Chapter 2 - Past
Anna is 5, Tony is 15
"Tony! Look what I made!" Anna said, holding up the robot dog that she had built to try and show her older brother.
"Uh huh, that's great, Anna. Why don't you go play with your toys?" Tony said, not moving his attention away from his project, acting just like how their dad had acted towards Tony when Tony was 5 and trying to show Howard his project.
"But, Tony!"
"Go away, Anna! God, you're such a baby!" Tony said harshly, turning and snatching the robot dog out of Anna's hands before throwing it on the ground, breaking it. Anna could only stare at her brother in shock, silent tears beginning to run down her face. Tony had been caring, loving towards her all of her life, but when he had come back from boarding school this summer, he had begun to treat her like how Howard treated both of them. Anna could only watch as her beloved robot dog that she had spent all year making, eager to show her brother when he came home, was smashed to pieces.
She immediately burst into tears and ran to her room, shutting her door and burying her face into her pillow to stiffle her sobs.
Tony watched her go, a pang of guilt and shame beginning to run through him at the way he had treated his sister, his baby sister. The one that he had vowed to protect the day that she had been born. He realized that he had just treated her how his father treated him… something he had promised to himself that he would never do to Anna, and he did just that.
Tony rose from his desk and picked up the pieces of her robot that she had brought to show him, and walked down the hall to Anna's room to find it locked… locked to keep him out, Tony realized. He pressed his ear against her door and could hear her sobs, even as she tried to stifle them with a pillow. He couldn't believe he had treated her like that, and come to think of it, he had been treating her like that a lot lately, throwing her projects in her face or telling her to go away and to leave him alone whenever she tried to show him something. Today wasn't the first time he had broken something that Anna had made, but it was the first time she had ever had an emotional response about him doing it.
He sighed, going back to his room with the robot dog, pushed his own projects to the side and began to put it back together, noticing that it was actually well constructed for a five year old. It was better put together than any robot that Tony had built at her age.
After putting it back together, Tony began to realize that it was already well past midnight. He turned off his lights and lied down in his bed, resolving to apologize to his sister tomorrow.
