Just so you know, I'm not going to continue on In The Beginning for a while. So here's my next one, which I will finish. I've just started holidays here, so I should update fairly often (I hope). However, I'm only going to update after I recieve 4 reviews, so really it's up to you and whether or not you want me to continue.
DISCLAIMER: I do not own the Girardi's, Arcadia, in fact I own nothing.
Kevin felt like a failure. He was 27, already going grey, unemployed and living in his sisters two bedroom apartment in the slums of New York. Joan was going alright, with a job as a secretary right in the middle of the city, but could only just pay the rent, with the help of Kevin's pension.
Kevin's life had gone dramatically wrong when he started university. He agreed to participate in an experimental spinal injury operation, but left with his chances of walking again at zero – they had accidentally severed his spinal card during the operation. So he dropped out of his journalism course, and went to live with Joan in the big city. For the past two years, he had hardly been outside of his apartment. New York wasn't the best caterer for those with physical disabilities.
Joan knew that there was something wrong with her brother, and she was sure it was depression. Her deepest fear was to come home one night and find her brother dead after overdosing on painkillers, or slitting his wrists. She had tried to make him see someone, but he denied any help.
Instead he spent his days in a dim room, occasionally surfing the internet, but mainly reading. Joan was constantly borrowing out books from the library. She never knew what he thought of the books, he always claimed he didn't have an opinion on them. Kevin himself knew there was something wrong with him, but he didn't know what. He just felt as though he was in a hole he couldn't get out of.
Another problem was family. Neither Joan nor Kevin talked to their parents or brother anymore. Luke had plans to go off and become some brain surgeon in California, and as far as they knew, their parents were still in Arcadia. Kevin didn't associate with them because they were the ones who encouraged him to have the operation, but he had no idea why Joan didn't. He had never bothered to ask.
Kevin had also picked up a habit…smoking. Joan would often come home to a smoky room. She hated the dusty smell that tickled her nose, but she couldn't make him stop. Joan had no idea where he got the cigarettes from, because she didn't get them for him.
Occasionally Joan would look in the mirror and find it hard to believe she looked so old. Her skin sagged, and her eyes had crow's feet. Her hair was straggly and her eyes were dull. She put it down to the stress of the big city. She had never wanted to move there, but she had to. After her only true love, Adam, had another affair with Bonnie, she couldn't take living in the same town. When she left Arcadia, Adam and her family, she left one other thing – God.
She moved to New York three years ago, and Kevin joined her two and a half years ago. Since then she had changed her name to Joan Hampton, and done absolutely nothing with her life.
Ok, remember I want 4 reviews before i update! Emily out!