All the Love That Never Landed
The day my exam results came in, I called out toward the living room the way I always used to. "Mom, Dad, I got a perfect score! I can go to a university in Kingsgate and be with Gary and Callum!"
Silence was the only answer.
On the couch sat four little plush dolls. They were Dad, Mom, my brother Gary Sheridan, and Callum Ward, the boy I had grown up with. Their round, stitched eyes stared back at me the way they had on countless other nights, keeping me company in silence.
That was when I remembered.
A year ago, my sister, Blythe Sheridan, had gotten sick. They said it was my fault, that my grades had been too good, that the pressure had nearly driven her to kill herself.
That was why I became the person the family needed to hide, and they sent me to this rented room. The first night after I moved in, the drunkard next door pounded on my door by mistake. I hid under the blankets, too terrified to make a sound, too scared to even cry.
All I could do was call my parents, my brother, and Callum over and over again. However, the only thing that I got was the cold, flat tone of a busy signal.