Screaming in Silence

I felt oddly fine when I reached a place in the city that I knew. I know that I should have been feeling many feelings like guilt, fear, anger, anything but I didn't. Mr Foster got what he deserved and the fact that he would never in his wildest dreams think that I was capable of what I did, made it so much easier to do. In fact, I didn't even know that I was capable of what I did until the few minutes after, when I was running away and really thought about what I did. At least I was safe knowing that he would never lay a finger on me again.

I wandered down Larsson Street, the street next to mine, and I could see a police car parked right outside my house. I was confused. Surely Mr Foster wouldn't have reported me that quick, or even at all because surely he'd know that I'd report it as self defence and tell them everything. Maybe they were there for Tony? Maybe he would finally be arrested and out of my life forever? But that was me just getting my hopes up and, after recent events, I knew that he was there to stay.
I walked closer and could see the police walking into my house. I debated turning around and running away again, but I didn't know why. Maybe somehow, deep down, I knew that there was bad news to hear and my subconscious was trying to spare me anymore grief? Or maybe I just don't like the police.
I paused outside my house and peered in the window. My mother and Tony were sat on the sofa with the police. My mother was in floods of tears and Tony's arm was slung loosely over her shoulder, as if he was doing it to appear that he cared to the policemen. The body language for the police was even more of a give away. I took a deep breath and walked in the house. I looked confused and shrugged my shoulders as a way of asking what's going on.

"Bethany, Zach's dead!" my mother bawled. I froze. My face visibly paled and my heart seemed to stop beating.

"Not definitely," one of the policemen corrected her. "Bethany, is it?" I nodded and sat down on the sofa, as far from Tony as humanly possible. "Right, Bethany a couple of weeks ago there was a report of a dangerous fight happening. When the nearest unit arrived to take control of the situation the fight was over and everyone had scattered, except for one. There was one man lying in the middle of a pool of blood, already dead. He was not Zach, but there was also a second pool of blood. It was quite a substantial amount and we did some DNA tests and they showed that it was Zach's blood, so we have reason to believe that Zach may have been killed in the fight. Now, it's not for certain and we never say for sure that someone's dead until a body turns up, but we just wanted to warn you of the situation. There is still a chance that he is still alive but with the amount of blood at the scene we just wanted to warn you that there is a possibility that he didn't survive," he paused to let me take in everything he'd said. I didn't really know what to do, how to feel. "We're searching the hospitals for a Zachary Baker, but so far we haven't found him but we will not stop looking for your brother, all right?" he smiled sympathetically at me. I reached for the pad of paper in my bag.

"Where was this?" I wrote. I wanted to know where he ended up at least.

"Huntington Beach, in California," he replied. At least I knew where he'd ended up, even if he was dead now that I knew. I still didn't know how to feel I mean, of course it's sad he was my brother after all, but he abandoned me in this house of torture. As far as I was concerned, Zach died the day he left me.

"He died the day he ran away, only now there is confirmation," I wrote on the piece of paper and threw it at the copper, before walking upstairs and locking my bedroom door. I still needed to fix those locks.

-

I laid in my bed for a while, but it was still light out so I couldn't sleep. Too many thoughts were pushing their way into my mind and my mind just couldn't shut off. Over the past few days, weeks, I'd become more and more cynical but the feelings that had formed from that were also loneliness and depression. At least before, when I didn't know if Zach was dead or alive, I could pretend that one day he'd come back for me but now that I know he's dead and he can never come back, I felt like he'd abandoned me all over again. I was so crushed when he left me. Even years after he'd gone I began to imagine that I was seeing him. I'd pick up some magazines and almost every time my eyes would play tricks on me and make me believe that my Zach was a feature in them. I had even imagined seeing him around when I'd go away with friends or with school. Just as those thoughts entered my mind, my heart seemed to stop beating. I'd taken a trip to Huntington Beach with school a couple years ago. When I was there I seemed to see him everywhere, but I always assumed that I was hallucinating and imagining seeing him because it would have been his birthday soon. Now I know, it was him and I didn't know it. When that thought entered my mind, I couldn't get rid of it. Despite the way I’d been thinking for the past few days or weeks, I missed my Zach and there was no way that I was going to rid myself of my grief, especially now I knew he was dead.

There were days when we were little that we couldn’t go a day without talking to each other. Sometimes when he’d go away with school or stay round a friend’s house for the night, he’d call me almost every five minutes to make sure that I was all right and to have a chat. At night he’d even call me just to make sure I’d go to bed, I couldn’t sleep without knowing he was ok and without his sweet little “I love you” and a kiss on the cheek. Zach was so sweet. I knew he would have made a great father.