“Has she gotten a job yet Parker, I know it must be hard to take care of her and yourself”

“Mom...she barely gets out of her pajamas and when she does, I don’t think she’s really thinking about getting back out into the world.  I’m just letting her get used to her settings, get used to what’s going on around her, I don’t wanna freak her out, she seems to be really fragile.  She cried at a commercial yesterday.”  Parker laid the phone between his shoulder and his ear as he paced his room, his sister was at the moment, hiding in her room like was normal, and he had to lie to their mother, saying that she was sleeping.

“Maybe I should talk to her.”  There was worry in the older woman’s voice, she always worried about her children, even though they were older now and quite capable of lives of their own.  Parker sighed as he caught the view of his face in the mirror and then he shook himself before speaking,

“No Mom…I don’t think that would be a good idea just yet, she’s still very tired all the time, I think maybe talking to you would make her feel even worse.”

“Well Parker, I’m going to go, your father will be home soon.”

“And heaven forbid he find you on the phone with one of your children, I’ll talk to you later mom.”  He didn’t wait to hear what else she had to say about the matter because he knew that she would just try and defend how the Colonel acted towards his children.  Rough and gruff that was the Colonel.  He dropped the phone into his hand and snapped it shut even as he hear the soft faint noises of his mother but couldn’t make out the words completely.  He tucked the cell phone into his pocket and looked towards the shared wall between the rooms.  With a tug to his shirt, a nervous habit really, he slipped out and looked towards her door.  What happened next he wasn’t prepared for.  The sound of loud popping made his head jerk,  and he frowned slightly.  He wasn’t quite sure if it had come from her room, or from outside.  

Walking first to the front door, he opened it up and peeked out.  His body cringed inwardly and he could feel his muscles tighten in his chest.  Parker’s tongue became heavy and dry as he turned back around, leaving the door open so that the soft breeze and gentle noises of the outside world came inwards behind him.  He walked too slow, and too painfully as he came to the door that blocked his sister from his view.  His fingers didn’t reach out fully for a whole minute and then wrapped up around the knob, he was surprised to feel it warm, he was expecting cool metal under his flesh.  With a lick to his lips that did nothing but rub fleshy tongue against lips and then finally pushed the door open.  

“Ah..god Lilah!..”

She was prone on the bed, like she was sitting up reading a book, like she had so many nights before.  But now there was a spreading red wound over her chest, the smell of gunpowder was heavy in the air and her arm was dropped over her lap with a small gun there in her slack hand.  She wasn’t moving, expect for what he thought was the soft press of her chest upwards in hard breaths, that didn’t come all that rapidly.  There should have been more of them, more breathes.  He ran towards her after that first initial shock and grabbed a hold of her hand and the metal of the gun and tossed that aside.  He shook her a moment, practically smacking her back against the headboard and she gasped let out a raspy breath.  She was alive, she was alive.  His heart soared.  Now if he could just keep her like that.

The hours passed too slowly for him.  He paced the floor; he talked to nurses, receptionists and the very rare seen doctor that would come out to see him.  She had hurt herself badly, if he had taken any more time finding her, he would kick himself for not checking her first, denial was a bitch, she would have bled out.  But as it was she was alive, and they were trying to keep her that way.  The last he heard she was going into surgery to repair what she had done to her chest, nicking the aorta apparently was something that didn’t go over well, he knew enough about it to know he should be worried.  He sat himself into a hard plastic seat, and felt the crinkle of paper in his back pocket and he sighed, leaning forward to slip his fingers into the blue jean fabric and tug out the spattered, folded piece of paper.  He stared at it for a moment, running his fingers along the fold a few times before he gently unfolded it.  For a moment his eyes refused to focus, and he reached up to rub his fingers to his eyes and blinked away the hot tears that wanted to seep free.

“Dearest Parker,

I hope it wasn’t too much of a shock for you, I hadn’t intended on doing anything while I was there, I really hadn’t, I didn’t want to be rude, but unfortunately circumstances just aren’t improving the way I thought they would.  I thought leaving would change things, I thought changing my scenery would change my perspective, but it hasn’t.  

I don’t know what I’m doing anymore.  I don’t have control over anything, and it scares me.  I can’t even remember what I’m fighting for anymore.  I tried so hard to just remember who I was, but I lost me.  I lost myself and I can’t find my way back, no matter how hard I try.  The girl that you know is gone, the one that was strong and smart is gone, I don’t feel like that, I can’t be that anymore.  I’m not strong.  I’m weak and worthless.  Don’t let anyone tell you any different.  It would be easier to think of me weak during this time, because if you remember how I was, it will be harder.

You couldn’t have done anything to stop me, you couldn’t have known, I didn’t tell you, I didn’t let anyone in on this.  I don’t want you to hate me, I didn’t want you to find me, but I can’t think of anyone else I would want there to find me.  I know that’s horrible, and mean to think of, but you were the only one that cared for me really in life, so you should be the one that is with me in death.

Tell Mom I love her, and tell the Colonel, well tell the Colonel he can fuck off.

-Lilah”

He sighed at the note and then was folding it back up and shoving it into the pocket. He’d never mention it once she woke up, that is if she did wake up. He didn’t want her to remember it, even though he knew that a woman like Lilah wouldn’t forget.  But at least he could try of course.  He leaned more forward in the chair and pressed his hands to his face and started to cry.  They Barret children didn’t often cry, they were taught not too, but he had no idea what to do.  He would be lost without having her around, at least to talk too, and the thought of her being so desperate that she couldn’t come to him was almost more painful then the fact she was laying up there, cracked open because of something he didn’t know about.  She hadn’t explained much in the note.  Then Parker Barret broke down.  He cried like he never had before, for his sister, for himself, and for everything that had happened.