Eat.

Brian laid in bed for days on end. He felt physically sick but worst of all, guilt was in his stomach. He couldn’t help but to feel like it was fault, but he knew it was his fault. Everyone knew it was his fault.

His daily routine would consist of going to school, grieve with his friends and go back home, where he would lock himself in his room and cry. He wouldn’t eat but when his did he ate little, but other days, all he would do is sit in front of the couch and eat without paying any attention to what he was eating which caused him to lose weight and gain weight frequently. He would eat and eat until four in the morning when the paid programmes came on.

His father and stepmother would try to reach him but it was like talking to a wall. Brian eventually lost all contact with his friends with his friends and he missed Jimmy’s call about how Emilia finally learned how to crawl. Not only did he lose interest in his friends but he lost interest in everything he found interest in.

But when he wasn’t crying or eating or watching TV until daybreak, he would stare at the map of California he pinned to his wall, staring at it and wondering where she was. It got to the point where Brian no longer slept on the big comfy bed, he now slept on the cold floor under the map, feeling that it was the only way he felt close to her.

Brian’s behavior also affected his friends but most importantly his younger sister.

McKenna became more irritable, she cried and threw more temper tantrums, his father suggested that it was just the terrible twos, but McKenna was almost four.

Sometimes, she would sneak out of bed and walked carefully down the stairs to the living room and sit next to her brother.

“You should be sleeping.” Brian told her one night.

“You too.”

Brian grimaced and put the chip bag in between the two of them and they would sit there and watch the jewelry channel while munching on Doritos.

Meanwhile with Elizabeth, she struggled to survive, she would sit in the bathroom, staring at her newly dyed red hair and her new brown contacts that itched her eye. Mario was still abusive and he would continue to have his way with her while he was drunk. He gave her very little food but Ellie eventually found out the combination on the cabinets and refrigerator, helping herself but still eating gradually as her ex boyfriend drank himself into an alcoholic coma.

There would be times when Mario would be in a drunken rage and hit Elizabeth but she found out that Mario never remembers what happens. In result, she would defend herself however she could. She would hit and punch and thankfully one day she hit him hard enough that he fell unconscious, waking up the next day without a pounding headache but he always blamed it on the hangovers.

While Mario was unconscious, she would think about ways to escape and to get back to Joe, her friends and Brian. Nothing would stand her way.