I lay wide awake in my bed, staring into the darkness. I see flashes of light from my window, but ignore them. The fluttering lights hurt my eyes, and I’m already too hurt. Emptiness consumes me, just like any other night. I lay awake every night, after waking in cold sweats. I’ve been feeling as though my heart was carved out of my body, and it hangs over me; staring down. That fear lives and breathes with me every minute. I shoot up. If it weren’t for her. . . I think to myself. My sister was the reason this was happening. The reason why I drift off into space, only to awake in a panic. The reason why meaning fades away with every heartbeat. Every new day turns into that same nightmare that I have to endure.

I’d never felt fulfilled in life, but that fantasy became impossible when my father died. I lived for him. I took care of him; even when it meant that I was destroying myself for him. He beat me every day of my entire childhood. He yelled and fought with me until my tears weren’t enough. He would threaten me with his guns or his drugs. Sometimes he told me that I had to stay locked in my room for days. If I didn’t, he took it out on my sister. My poor baby sister was always hiding and sobbing. She got upset too easily. I told her “shut up; father will hear you,” but she just kept crying. My father said “if you don’t shut her up, I will.” As I got older, I found myself hitting her until she was passed out. Nothing else could keep her quiet.

I sit up in my bed, still drowning in the darkness. Tears fall from my eyes, but I’m not sad. It’s like I’m falling into this depression, in which every feeling or emotion is worthless. I glance over to my side table. On it, sits a photo of my father and my sister. They’re smiling at me like nothing is wrong. Like our family was happy and satisfied with itself. I clenched my jaw as I thought of the ugly truth.

I turned 18. I could finally leave the wretched place that I was forced to call home. My sister was still stuck there. She didn’t have anyone to protect her anymore. She would have to figure it out herself. I’d spent the better part of 10 years telling her how to survive in that house, but she refused to accept it. I lived cities away. I hated my father, and never wanted to see him again. Yet I still paid rent for him to keep his house, and I called him monthly to check on him. I always thought that I’d be able to change him one day. I considered it my life’s purpose. I just wanted him to be a better person. For my sister, but mostly to get some closure for myself.

When I received a call from him, for the first time, I knew that something was wrong.

“Annabelle,” My sister said to me over the phone. I grew worried. My heart was beating a million miles a minute.

“Aria, what is it?” I asked. “I can’t come back to save you anymore, I’m far away. You just have to learn to live with our father,” I told her. I heard her gulp over the phone. She didn’t say anything. I heard a wheezing sound in the background.

“What happened, Aria?”

“I shot Dad!” She screamed. All of a sudden, I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I wanted to puke and cry and scream. My father was going to die! He always harmed me, but I wished that I could protect him from what my sister had done.

“Why would you do that?” I blurted to her.

“Annabelle. Please don’t be upset,” She pleaded.

“You killed our father!” I shouted.

“He hurt us every day. You suffered for your entire childhood. He was coming at me like I’ve never seen before. If I didn’t do it, he was going to kill me!” She cried. I began sobbing as I dropped the phone. I never even got a chance to help my father change. She took that chance from me.

I get up out of bed and walk into the bathroom. I puke up chunks of my dinner, which I only ate for sustenance. Thinking of my father, dying on the ground; a gun beside him and my sister crying over his bloody body, made me tense up. I still hear the wheezes of my father and the cries of my terrified sister. Every time the phone rings I jump up with fear. I head back to bed, where I lay down again; being swallowed by darkness; overcome with resentment for my sister; wishing I could go back and save my father.