9. GRIEVES AND FEARS!

*Edited

Breanna's POV

Just like the night before, and every day since it happened, she sat down in the living room, perfectly still as she stared into nothingness.

The day had been extremely hard, from pretending to be alright, to a new five thousand word thesis she had to write, her car breaking down, the constant pain in her side, her landlady screaming insults at her and coming home to an empty apartment. It had not been the best.

She had thought that by now, her eyes would be dry, that there would be no more tears. But her eyes proved her wrong, every time she came home, to his house, the house they had shared since she moved in with him. She cried.

His presence lingered every where, it was his house after all, she had never cried so much in her entire life, but for course, she had never lost a brother before in her entire life.

She wasn't sure if she wanted to continue with life, If she wanted to be in school, she couldn’t afford it anyway, she couldn't handle being constantly reminded of him every where she turned to in the house.

Life sucked. She wanted to crawl into a hole and just disappear.

Her chest felt stuffed, it was difficult to breath, her body felt heavy, like she was a walking zombie, no doubt she looked like one too.

She didn't make so much effort to her appearance when she left in the morning and between the amount of time she had to take crying breaks, she knew she wasn't her prettiest, but who cared.

Life took a drastic turn from what she used to think was bad.

Growing up was hard, they grew up on the ocean side, it was just her, Jack and their father; Joshua. They didn't have much, but it wasn't always bad, or so she liked to think.

Their mother Rose died while giving to her, and ever since then Joshua had never been the same again, he started drinking, a lot, and when he couldn't get enough alcohol, he took his anger out on his children, Jack, to be specific.

Breanna, basically raised herself while their father was out drinking and squandering most the money he made.  She was hungry all day, every day so she learnt to cook by herself with what ever money he spared.

It only took a while before Jack began to rebel. He moved out the day he turned 19, but kept in touch with her.

In her last year of high school, Joshua suffered an injury at his work place, ruining his knee, soon after he developed Alzheimer and some other mental condition she couldn't pronounce.

Breanna had to start working to take care of them, but his anger towards his children only increased as she grew up to a splitting image of her mother.

He never failed to remind her that she killed her Rosaline, his precious wife, and ruined his life. At first it hurt to hear him say those things to her, but as time passed, she learnt to just ignore him, but then cry herself to sleep every night. 

One day, he had an episode and he threw a vase at her, tearing from her shoulder all the way to her elbow. That was when she had enough. She committed him to a nursing home, sold their house, packed her bags and came to Lakeside.

Since then, it had been both of them against the world, he helped her with her application essay and helped pay half the first tuition with the money she made from house.

He was her best and only friend, since high school, when she was bullied for wearing her brother's old hand-me-downs, they couldn't afford to buy her new clothes and their father never gave it a thought to buy her nice things, even when he was sober. 

Sure, Jack was not perfect, but he was her brother and she loved him. It hurt too much to wrap her head around the fact that he was no more, that he was gone, forever. He was in his last year at Charleston, with just a few months before graduating, and then those evil people went and wasted his life.

He was a person of a lot of dreams and hopes, Breanna never understood how he could stay so optimistic when they faced problems everywhere. He lived his life full of fun, unlike her, always cowering in fear, trying to hide herself, so she wouldn't stick out like a sore thumb, like she did when she was young.

She couldn't make any friends, she always felt like filth next to the kids who had mothers, and they always made sure she felt like it too. So she lived her life away from everyone, except for Jack.

Breanna thought of how to break it to his girlfriend, Michele, and all his friends, she didn't have his phone, because it was ruined in the fire, not even the clothes he wore that night was spared. 

Jack got her the first job in a movie theatre, after that he got her a waiting job and a bunch of other jobs. She could never be like him, she was too scared.

The thought of living life without him was simply appalling. She wasn't ready to accept it yet.

She retrieved the black card in her purse, examining it closely, if she decided to go for the interview, that would mean moving on with life without Jack, but she didn't feel like it, she didn't even want to do anything with herself, but living in this house she shared with Jack was beginning to feel constricting.

She sighed loudly. She put the card away and leaned back staring into the ceiling.

She didn't know what to make of Professor Caines sudden interest in her life, maybe because he thought she'd try to kill herself after that night. It would be a lie if she said she hadn't thought of it, many times.

But she knew his history with women, it was no news that he was a ladies man.

Although she had never heard of him with a student before; she was glad he had a tiny bit of decency and class left, but one couldn't be too careful, especially because he had seen her stripping, he must think she was a lose person among many other horrible things.

She had expected him to be an evil person, with the constant frown he wore and with his reputation of failing students just because he didn’t like them, but in the few days he had proven to be anything but evil.

He held her when she had a nightmare, screaming and punching, he held her.  Breanna snuggled herself at the memory, biting her lip. His arms were large, hard and warm - safe - his arms were safe.

That alone came as a huge shock to her.

She thought he'd be repulsed after her having seen her in underwear, but he wasn't, instead saved her life, he stayed by her in the hospital all night, drove her to the station and brought her to his house after she vehemently refused to be taken back to the hospital.

She didn't know what to make of his behavior, surely he must want something, but she didn't know what. She didn't have any more to give, she was all spent.

Finding more protein shakes in fridge, she downed it and plopped down her sleeping pills. It had been well over a week since she had slept more than one hour even with the help of the sleeping pills.

She stalked slowly to Jack's room. It had also been about a week, since she last set foot in the room. She had been avoiding the place like a plague. Going in would only make it all real, she didn't want to accept that it was yet.

But now, she couldn't help herself, she longed for him, she wanted to feel him again, like he was here with her. To protect her from all her hurt, like he used to. 

The door squeaked open as she pushed it, his small bed stood in the middle of the room with dirty clothes pilled on it. A small work space where he kept recording stuffs and some old players. The walls covered in posters of his favorite rock band "Midnight", a very legendary producer - 'Don Marcos' and a very famous song writer. 

She reached for a jacket, his favorite black leather jacket, he wore it everywhere, she washed it for him the day before that night, so it was in still in the washer and he couldn't wear it out that night. Bringing the jacket to her nose, she took a big sniff of detergent and his woody scent. Tears fell from her eyes.

She wore the jacket shakily and gathered as many of his tapes as she could find. She went back to living room and started to play them one by one till she fell asleep just as the sun was rising.