You've Become the Rain

The wind was fierce when I arrived home, my arms wrapped tightly around my body in an attempt to shield myself from the cold. The lights were on inside and I froze in my spot, praying that I would be able to get to my room without seeing anybody.

Pushing the door open, I stepped inside, my feet seeming to echo as they hit the ground. The light met my eyes and I winced slightly, dropping my bag onto the floor as I slowly slipped my shoes off. The paper felt heavy in my pocket as I walked inside, almost as if I was doing something wrong by having it there.

I heard laughter and I allowed my eyes to trail to the stairs, frowning slightly when I saw a boy leaving my sister’s room. His clothes were wrinkled and misplaced and his cheeks were flushed, his dark hair ruffled lightly and red spots on his neck. I heard him bid her farewell as he trailed down the stairs, and in a second his blue eyes met mine and a shadow of a smile formed on his lips. But his smile wasn’t warm, nor was it cold. It was confident, and it made me shiver slightly as I fought to keep my eyes away.

I took a step back as I waited for him to pass me, my eyes looking pointedly at the floor. I heard his chuckle and felt him stop beside me, and my heart began to race erratically as I felt his eyes on me. “Well, what do we have here?” he laughed, walking closer to me so that I could feel the heat of his body, my limbs tensing under his gaze. “You’re a pretty one. How
old are you?”

I froze slightly, my eyes becoming clouded as I prayed to sink into the floor. “Seventeen,” I said quietly, my voice shaking slightly as I stood there.

He was staring at me, his blue eyes surprisingly dark as he trailed them over my figure. “Gorgeous, actually,” he said roughly, his smile building as he took another step towards me.

He reached out to touch me, his long fingers picking up the bottom of my chin and lifting it so that I could meet his eyes. “Listen, I just finished one round, but I’m sure I could make an exception for you,” he murmured lowly, his eyes sparkling as he looked down at me.

Laughter sounded like a siren from the top of the stairs and he pulled away, looking up towards where my sister stood. “Give up, Brett; she won’t let you touch her. She’s a prude.”

I should have been used to her not standing up for me, but I couldn’t help how badly it hurt. I couldn’t stop myself from holding onto the belief that she would one day become the girl she used to be, that she would one day love me again. My sister had been beautiful, the most beautiful girl I had ever met. But with every drop of blood that left his body a dash of ugliness tainted her skin, until the beauty was gone and she was darkness again.

Brett smiled loosely and pulled away, grinning towards my sister. “It was worth giving a try. You didn’t tell me that your sister was gorgeous, Liv.”

Jealousy transformed her eyes as she raised her eyebrows, tilting her head to the side. “It depends on what you like. But I can guarantee that she won’t give you what I just did,” she said simply, a secretive smile on her lips that caused me to shiver.

Brett grinned at her perversely before turning around and heading towards the door.

Turning to face me a final time, he sent me a wink. “See you later, Red.”

Red. It didn’t feel the same as Scarlet.



It was nearing seven o’clock when I heard her crying. It was loud and full of pain, and it echoed out across the house. I could hear her groans and sobs of despair as I pushed myself away from my desk, and I began to walk towards the door. Peeking out through the crack my door made, I sighed when I saw her figure sprawled across the couch, her head in her hands and guttural cries leaving her lips.

And it hurt me to see her like that. It hurt me to see her in pain, when all I wanted was to see her smile. It hurt me because no matter what I did, I would never erase the pain that filled her body. Just like she could never console the pain that ran through mine.

But the difference was that I had never stopped trying. She had stopped a long time ago.

That was the thing about experiencing something traumatic. Everyone reacted differently, and everybody changed. I stopped dreaming, my sister stopped loving, my mum stopped trying and my dad stopped caring. We all stopped living. There was nothing that tied us together anymore, other than my vain attempts to make us a family. We were strangers, strangers that lived under the same roof but never once talked. It made me wonder if Liam knew the pain he would cause, or whether he was watching us at all. Or if his presence had been dragged away along with our souls.

Pushing my hair away from my face, I walked down the stairs, careful not to make any noise. The intensity of her sobs filled my heart with pain as I walked, my green eyes following her broken figure as it shook on the couch.

I stopped beside her, the bitter smell of alcohol filling my nostrils as I frowned slightly at the empty bottles of wine that surrounded the couch. Walking around the front, I knelt down beside her, my dark eyes sad as she continued to cry, tears falling down her aged face. Her eyes lifted up and they met mine, glassy and clouded from the alcohol that was in her system. And it was almost as if she didn’t recognise me, because all she did was stare. “He’s cheating on me,” she sobbed, her voice slow and slurred from the doused bottles of wine. “I know he is. He says that he has to stay late at work, but I know he’s with that bitch Lorraine.”

Her forehead was sweaty as I reached up to push her frizzy hair out of her face, my heart pounding as I looked at her. But I couldn’t deny it. I couldn’t say that he wasn’t, because with every part of me I knew that he was. My dad was a monster, someone I fought my hardest to love when deep down all I wanted to do was hate him. He was the opposite of me; he felt nothing. No pain, no guilt, and certainly no love. I felt everything.

“He doesn’t love me anymore,” she sobbed, her words slightly slurred as she gripped onto the bottle of alcohol in her hand, her eyes not looking at me but instead looking past me, almost as if she didn’t know that I was there. I had become used to that.

“I love you, mum,” I whispered gently, as if that would console her, reaching out to push her hair behind her ears.

She either didn’t hear me or didn’t care enough, because she didn’t answer. I knew her pain. I knew what it was like to be forgotten, because everybody I knew seemed to have forgotten me. And in that moment I felt more alone than I had ever felt, because of his words and the fact that he was right. I had nobody. My love was useless. Nobody wanted it.

She continued to shake, her eyes staring past me as tears dribbled down her stained cheeks.

I let out a soft sigh, running my hand across her cheek before standing up and beginning to walk away.

“You’re not like your brother,” she called out, and I froze. I waited for her to continue, just like she always did. I waited to hear the words I’d heard so often in my life that they’d almost become a bible to me. You’re useless.

But she didn’t speak. She just stopped. And even though she hadn’t said the words, the pain in my heart was the same because I knew with everything in me that she felt them. I wasn’t Liam, and I never would be. My attempts to piece the family together were in vain; there was no love in this household. No matter how much I loved, no matter how much I cared no one else felt a thing. His death had brought a coldness over our house and placed a stone in our hearts. We were broken. And I could never fix us.

Was it this pressure that made him want to escape? Was it the anxiety and the frustration that drew him to feel like he couldn’t go on? In that moment I felt like I didn’t know my brother at all, after all of those years of feeling as though I was the only one that did.

Because he took his life, and all the while I had thought he was perfect. Perfection was blinding. I thought my family was perfect, but we became anything but that.
And so I answered her, even though she’d never spoken the words. “I know,” I murmured.



It was dark by the time I retreated to my room. The light in my sister’s room had been switched off, and I could hear the sound of her snoring vibrating through the thin walls that separated us. Walking over to my desk, I smiled lightly when I saw a small, folded piece of paper sitting on the desk.

Pushing my hair out of my face, I reached down to pick it up, my fingers shaking slightly as I opened it.

She didn’t mean to let him touch you.
~Liam

Sighing softly, I sat down at my desk and ripped off a piece of paper to write on.

She never does.
~Alice