Promises

I looked down at him, he snored, open-mouthed, I smelled alcohol in his breath. I stared at the papers shattered around the daybed, dark, depressing poems he wrote when he was drunk, just before passing out. He thought he was writing something great, Pulitzer-worthy. The writing was almost unreadable. Something about break-up, and suicides. I couldn't make up half of the words.

I picked up the empty bottles of vodka, arranged the sheets in one neat little pile I put on the nightstand.

He mumbled in his sleep, incoherent thoughts, slurred words that only he could understand. I hoped he would wake up soon. Somehow, his drunkenness appeared scarier when he was asleep, because then, he could not pretend everything was okay.

I opened the curtains, allowing the daylight to enter the darkened room. He winced and sat up on the unmade bed. The sheets were white with little animals running up and down the edges, I noticed. He had gotten them for his eighth birthday.

-"I have an headache," he announced. I handed him two Advil and a glass of water. He swallowed the pills, hesitated a moment, the purple Tupperware glass in his hand, before stetting it back on the nightstand. Aspirin was better, he thought, it was good for your heart. How ironic of him to think that. When you're drunk every night, your heart is already pitiful, aspirin, or no aspirin.

-"Aren't you supposed to be at school?" he asked, almost casually, and for an instant, I forgot that it was ten o'clock, on a school morning, and that I was stuck home caring for my alcoholic brother.

I didn't answer. I hoped that he would be able to sense my anger, and that he would apologize, that he would make the right kind of promises, the kind that lasted longer than the gap between two party nights.

I knew he wouldn't.

He got up a little shaky. I hoped he would fall down. He didn't. He headed for the bathroom, and threw up on the seagreen rug. I'd have to wash it before it stains, I thought. That would be the reliable thing to do.

Then, I turned away in disgust. I turned away from Shin, and the stained rug, the empty bottles of vodka, the small that lingered in the air. I walked away, and for once, decided that being reliable was not the thing to do.

I want reviews. Reviews make me feel nice, and fuzzy. You want me to feel good, right? Sure you do.

And while you're at it, you might as well read this because I want you to. Because I'm asking politely too, and coming from me, that'd be a start.