Page 23 of Tortured Whispers
When I walked into his room after a few knocks, my entire world tilted on its axis. Anthony was face down on the floor. His body was cold and stiff.
The dense feeling of doom was no longer over top of me, it was me. It sank into my blood and pumped through my veins.
I dropped to my knees, my hands trembling like a leaf in the height of a storm. “Ant! Anthony, please get up, man. Please…” My voice cracked, giving way to tears. His body was heavy and stiff as I flipped him over on his back. “Anthony, no…no…no.” My words felt too tiny. They didn’t feel real. My big brother couldn’t be there on the floor dead.
He absolutely couldn’t.
I wanted to wake up from the nightmare playing in my head.
It had to be a dream, right?
I rested his head in my lap with my spine bowed and my head hanging until my forehead brushed his. His skin was like cold leather. My big brother was just a body.
My shoulders quaked as sobs took over me along with the realization that in an instant, I was alone in the world. Our parents died when I was still a kid. All I had was Anthony.
Now, I had no one.
I shouldn’t have fought with him. I got him riled up and didn’t come back to apologize. Agonizing tears dripped onto Ant’s shirt as I cried over him, my fists in balls begging the very air around me to let this be a bad dream.
Twenty minutes of broken cries later, I fumbled to call an ambulance. They took him to the hospital and I waited hours for them to tell me he had a heart attack probably hours before he was discovered. They asked if I wanted to notify anyone from their phone and suddenly the feeling of doom was heavy on me again.
I had to tell Brooklyn her father was dead.
She was in school without a care. My throat turned scratchy as I rose from the chair I’d been planted in. I knew there were people talking to me but I couldn’t respond. My body was cement as I walked through the doors. All I had to do was put one foot in front of the other.
Left, right.
Left, right.
I checked out while my muscles kicked in and drove me to Avery Briggs Alternative High School. I told the main office I needed to take my niece home. My body was void of emotion and my voice was a flat surface that held nothing. Not a single inflection.
She was happy to see me until she settled beside me in the car and realized something wasn’t right. “Cease, what’s wong?” Her soft voice and adorable inflections shattered me. I turned into a tsunami of sorrow, my tall frame curved over the steering wheel. “Cease, what’s wong! What happened?” Her hands trembled as she touched my back. “Please talk to me,” she begged.
“I’m sorry, Brook,” I rasped. I had to pull myself together. She couldn’t see me break down. I wiped the tears from my hot face and prepared to tell her the hardest thing I’ve ever had to tell anyone.
**
Brooklyn…
Everything on me shook…my lips, my chin, my hands and shoulders. I didn’t know what was coming next from Cease but watching him crumble right before me was haunting. He composed himself after a moment then looked at me.
“Your father is…dead. He’s gone, Brook,” he sniffled.
My lips moved but nothing came out.
Water, water, water.
“No…no, Cease. Don’t say that,” I begged. My chest felt empty like my heart would never beat again.
“I found him this morning on the floor in his room. He had a heart attack,” he explained, trying to remain calm. Sweat beads made of ice covered my forehead. I sucked in one last urgent breath before the water swallowed my head.
A howl clawed at my constricted throat until I had no choice but to let it out. Water shredded my lungs to useless scraps of tissue. I was sinking like a rock.
“Nooo!” I don’t even know when I started to cry. I don’t know when I started to shake or clutch my shoulders and rock back and forth.
“I’m so sorry, Brook,” Caesar said again. His voice was too far away. He sounded like he was a football field away instead of right beside me, holding my hands.
“I-I-I can’t bweathe,” I gasped, scratching at my throat with my nails. I didn’t care if I drew blood. I wanted to. I wanted to feel physical pain and not the godforsaken pain that echoed in my heart.
