So this has been in my mind for a little while now, I've finally gotten around to writing a couple of chapters and I'm liking how they're looking so I decided to upload. Hope you enjoy. The next chapters will be longer than this short prologue.
Prologue
Looking at us now, smiling around the dinner table, you'd think we were any ordinary family. Okay, I'll admit – we do look like mismatched pieces of the whole puzzle. We don't fit together in the most conventional way.
But we look happy.
My father, a renowned neuro-surgeon who craves to know everything there is to know about the human mind and brain, doesn't scribble furiously on a notepad. Rather, he sits back and observes as a father should – proudly overlooking his family. My mother's once glassy, non-emotive eyes now light up, holding such hope and plans for the future.
They weren't always my parents. A year ago I would have laughed if anyone had suggested that they'd be even remotely close to that bond. We don't always agree. Sometimes, I think that I'd miss them much more than they'd ever miss me, then my mother always kisses my cheek before I go to bed, and my father always tells me how smart I am, a compliment coming from someone who knows what smart really is, and I feel as if they love me, too. Maybe we're not the most conventional parent-child relationship.
But they're my parents nonetheless.
My brothers pick a fight over whose turn it is to do the dishes. One swears he did it last night, the other swears he did. They argue with each other and they argue with our parents and God knows they argue with me. They argue with my sisters and they argue with the air in an empty room given half a chance. Sometimes I feel like slamming the door and hearing the silence for just one second again, to hear myself think for even half a minute. I write in my journal how I wish I could shut them up for even a few seconds, the amount of noise they seem to produce is astronomical.
But they're my brothers and I wouldn't change them for the world.
My sisters tell each other that they like each other's nail polish. I can tell that they're both thinking suspiciously that the other one has stolen hers from her room, even though they've been told time and time again to keep out of each other's things. They're both girly and perfectly polished, from the tips of their nails to the tips of their (not a split end in sight) hair. I wish I was more assertive and then I could tell them both that actually, both of those nail polishes came from my room. Again, something else to write in the journal.
But they're my sisters and whatever they steal from me, no-one can steal the love I feel for them.
My boyfriend squeezes my hand under the table, a sign that tells me he's still there for me, even if my mind is off in a wonderland that I'm not ready to escape from yet. I could smile at him, but that would mean starting a conversation. Sometimes a conversation with him is like getting blood from a stone. No, that's not true. It's only when he's with lots of people that he stays so quiet. On walks in the woods he has stories to tell me that I've only ever heard chapters of. I wish he'd learn to tell me more.
But he's my boyfriend and no-one else understands me like he does.
I didn't always think I'd end up here. I don't know what I thought. Maybe six feet under is more of an accurate depiction of what I believed I'd be this time last year. It's all so strange to me. Sometimes I wonder if I really was meant to die in that place, I wonder if death is a release that eludes me continuously, for I seem to cheat it far more than the average person.
But this is my life and after all, who else could tell my story?