Blighted Soul

I flipped my desk over in anger. I’d searched my room for thirty minutes without finding my pills. Which could only mean one thing; someone took them. Leaving my ransacked room behind, I went to the kitchen where I’d last seen Scott.

I found him leaning against the kitchen sink, almost lounging, as if he’d been waiting for me. “Where are they?” I asked. My voice was a mix of irritation, anger, and loathing. I watched as his hand rummaged around in his jeans pocket. I wasn’t the least bit surprised when he pulled out the little baggie of white pills.

“You mean these?” He asked. I vaguely wondered if I’d imagined the underlying sorrow in his voice.

I was about to demand that he give them back when he upended the back over the kitchen sink.

“No!” I almost screamed. I lunged for them just in time to see the last white pill fall down the drain.

As if sensing my next move, he flipped on the garbage disposal.

The dry sound of the pills being grinded up made my stomach turn. That was all the pills that I could afford for this month. How was I going to go a month with that harrowing empty feeling? How could I go without the drug that had eased any negative feelings in me for the past year?

My shoulders heaved but no sound would come out. My chest ached. My head spun. I slid to the floor slowly. Then and only then did the tears fall. I sobbed into my knees, completely forgetting his presence. This was what I was reduced to. An addict, crying on his kitchen floor for the drugs that he’d lost.

“Evan?” Concern. There was concern in his voice. And worry. “Evan…I-I’m sorry.”

Although he’d kept his composure and played the role of an in-control older brother, he was really just as lost and confused as I was when it came to fixing me. And he never—ever—wanted to see his baby brother cry.

He knelt in front of me, and when he pulled me into him, I didn’t try to stop him. “It’s okay,” he murmured. “It’s going to be okay. I’m going to get you some help.”