly. I tuck the knife back into my pocket and run my fingers through my hair.

“I’m not forgiving you yet. Tell me more. How can the man who walked out on my mom, be the same fucking guy that raised her?”

“Well… Uhm,” he starts, sitting up and leaning on his forearms, watching me walk back and forth between the trees. “From what I know, your mom left him when he started beating both of you when you were just a baby. After your mom died, you went to live with him and his new wife for a few weeks before my parents filed for adoption or some shit. That’s how the picture ended up with you. My mom took it the day we got you home, but she never let you have it. She hid it in the attic, but you found it first. I’m so sorry, Elliot. I really am. If we would have kept more of an eye on Dynah, we probably would have adopted her too, but the piece of shit shut our parents out. After we took you in, he lost contact and forced his new wife– Dynah’s mom– to move. I only knew the town she was living in, nothing more.”

I pull my hair from my scalp, letting the pain help control my anger.

“She’s my step-sister, Spencer. I’ve been fucking with mystep-sister!”

“I know…” He says, looking down at his lap, lost in thought.

“She can’t know. Not yet. She’s still broken,” I mutter to myself. Spencer agrees and I allow him to get up on his feet.

We walk back to the house, and pray that Dynah didn’t follow us. I can’t have her knowing. I can’t have her finding out the truth.

My step-sister…

Scarlet

Dynah- Flashback

The knife feels weirdin my hands as I lay on my bed twirling it around above me. I’m kicked back, my feet are on the wall I usually rest my back on, and my head is where my ass is supposed to be.

I have no idea what time it is, but I hear my parents sleeping in their room.

After the last man left, I snuck out while my parents were downstairs and went exploring in their room. I found a lot of things, but this was the only one I wanted to keep.

A small black pocket knife with a steel blade. It’s not rusted, and it's very sharp. I don’t know who it belongs to, but I don’t think anyone will miss it. I toss it back and forth between my hands, feeling the coldness of the metal. Most people use knives to open things like packages, but I can’t help but wonder if it will open things like me…

I want to feel the pain. I need to know that I’m still alive and this isn’t a dream. It’s been so long that I’ve felt like I’ve died– felt underwater. Like everything is clouded by someone else’s judgement. It’s time I find my own. It’s time that I try to figure out what my life is really about.

I sit up suddenly, my feet falling away from the wall and crossing underneath myself. I can’t let Father know I’m the one who did this. If he thinks a man did this to me, he’d laugh, but if he thinks I did it, then he will beat me black and blue.

Fuck it.

I pull up my pant leg until I can see the skin on my thigh. Bruises cover the surface, but they don’t belong to me. They may be on my skin, but I didn’t do it. They belong to the other people who have hurt me. It’s their memories, not mine. I need one of my own.