Caring family...

Together… didn’t work.

“Why? Why didn’t it work?”

We weren’t really together… now were we?

“We… were together. We were there. We… we were there.”

But you were also elsewhere. You know it’s true.

“I was… only I… wanted to do this together. We were family.”

But you tried to take it into your own hands. You went against ‘together’. You went against the family.

“No… No I didn’t mean to.”

You still did.

“I… did… I did…”

My amber eyes are now dejected; my pale hair, an untidy mess of snarls; my cheeks, damp with salty tears. This is who I am now. My stress had been lifted, but only for a few days before new developments… happened. I never expected an outcome like this. Never. It was unthinkable. And after so much… so much!

They… my… friends… my family… they both tried so hard. He was so determined, so sure. He wanted us to dedicate ourselves. No eating… no drinking… no leaving the room… no sitting down… and most importantly of all… we were not allowed to move our hands away. Our hands were together… frozen… for a purpose… bond… togetherness… It was cold. Very cold. On the border of painful… Pain… What did he say? That we…”we will remember this pain”… that… pain… Nothing was making sense to me… until… it was far too late…

“Shit.”

Trust had been broken before this night… trust is now broken… again. I look now at my hand. That same hand that touched those of the members of my family. It still feels icy. We were a family… are we still? Can this be amended? Can I be forgiven? I’m sorry, partners. I… want this to end.

I look around now. Do you know what I see? Darkness. I left my family… I want to go back. Do I leave what I think I found? I betrayed the ones that cared. Betrayed my family. If… I go back to the room I left you in… will I still find you there? May I bring my hand back to yours? May I? I’m putting aside my hatred. Tossing aside my title. I’ll… drop to my knees.

We needed only say one thing at the beginning. “Together.” We made that vow. More words needn’t be said. “Together.” … That was the clincher. We went in together, and we would not leave until our final family member arrived, and we would leave, together. I… was about to leave… on several occasions. Something made me stay. My family.

But, in the end, I still managed to betray them. I’m a liar. I should not have done what I did. It went against the whole purpose of what he wanted. We… failed.

“I won’t give up. I’d… I would like to be a… team… partners… friends… a family again. Together. All of us. I’ll… wait and see.”