A/N: Generated words were Male Character and Addiction.
I was only 12.
"Ivan, you need to try this!"
I can't remember her name or what she looked like. I just remember the thick air of wonder that erupted around me as I eyed the clear bottle in her hand. And the burn from my first swig. God how bad it burned, and I'll honestly never be able to give you a reasonable excuse as to why I took another swig after that. And then the countless others after that. But it's something about the burn.
There are plenty of people who won't understand this and trying to convince you otherwise will only lead to less time knocked off my lifespan. Which you're just not important enough to share. So I'll just simply state this. Self inflicted pain is easier. It just is. Unless you like pain with a side of heartbreak, humiliation, trauma, and/or seeping wounds you'd agree. But if you don't, well, you're at a level of masochism that I could never be on. So, congrats.
My sisters care. Others seem to think that we're this family of seemingly naïve psychopaths and for all external purposes we are. It's simpler to push others away than attempt to make them understand. How could I explain the murder/suicide pact my parents kept when I was 15? Or why Natalya would rather marry me (her own brother) than even attempt to date the nice Lithuanian boy down the street? I couldn't, or at least not to an effect that could please anyone. So its useless to even attempt to.
Which is why I don't.
Irunya tells me I drink too much and too often. I know she's right, but I'd never openly admit to it. Too much will be said if I do and the next thing I'd know would be the blinding white walls of a rehab that has less funding and more people than it should. Which has happened before, several years ago when the trauma was still so fresh in my mind.
It happened while I was at school. At least that's what I've been told. It makes sense, but I'd prefer to think that it happened right before I walked through the door. That maybe they had tried to rationalize longer at how horrible it would be to leave three children alone in a country where child labor is still legal. But it doesn't really matter, does it? Either way they would have chosen the same ending, and either way we would have ended up orphaned and terrified.
Irunya kept us out of any labor camps. All it took was her self-respect and virginity, but she did it. All at the age of 17. Too many powerful old men with unloving wives and what not. She's never told us what she did, but we know. The marks across her wrists and neck afterwards was more than enough evidence about what had transpired.
She never even cried.
And so Irunya went to work, while Natayla and I walked to school. Days went by where popular, sweet Natayla would ignore all her friends just to stay close to me.
"I love you, big brother." It was always such a nice thing to hear during a rough day, but it didn't stay that way for long. Hugs turned into gropes, kisses on the cheek would turn into her biting my ear, and eventually I couldn't do anything around her without it turning sexual.
Thus making me puke whatever was left in my stomach. Daily.
Natayla and I graduated, though despite Irunya's efforts we didn't go to the ceremony. Instead the three of us stayed at home, drank from three celebratory glasses of wine, and talked about the good times. Looking back I feel like that was the best way to end a horrible period in our lives.
College seemed like an even bigger chore than high school, so I took up a job at a construction site instead. It paid better than most and the hours weren't incredibly long, so I felt like I was living a decent life. I made enough to keep my sister's out of people's beds and heads, so I felt good. Something I hadn't felt in so long.
A few years passed and Irunya settled down with this nice Canadian boy. They tried to have children, but Irunya's body wasn't capable of it. Instead they adopted a strange little polar bear, and since then they've never seemed happier.
Natayla never really let me go, but the meds have helped. She's tried to tell me how sorry she was for everything, but I've always just let it go. Trauma can turn the sweetest girl into a hallucinating sexual deviant, and I'm not going to hold it against her.
I quit construction soon after Natayla moved in with the Lithuanian boy. I had saved money to support myself for at least a year, and I needed some time to myself. Which is where I am right now. I met this Chinese man named Yao that has recently caught my attention. He's more bark than bite, but he's sexy as sin and a definite challenge so it should be fun.
And if that doesn't work out I'll be fine. I'm only 24 after all.