Broken Dreams(250)

“Elaina…please. I am asking for you to do this in private. You can scream and rage and punch the shit out of me if you wish. Just in private.” He swallowed hard.

“I do believe I said no, or is the booze effecting your hearing, as well?” He swallowed hard again, and his teeth clenched.

“Please…stop yelling at me.” His voice had gone monotone.

“No! I can’t fucking believe this! You need to stop this shit right now!”

When he turned and faced me again, his eyes were scary. “I told you, I fucking will!” he barked. I had officially poked his last nerve.

“When?! After your liver explodes?!”

“I will stop when I’m ready!” he shouted back at me.

“And when will that be? Huh? When?” I poked my finger in his chest.

“I don’t fucking know! Just leave me alone about it. I need to work it out in my head.”

“How can you even have any sort of clarity when you are boozed up all the goddamn time?!”

“I’ve gotten you this far, haven’t I?”

“With help!”

“So fucking what!” He threw his arms in the air. “You expect me to carry everyone on my bloody back, and still power through it all?” He was beginning to sober up from the adrenaline rush alone.

“No…”

“Then what, Elaina? What? Tell me!” He stood in front of me with his hands on his hips. Everyone in the room was watching us, and I felt every flicker of their eyes as they looked back and forth between the two trains that were colliding right in front of them. Then I had a spark of brilliance.

“If you don’t stop…we are done.” I crossed my arms, and turned away from him like the immature teen that I emulated with such preciseness that it was scary. I could feel his eyes boring through me.

“Excuse me, please, Claire,” Henry mumbled. He stepped around her and stormed off.

“Elaina…that was a little harsh,” said Nick.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Was it, though?” I snapped. “I do believe you’re tired of it, as well! Do you have any idea how many times I’ve had to drag his sorry, drunk ass from somewhere so he could puke or pass out? Enough is enough! I will guarantee you that he is chugging another bottle right now! He doesn’t care about himself at all…or me. He only cares about when he’s going to get his next drink!”

“Are you even hearing yourself?” Nick shook his head.

“Perfectly clear. The excuses need to stop, and he needs to step up to the damn plate and be the fucking man that he is supposed to be!” I stomped my pissed off ass over to the pantry, and began a frenzied search for something that was meal quality. Claire followed behind me.

“Elaina…maybe you shouldn’t have humiliated him like that. He can’t help it. He’s sick. You know that. Don’t let your emotions get the best of you.” Great, I was starting to feel bad. “Yes, what they did was wrong. I’m not saying otherwise. Maybe you should go to him and apologize. You know you don’t want to leave him. He needs reassurance. What he doesn’t need is to be completely cut down and degraded in front of all of us.”

I couldn’t help but think, What have I done?

“Maybe I do. I just can’t take his drinking anymore. I can’t stand by and watch him kill himself.” I stopped for a second, and the sight of him holding a gun to his head in the barn ran through my mind. That was one of the worst things that I have ever experienced, seeing him so broken that he was going to shoot himself. It was possible that he would go through with it at some point, I was almost expecting it. My hands shook as I put them over my face when I visualized him pulling the trigger. “Oh god, Claire. What did I do to him?”

“You hurt him with your words, much like he was hurt by those assholes. Look at all that has happened to him. And who knows what else happened to him that he hasn’t told you yet. Or can’t bear to tell you because he may be too ashamed to admit it. They were monsters, and did inhumane things to a boy. Who knows? He could have been sexually abused, as well. Screaming at him and humiliating him like you just did is not the answer to getting him to sober up.”

I looked over at my brother, and he had his head down on the table. I was so fucking wrong, and Claire was so fucking right. I needed to apologize to him before he did something stupid. I took off and sprinted to our room.



***



Henry stormed out of the cafeteria, jogging down to his and Elaina’s room, cursing at himself the entire way. His hands were shaking, his anger was at the surface, and he needed to get it out. When he made it back to their room, he grabbed the first thing he saw and chucked it at the wall. “Fuck me!”