Letting Go - 21. Chapter 21

Hayden sat in the taxi next to her baby brother, her heart was filled with sorrow, uncertainty, fear and pride for Keith, all the ingredients forged a cold dagger piercing through her heart, causing ever more pain she had always felt for her brother. A special piece of memory from six years ago managed to sneak into her brain, and the image made her cringe.

 

*

 

“I HAVE HAD ENOUGH!” Hayden screamed at her parents in their living room, the fight that day had lasted for hours, and none of them could even remember how it had gotten started, argument danced grandly on this modern stage, and fed upon words that seemed to be brewed by artful devil.

 

“Your father and I are in a hurry, if you had even a slight sense of appropriateness you would know better than to throw your childish tantrum. If you cannot even handle your own argument well, Hayden, I seriously doubt how Independent you can be, and I bet your father would certainly agree with me. The fact that you decided to start this hideous argument right before our departure to Paris clearly showed your lack of prudence...”

 

“YOU ARE NEVER IN THE HOUSE!” Hayden screamed at her mother, her mother’s tone of indifference infuriated her even more.

 

“If that is the own way you could broadcast your opinions by raising your voice, I don’t see how you can ever make a success in journalism. We have a flight to catch, so we could talk after we come back in a few days, and I hope till then you would be able to talk less like a girl from countryside. Goodbye, and goodbye Keith.”

 

Hayden stormed to her room before her mom finished her sentence , and slammed the door close. “With that attitude, she might as well be alone.” Her mom’s voice squeezed its way in the room through the door, Hayden felt her head would explode if she heard another word from her mom, the urge to scream tried to rip her ribcage open, but she did not want to give his parents the satisfaction so she resisted it. Same urge wanted her to kick the furniture violently, to smash the vase into piece, to break anything she could reach. She resisted them all. No books were torn open, no glasses were smashed, nothing was broken in the room, but the screaming in her head was doing the damage from inside.

 

She couldn’t think, she could not allow herself to think, so she torn open her suitcase, and started throwing her cloth in, she didn’t care how wrinkled the cloth would be, she just wanted to get out of this place.

 

There was a knock on the door, but she did not bother to answer, a moment later Keith pushed in, he stood next to the door, looking at her packing violently.

 

“But you don’t need to leave.” Keith’s voice was weak. the sound of the elevator from the living room signaled his parent’s leave.

 

“I have to,” Hayden did not look at Keith and scurried in her room as if collecting valuable things in a fire. “I can’t take them anymore, they are ignorant, impossible to talk to, and take every chance to put you down. This is toxic, I can’t take it any longer, I should have done it long time ago, I only regret I didn’t make up my mind earlier. I am leaving!”

 

“And leave me?” Keith’s voice was still weak.

 

“Please, Keith, don’t try to guilt me,” Hayden still did not look at Keith, “You know what I am talking about, I will suffocate to death were I to stay here any longer. Just imagine talking to them again, argh!”

 

Hayden continued packing up her things, for a long time it was silent, eventually she looked up and the door was empty, Keith was already gone. Hayden paused for one second, all the energy seemed to be leaving her, finally she collapsed on her bed and sobbed under the pillow.

 

*

 

Keith stared out of the window in the taxi, he hadn’t said a word since they had left the apartment to Elliot’s place. Hayden sat silently, holding on her brother’s hand, for the first time she realized how much pain Keith was hiding when he had said to her “And leave me?”, the anger had blinded her, and she was not able to hear the hidden cry behind those words.

 

Unlike her brother, Hayden had been a very misbehaving girl while she was young, she had started drinking while she was twelve, and smoked joints soon after, there had been many times when Albert had to pick her up through drunk phone calls from her friend’s supposedly slumber party when the parents were out of town, and shops reporting her stealing small inexpensive items, those charges were never reported to the police due to her parent’s skillful way of closing such small cases.

 

At first Hayden did all these things hoping to gain her parent’s attention, but soon the hopes for attention became actions of revenge, but it had made little changes to the level of engagement from her parents to either her or her brother. Gradually the actions of revenge became ways of avoidance.

 

Even though she was Keith’s older sister, in reality Keith was more like her big brother. He had always tried to take care of her, hide her track from their parents, picking her up from clubs no matter how far it was, he had tried to convince her to give up the old style of life, it was not worth it to feed their parents’ satisfaction that she was just a rotten seed unable to grow into a tree. Eventually Hayden had gotten around and started to tidy up her life for a new direction. She knew without Keith’s support she would never have made it, and she could see that Keith had become happier himself, when they were together, it almost felt as if they had a happy family.

 

“And leave me?”.

 

Tears were swelling up in Hayden’s eyes, she had abandoned Keith to go to Stockholm, she had been his only family, and she had left him. How could she have been so ignorant and selfish? She had not been only packing up her life to move to Stockholm, she had packed Keith’s life as well, and taken it away from him.

 

She knew Keith had been a lonely boy, but he had the heart of an angel, an broken angel. Hayden imagined her brother saying those three words again at her door, her tears dropped on her lap, and she squeezed her brother’s hand tighter.

 

Keith turned from the window and looked at Hayden, surprised to find her sister crying, but then thought she must be sad about Elliot. He said nothing because he had no word to comfort her. He always felt responsible at her sister’s discomforts, but not this time, this time he couldn’t, he was not able to.

 

“I am sorry.” Hayden rested her head on Keith’s shoulder and sobbed.

 

Keith felt a suffocating lump in his throat was rising up, it was natural for him to comfort her sister in occasions of her tears, it was an automatic reaction which had been adopted by him since he was little. Being able to take care of his big sister made little Keith feel his life had a purpose, that he mattered to somebody, and that his living had a meaning.

 

Even though Keith would be too proud to admit it, but Hayden knew how preciously Keith hold onto the people he cared about. He couldn’t afford losing them, those who made Keith feel like home. Keith had always been cautious with falling in love, or getting himself engaged with any person, when he finally was brave enough to make an exception for Elliot... Hayden was not religious, but if she were, she would be cursing whatever God it was up there.

 

Hayden silently dapped her eyes with her sleeve, her head still rested on Keith’s shoulder. Keith returned to his blank gaze outside of the window.

 

“I can’t lose you. I can’t lose you again.” Keith closed his eyes, for some reason, he thought about Elliot and his story with Jasper.