but he wasnt trying to let it fall apart, Kevin's POV, R
Title: But He Wasn't Trying To Let It Fall Apart
Author: Politelypuzzled
Rating: R, Rape, Incest, Sad things and language
Pairing: Joick, Onesided Kevinick, Kevin's POV
Word Count: 13,197
Dedication: Goodbye Nikki, Goodbye Jess, Hello Misery, I'll welcome my new guest
Summary: And Mercutio watched with sad, sad eyes, as Romeo and Juliet decided to die
Companion piece to He Was The Most Beautiful Tragedy Of All and He Never Told You What Made Him So Sad...please read those before this one, its important. Cross posted to JSlash, but i posted the others here so I want to make sure they're all on here.
a/n:Gotta say this is my favorite section of this series or whatever you want to call it. Worked really hard on it and am quite proud of how it turned out. The abuse factor needs three sides, the boys just work that way :D
Let me know what you think
Peace
--
You are the oldest, the protector, the saint.
You think you’ve only ever been a sinner.
You failed your bothers; your mother; your family
You failed God
You failed yourself
You sat back and watched as everything fell apart and you could have stopped it
Or at least that’s what you keep telling yourself
You don’t really think it makes a difference now
--
You remember the first time you saw Joseph; small and pink, he wailed in your mother’s arms. His mouth this tiny “O” as he cried and cried and you thought that maybe that was all he could do but your mom was smiling, in all her exhausted glory and your dad looked so proud that you wondered what made this little wiggly pile of blankets so special. But when Daddy plopped you down on that hospital bed and you squirmed your way into Mommy’s lap and you got a good look at your new baby brother, you smiled so wide that your cheeks hurt.
The best part was that he smiled right back.
You think it was then that you decided you wouldn’t let anything touch him. Ever.
Too bad you broke that promise
--
Joseph gets bigger and you guys are close, best friends probably and you like chasing him around the house and coloring on things you aren’t supposed to and how he laughs and claps in delight whenever you get in trouble and the days are long and full of smiles and warmth and feeling safe.
You call him Broseph and he tugs on your curls and calls you
Paul cause he can’t say Kevin yet but you don’t mind cause he’ll get it eventually. Mommy’s tummy starts to get big again and when you find out it’s cause you're going to be getting another brother or sister, you’re so excited because you love Joseph so much and you think it will be awesome for him to feel that love for someone else besides you and Mommy and Daddy.
Joseph doesn’t seem to feel the same way, until you show him that how if he closes his eyes and presses his ear against Mommy’s stomach, that sometimes you can feel the new baby kicking, or better yet, its heartbeat. After you teach him that, he can’t wait to meet “Da pest” because he wants to show them all the things you showed him and three is always better than two anyway so even though you feel a little jealous, you know it’s going to be fun.
Nicholas has curls and big dark eyes and you don’t know who loves him more; you or Joseph.
You don’t think it really matters
--
In your life, you always felt that there were times where you just sat back and watched from the sidelines. You like to tell yourself that you were always right there, right up front, but if you’re completely honest; that’s not true.
--
You’re nine when you start to think that Nicholas is replacing you in Joseph’s heart. You can see it in the way he laughs and smiles and plays with Nicholas. It’s like how you used to be. When you ask if he wants to climb the tree in the backyard with you, he doesn’t even look up from the tower he’s building with Nicholas as he tells you that he can’t because “Nicky-las can’t climb trees” and it would be “unfair”.
The “prince of unfair tantrums” has just pulled a fast one over on you and you feel kind of numb with it. You stumble out to the orchard and refuse to come down even though Mom made your favorite-spaghetti and meatballs-because it was your birthday. But that doesn’t matter because Joseph didn’t remember and Nicholas can’t even count so fine, you’ll stay up in this tree and rot for all you care.
You wonder if your brothers would notice.
--
You like Craig and maybe a part of you is jealous when he goes upstairs with just Joey and how he’s always telling Joseph how different and pretty he is from everyone else and the look in Joseph’s eyes confuses you for a while cause he should be ecstatic about the fact that this totallyawesomebigkid pays him all the attention.
But one night, after Nicholas has fallen asleep on the couch and you kind of smashed your finger unloading the dishwasher and need a band aid, you try to open the bathroom door but it’s locked and you wouldn’t really think anything of it but you can hear muffled crying and whispers on the other side and you’re a bit sneaky-you are related to Joseph after all-so you look through the key hole and at first you don’t understand.
Craig is touching Joseph and Joseph is crying; his face all red and snot running down his chin and he’s only eight and you don’t comprehend it at all. What kind of game is this? If it’s making Joseph cry than you defiantly don’t want to play and you scurry away and pet Nicholas’s head while he sleeps on the couch and think about what you just saw.
You decide that it’s too late to help Joseph and that you should just focus on protecting Nicholas.
Yeah, that seems like a good idea
You think Joseph would agree
--
You’re thirteen when Nicholas starts performing on Broadway and Joseph starts telling everyone to call him “Joe” because he hates “Joseph”.
You think you're the only one that knows he’s not talking about the name
Dad has to drive Nicholas down to “The Big Apple” most nights and sometimes they just rent a hotel room or stay with Nana, so you don’t see a lot of Nicholas for a little over a year and you and Joe argue about how unfair it is that Nicholas doesn’t have to go to school but you two do.
Mom just shakes her head at you both and makes you go across the street to play with Maya while she takes care of Franklin.
Franklin is your youngest brother now. Nicholas is no longer the baby and you think that maybe now, you and Joe can go back to being best friends cause Nicholas will have Franklin, whenever he’s around anyway.
But Joe still isn’t really talking to you and that’s stupid cause he’s the only other person in the house whose willing to climb trees and run down by the old creek and throw rocks at passing cars.
You don’t tell him, but you kind of wish that Franklin had been born a girl. You wish this because maybe she would have been prettier than Joe and Joe would be able to stop acting like sucha jerk all the time, just to prove he isn’t a wimp or anything.
You know girls make him sing at school and that a lot of the other boys beat him up and you know that Craig still “plays games” with him in the upstairs bathroom and it makes you sick.
Because you’re older now and you kind of know what all that touching means and you hate Craig; you hate him so much, but you cant do anything. Because you’re just a thirteen-year-old wallflower, oddball, preacher’s boy with curly hair and a brother on Broadway and another brother who gets called names like “faggot” and “homo” on the playground.
You start to wonder if anyone will remember you
For anything
--
You go to middle school and leave Joe and Nicholas back in elementary school. Mom talks about home schooling all of you but you’re in seventh grade and only babies are home schooled. You tell her she can have Joe and Nicholas.
They’re best friends anyway; they’d probably like that.
Plus, you’re kind of popular in school now. You open doors for people and remember your manners and know how to talk to girls and everyone’s impressed with you. You get good grades and hang out with the right people and you’re parents are proud of you. You keep playing the guitar and even write some of your own songs-when you’re not at the skate park or over walking the train tracks with some of the guys in your class-and sometimes Joe and Nicholas will harmonize with you, just for fun.
And Nicholas, who’s starting to go by “Nick”, is really good, like scarily good and he’s playing all sorts of instruments and working on songs and singing and suddenly all the attention is back on him and you and Joe get reacquainted with the shadows.
You kind of knew you’d get back there some day
It’s funny how things pick up from that point on
--
Nick gets diagnosed around the same time you guys “make it big”. Which really isn’t that big at all.
You’re eighteen and everything about your life is still one big joke. At least you and Joe are close again; even if he still manages to be closer to Nick in the process
Maybe too close
The thing with Nick’s diabetes is that, at one point, you seriously think he’s going to die and so does Joe and he clings to you, like a five year old, not a sixteen year old, and sobs into your shoulder in the waiting room. The red plastic chairs are hard and cut into your side as you hold onto your brother.
He has tears streaming down his cheeks and snot dripping from his nose
You’re looking at him through the bathroom keyhole all over again
You hug him tighter to you
You think you’re trying to make up for all the other times you didn’t do this
Didn’t “do” the right thing
Nick doesn’t die and you all learn the meaning of “Insulin” and “Blood sugar levels” and “What to do if he goes into diabetic shock”. It’s scary at first but you get the hang of it. Joe even checks levels with Nick every morning, until he realizes that maybe his coming up “normal” every time, isn’t helping Nick feel any better.
Nick says it stops hurting after about a month
You want that to be a lie
Pain is what makes you human
--
You only take Joe to that party because you want him to have a good time, because you hate all the strain that this stupid Columbia Records shit is putting on all of you guys and Joe especially. So you talk him into tagging along and you drape an arm across his shoulders and he leans into when you guys walk there and it’s nice.
Like it hasn’t been in a long, long time
When you get there, it’s all loud music and pot smoke and beer and rowdy laughing and you can’t help the lazy grin that works its way across your face. Because for once in your life you’re the one showing Joe what “cool” is.
You don’t drink cause alcohol makes you sick and you’d just rather not be high, but you let Joe take some cause you’re not an ass and he has a right to experiment if he wants.
You go to get a soda and when you come back, no one really know where he is and so you brush it off cause hey, kids will be kids, and it’s fine if Joe wants to do his own thing.
That’s what you brought him here for in the first place
You’re making out with this girl from your Economics class when Craig comes swaggering into the living room and you kind of feel really hot and then really cold all over because what the fuck is he doing here and did he see Joe? and he smiles all wide at you, all predatory and gross and you can’t help it.
You punch him right in the stupid dumb face
Cause he’s an asshole whose been molesting your brother since Joe was eight and you never did a thing to stop it
It makes you as sick as him in your book
Someone’s screaming at you to stop and then you’re being pulled off Craig’s limp form, and wow, you never knew you had it in you to knock someone out but it feels fuckin good so you add another kick for good measure. Your friends are all staring at you in this openly, drunkenly shocked kind of way but that doesn’t really matter because you need to find Joe and leave. Now.
You brush back your hair-Joe helped you straighten it earlier-and stalk out of there. You find Joe curled up in a ball in some bedroom upstairs and his pants are undone and his shirts kind of ripped and he looks so damn young that you have to hate Craig all over again.
And yourself too
“Come on, let’s go,” You mutter darkly and lean in the doorway while he gets up and straightens himself out. You don’t help because Joe isn’t weak and you don’t want him thinking he is. You cup your hand on the back of his neck when he passes but he brushes you off
It takes everything you’ve got not to hug him
Not to ask him why he’s limping
It’s better if he hates you
Even if it kills you in the process
--
You watch Joe die and you watch him kill Nick in the aftermath
You allow it because it’s already your fault
You weren’t strong enough to stop it and you weren’t present enough to notice when it matter so why start now?
You suspect what Joe does to Nick in the dark. When he doesn’t think anyone can hear, when he thinks the night will hide all of his dirty little secrets; but you can hear them, and you can see the bruises on Nick’s wrists and the dull grey of Joe’s eyes. You can feel each wince Nick takes when Joe touches him and you shed each tear Joe swallows when he pounds his fist into the bathroom wall
They aren’t your brothers anymore
These are ghosts
You try and keep on breathing for them
It doesn’t really work
--
The music is the only thing you live for anymore
All of you
On the stage, no one can touch you and you can’t touch anyone
You’re brothers up here, in the glaring lights and cool affects. You’re gods of a sort and happy too. It feels right. The adrenaline and bass and screams; all of it.
You wish you could just live up there. Until someone told you to stop or until you just all collapsed from the strain
It would be better than the silent death descending upon you now
--
When you find Nick, drunk and alone, on your old Jersey street corner, your heart breaks all over again
You didn’t really think that was possible, since your heart shattered so long ago
He looks so lost, so young, so venerable
You always wanted nothing more than to give him the world and instead you fed him to the wolves. The ones you raised yourself.
You’re as guilty as a sin
He looks at you, with wide desperate eyes and maybe that why you let him kiss you. Maybe that’s why you let him tug you so much closer that what’s appropriate and you think your mind is screaming about how wrong this is but it’s Nick, little Nicholas, and you’ve never been able to deny him anything and he’s just hurting so much. You want to fix it; you want everything to be okay
Even if it is a little too late
Nick laughs when you break apart; this terrifying, chocking kind of laughter that sends shivers up your spine because it’s not him. It’s dead and cold and hysterical and you know he’s broken.
You all are really
And you don’t think there’s enough glue in the world to put you back together
--
You’re a witness the night Nick fights back
You lean on the wall by the bathroom door and close your eyes and pray to a God who doesn’t listen, for this to not be happening. You ask over and over again to wakeupwakeupwakeup and have dreamt the past 12 years of your life but that’s not possible and you know it
You hear them arguing, in low harsh tones because Mom and Dad are only on the other side of the house and Franklin’s room is just right down the hall and for all they know, you’re out with Danielle
You haven’t been out with Danielle in ages
Because you’re horrible and deserve to be alone and miserable
Like your brothers
You hear a grunt and a cut off cry and you can’t help it anymore
You have to look; you can’t pretend this isn’t happening
You already know what you’re going to see
Doesn’t make it any less painful
You want to throw up and you want to hit them at the same time. You just stare instead. Nick, darling sweet Nicholas, is crushing Joe, insanely funny Joseph between the wall and his body and they’re tangled at ugly angles.
You want to close your eyes but you watch-mesmerized, like a person observing a car crash-as Nicholas whispers vicious little secrets into Joseph’s ear, things that make him shudder and arch back before painting the wall with white. You watch Nicholas wilt and Joseph crumple and you turn away at last because you feel just as dirty.
Just as ugly and raw
You make it halfway down the hall before you have to stop because the weight of guilt is crashing down around you. You sink to the ground, back pressed up against the wall and sob into your hands because this is your fault
All your fault
And you’re going to have to live with it forever
You wish that at least, you were happy about it
Author: Politelypuzzled
Rating: R, Rape, Incest, Sad things and language
Pairing: Joick, Onesided Kevinick, Kevin's POV
Word Count: 13,197
Dedication: Goodbye Nikki, Goodbye Jess, Hello Misery, I'll welcome my new guest
Summary: And Mercutio watched with sad, sad eyes, as Romeo and Juliet decided to die
Companion piece to He Was The Most Beautiful Tragedy Of All and He Never Told You What Made Him So Sad...please read those before this one, its important. Cross posted to JSlash, but i posted the others here so I want to make sure they're all on here.
a/n:Gotta say this is my favorite section of this series or whatever you want to call it. Worked really hard on it and am quite proud of how it turned out. The abuse factor needs three sides, the boys just work that way :D
Let me know what you think
Peace
--
You are the oldest, the protector, the saint.
You think you’ve only ever been a sinner.
You failed your bothers; your mother; your family
You failed God
You failed yourself
You sat back and watched as everything fell apart and you could have stopped it
Or at least that’s what you keep telling yourself
You don’t really think it makes a difference now
--
You remember the first time you saw Joseph; small and pink, he wailed in your mother’s arms. His mouth this tiny “O” as he cried and cried and you thought that maybe that was all he could do but your mom was smiling, in all her exhausted glory and your dad looked so proud that you wondered what made this little wiggly pile of blankets so special. But when Daddy plopped you down on that hospital bed and you squirmed your way into Mommy’s lap and you got a good look at your new baby brother, you smiled so wide that your cheeks hurt.
The best part was that he smiled right back.
You think it was then that you decided you wouldn’t let anything touch him. Ever.
Too bad you broke that promise
--
Joseph gets bigger and you guys are close, best friends probably and you like chasing him around the house and coloring on things you aren’t supposed to and how he laughs and claps in delight whenever you get in trouble and the days are long and full of smiles and warmth and feeling safe.
You call him Broseph and he tugs on your curls and calls you
Paul cause he can’t say Kevin yet but you don’t mind cause he’ll get it eventually. Mommy’s tummy starts to get big again and when you find out it’s cause you're going to be getting another brother or sister, you’re so excited because you love Joseph so much and you think it will be awesome for him to feel that love for someone else besides you and Mommy and Daddy.
Joseph doesn’t seem to feel the same way, until you show him that how if he closes his eyes and presses his ear against Mommy’s stomach, that sometimes you can feel the new baby kicking, or better yet, its heartbeat. After you teach him that, he can’t wait to meet “Da pest” because he wants to show them all the things you showed him and three is always better than two anyway so even though you feel a little jealous, you know it’s going to be fun.
Nicholas has curls and big dark eyes and you don’t know who loves him more; you or Joseph.
You don’t think it really matters
--
In your life, you always felt that there were times where you just sat back and watched from the sidelines. You like to tell yourself that you were always right there, right up front, but if you’re completely honest; that’s not true.
--
You’re nine when you start to think that Nicholas is replacing you in Joseph’s heart. You can see it in the way he laughs and smiles and plays with Nicholas. It’s like how you used to be. When you ask if he wants to climb the tree in the backyard with you, he doesn’t even look up from the tower he’s building with Nicholas as he tells you that he can’t because “Nicky-las can’t climb trees” and it would be “unfair”.
The “prince of unfair tantrums” has just pulled a fast one over on you and you feel kind of numb with it. You stumble out to the orchard and refuse to come down even though Mom made your favorite-spaghetti and meatballs-because it was your birthday. But that doesn’t matter because Joseph didn’t remember and Nicholas can’t even count so fine, you’ll stay up in this tree and rot for all you care.
You wonder if your brothers would notice.
--
You like Craig and maybe a part of you is jealous when he goes upstairs with just Joey and how he’s always telling Joseph how different and pretty he is from everyone else and the look in Joseph’s eyes confuses you for a while cause he should be ecstatic about the fact that this totallyawesomebigkid pays him all the attention.
But one night, after Nicholas has fallen asleep on the couch and you kind of smashed your finger unloading the dishwasher and need a band aid, you try to open the bathroom door but it’s locked and you wouldn’t really think anything of it but you can hear muffled crying and whispers on the other side and you’re a bit sneaky-you are related to Joseph after all-so you look through the key hole and at first you don’t understand.
Craig is touching Joseph and Joseph is crying; his face all red and snot running down his chin and he’s only eight and you don’t comprehend it at all. What kind of game is this? If it’s making Joseph cry than you defiantly don’t want to play and you scurry away and pet Nicholas’s head while he sleeps on the couch and think about what you just saw.
You decide that it’s too late to help Joseph and that you should just focus on protecting Nicholas.
Yeah, that seems like a good idea
You think Joseph would agree
--
You’re thirteen when Nicholas starts performing on Broadway and Joseph starts telling everyone to call him “Joe” because he hates “Joseph”.
You think you're the only one that knows he’s not talking about the name
Dad has to drive Nicholas down to “The Big Apple” most nights and sometimes they just rent a hotel room or stay with Nana, so you don’t see a lot of Nicholas for a little over a year and you and Joe argue about how unfair it is that Nicholas doesn’t have to go to school but you two do.
Mom just shakes her head at you both and makes you go across the street to play with Maya while she takes care of Franklin.
Franklin is your youngest brother now. Nicholas is no longer the baby and you think that maybe now, you and Joe can go back to being best friends cause Nicholas will have Franklin, whenever he’s around anyway.
But Joe still isn’t really talking to you and that’s stupid cause he’s the only other person in the house whose willing to climb trees and run down by the old creek and throw rocks at passing cars.
You don’t tell him, but you kind of wish that Franklin had been born a girl. You wish this because maybe she would have been prettier than Joe and Joe would be able to stop acting like sucha jerk all the time, just to prove he isn’t a wimp or anything.
You know girls make him sing at school and that a lot of the other boys beat him up and you know that Craig still “plays games” with him in the upstairs bathroom and it makes you sick.
Because you’re older now and you kind of know what all that touching means and you hate Craig; you hate him so much, but you cant do anything. Because you’re just a thirteen-year-old wallflower, oddball, preacher’s boy with curly hair and a brother on Broadway and another brother who gets called names like “faggot” and “homo” on the playground.
You start to wonder if anyone will remember you
For anything
--
You go to middle school and leave Joe and Nicholas back in elementary school. Mom talks about home schooling all of you but you’re in seventh grade and only babies are home schooled. You tell her she can have Joe and Nicholas.
They’re best friends anyway; they’d probably like that.
Plus, you’re kind of popular in school now. You open doors for people and remember your manners and know how to talk to girls and everyone’s impressed with you. You get good grades and hang out with the right people and you’re parents are proud of you. You keep playing the guitar and even write some of your own songs-when you’re not at the skate park or over walking the train tracks with some of the guys in your class-and sometimes Joe and Nicholas will harmonize with you, just for fun.
And Nicholas, who’s starting to go by “Nick”, is really good, like scarily good and he’s playing all sorts of instruments and working on songs and singing and suddenly all the attention is back on him and you and Joe get reacquainted with the shadows.
You kind of knew you’d get back there some day
It’s funny how things pick up from that point on
--
Nick gets diagnosed around the same time you guys “make it big”. Which really isn’t that big at all.
You’re eighteen and everything about your life is still one big joke. At least you and Joe are close again; even if he still manages to be closer to Nick in the process
Maybe too close
The thing with Nick’s diabetes is that, at one point, you seriously think he’s going to die and so does Joe and he clings to you, like a five year old, not a sixteen year old, and sobs into your shoulder in the waiting room. The red plastic chairs are hard and cut into your side as you hold onto your brother.
He has tears streaming down his cheeks and snot dripping from his nose
You’re looking at him through the bathroom keyhole all over again
You hug him tighter to you
You think you’re trying to make up for all the other times you didn’t do this
Didn’t “do” the right thing
Nick doesn’t die and you all learn the meaning of “Insulin” and “Blood sugar levels” and “What to do if he goes into diabetic shock”. It’s scary at first but you get the hang of it. Joe even checks levels with Nick every morning, until he realizes that maybe his coming up “normal” every time, isn’t helping Nick feel any better.
Nick says it stops hurting after about a month
You want that to be a lie
Pain is what makes you human
--
You only take Joe to that party because you want him to have a good time, because you hate all the strain that this stupid Columbia Records shit is putting on all of you guys and Joe especially. So you talk him into tagging along and you drape an arm across his shoulders and he leans into when you guys walk there and it’s nice.
Like it hasn’t been in a long, long time
When you get there, it’s all loud music and pot smoke and beer and rowdy laughing and you can’t help the lazy grin that works its way across your face. Because for once in your life you’re the one showing Joe what “cool” is.
You don’t drink cause alcohol makes you sick and you’d just rather not be high, but you let Joe take some cause you’re not an ass and he has a right to experiment if he wants.
You go to get a soda and when you come back, no one really know where he is and so you brush it off cause hey, kids will be kids, and it’s fine if Joe wants to do his own thing.
That’s what you brought him here for in the first place
You’re making out with this girl from your Economics class when Craig comes swaggering into the living room and you kind of feel really hot and then really cold all over because what the fuck is he doing here and did he see Joe? and he smiles all wide at you, all predatory and gross and you can’t help it.
You punch him right in the stupid dumb face
Cause he’s an asshole whose been molesting your brother since Joe was eight and you never did a thing to stop it
It makes you as sick as him in your book
Someone’s screaming at you to stop and then you’re being pulled off Craig’s limp form, and wow, you never knew you had it in you to knock someone out but it feels fuckin good so you add another kick for good measure. Your friends are all staring at you in this openly, drunkenly shocked kind of way but that doesn’t really matter because you need to find Joe and leave. Now.
You brush back your hair-Joe helped you straighten it earlier-and stalk out of there. You find Joe curled up in a ball in some bedroom upstairs and his pants are undone and his shirts kind of ripped and he looks so damn young that you have to hate Craig all over again.
And yourself too
“Come on, let’s go,” You mutter darkly and lean in the doorway while he gets up and straightens himself out. You don’t help because Joe isn’t weak and you don’t want him thinking he is. You cup your hand on the back of his neck when he passes but he brushes you off
It takes everything you’ve got not to hug him
Not to ask him why he’s limping
It’s better if he hates you
Even if it kills you in the process
--
You watch Joe die and you watch him kill Nick in the aftermath
You allow it because it’s already your fault
You weren’t strong enough to stop it and you weren’t present enough to notice when it matter so why start now?
You suspect what Joe does to Nick in the dark. When he doesn’t think anyone can hear, when he thinks the night will hide all of his dirty little secrets; but you can hear them, and you can see the bruises on Nick’s wrists and the dull grey of Joe’s eyes. You can feel each wince Nick takes when Joe touches him and you shed each tear Joe swallows when he pounds his fist into the bathroom wall
They aren’t your brothers anymore
These are ghosts
You try and keep on breathing for them
It doesn’t really work
--
The music is the only thing you live for anymore
All of you
On the stage, no one can touch you and you can’t touch anyone
You’re brothers up here, in the glaring lights and cool affects. You’re gods of a sort and happy too. It feels right. The adrenaline and bass and screams; all of it.
You wish you could just live up there. Until someone told you to stop or until you just all collapsed from the strain
It would be better than the silent death descending upon you now
--
When you find Nick, drunk and alone, on your old Jersey street corner, your heart breaks all over again
You didn’t really think that was possible, since your heart shattered so long ago
He looks so lost, so young, so venerable
You always wanted nothing more than to give him the world and instead you fed him to the wolves. The ones you raised yourself.
You’re as guilty as a sin
He looks at you, with wide desperate eyes and maybe that why you let him kiss you. Maybe that’s why you let him tug you so much closer that what’s appropriate and you think your mind is screaming about how wrong this is but it’s Nick, little Nicholas, and you’ve never been able to deny him anything and he’s just hurting so much. You want to fix it; you want everything to be okay
Even if it is a little too late
Nick laughs when you break apart; this terrifying, chocking kind of laughter that sends shivers up your spine because it’s not him. It’s dead and cold and hysterical and you know he’s broken.
You all are really
And you don’t think there’s enough glue in the world to put you back together
--
You’re a witness the night Nick fights back
You lean on the wall by the bathroom door and close your eyes and pray to a God who doesn’t listen, for this to not be happening. You ask over and over again to wakeupwakeupwakeup and have dreamt the past 12 years of your life but that’s not possible and you know it
You hear them arguing, in low harsh tones because Mom and Dad are only on the other side of the house and Franklin’s room is just right down the hall and for all they know, you’re out with Danielle
You haven’t been out with Danielle in ages
Because you’re horrible and deserve to be alone and miserable
Like your brothers
You hear a grunt and a cut off cry and you can’t help it anymore
You have to look; you can’t pretend this isn’t happening
You already know what you’re going to see
Doesn’t make it any less painful
You want to throw up and you want to hit them at the same time. You just stare instead. Nick, darling sweet Nicholas, is crushing Joe, insanely funny Joseph between the wall and his body and they’re tangled at ugly angles.
You want to close your eyes but you watch-mesmerized, like a person observing a car crash-as Nicholas whispers vicious little secrets into Joseph’s ear, things that make him shudder and arch back before painting the wall with white. You watch Nicholas wilt and Joseph crumple and you turn away at last because you feel just as dirty.
Just as ugly and raw
You make it halfway down the hall before you have to stop because the weight of guilt is crashing down around you. You sink to the ground, back pressed up against the wall and sob into your hands because this is your fault
All your fault
And you’re going to have to live with it forever
You wish that at least, you were happy about it