Chapter 1: a burning house is what i call love
" Isaac!" The boy in question startles and looks up from where his head was lying on his arms.
"What? He ask still half asleep. He didn't really know what was going on but as he looks around Isaac slowly realises that he is in school and probably fall asleep. He looks at his teacher who was the one shouting his name and hopes that he doesn't want something serious from him. "How often did i tell you not to sleep in my class?" The teacher ask and Isaac can feel the whole class looking at him, he braces his shoulders and answers in a cocky voice " don't remember teach, i think i slept through it." He can see how Mr.Mills face grows more angry by the second. Isaac's leg bounces up and down under his table waiting for mr. Mills to explode. " you will see me after class!" The teacher say's and turns around. Isaac just smirks and begins to play with his pencil and drawing some dinosaurs into the corner of his notebook.
He is really, really bored what else should he do for the rest of the day, he has two other classes after this one and then probably detention from the looks of it, but its still so much time. Maybe he should call one of his siblings again, he didn't really talked to them much in the last weeks.
They where getting better with communicating but since he spent most of his early childhood in Boarding schools they never connected as much as buck and Maddie had. They only really had a few months between buck moving out and him finally living at home. They saw each other each holiday and they congratulated him to every birthday, which not even there parents did but still the connection never was really there and he was loosing his focus again he realises and try's to concentrate at the lesson, math wasn't really his strength but at least he should get his high school diploma before giving up on it. He was in his last high school year and then he would be finally finished and could leave this god for saken place.
Just as he predicted Mr.mills gave him detention and yelled at him at an angry voice on how he doesn't even know why Isaac still in school if he was just sleeping through all of his classes, which is fair but what else was there to do? This question plaques him the whole way home it took him at least an hour getting home because his bike has broke down a few days ago and he didn't had the energy to fix it so now he had to walk to and from school, this at least gave him some more time out of the house. As Isaac was at least ten minutes from home he pulled his phone out and pulled his brothers contact up, debating with himself if he should call him. In the end he decided why not and pressed the call button.
"Hey Isaac, what up" ask a male voice cheerfully, "hey buck, am i interrupting you or anything?" He questions not wanting to interrupt if he is on duty. " no, im still at home, my shift starts in an hour." Buck says. Isaac nods even though buck cant see him. " ok cool, i just had time and thought i call you, you know to chat or something " Isaac explains awkwardly. "Sure! how was your day so far?" Buck ask him and he can hear how sincere his brother is, it never not surprises him how his brother is genuinely interested how he is doing or if he has a new hobby. " day was ok.. just a bit boring you know, math and i aren't really getting along." Isaac can hear buck laugh over the phone " thats good and maybe getting hit by lightning would solve that for you" buck says casually and confuses Isaac
"what do you mean?" Isaac ask, the phone goes silent at the other end "... you know the time i was hit by lightning and after i woke up from the coma i could easily do math" Isaac doesn't know to say he stands still at the sidewalks and he can hear the cars rushing past him. " you..were in a coma? " he stumbles finally out. He can hear bucks confusing over the phone " yeah i thought you knew about it it happened sometime ago and mom and dad came also to visit me, did they not tell you about it?" Isaac clenches his fist and anger spikes in him but he forces out a calm and cheerful voice" oh.. no they did i just didn't remembered it right know, i was ill at the time and didn't really remember most of it" he jokes and hopes that buck buys it. " oh that sounds horrible and they left you alone with that?" Buck ask and Isaac can tell that he is not happy about it " no, no, they hired a nanny for the days because they didn't knew if you woke up so they wanted to be by your side" Isaac spins his lies wider. "Other topic i wanted to ask" Isaac say's changing the topic to something safer " how do you repair a bike?" And that gets the reaction he anticipated from buck a chuckle. "Ok what do you want to know?"
They talk for a few more minutes until Isaac sees the house he is living in and tells buck that he has to hang up. They say goodbye to each other and promise to talk to another again soon.
At the front door he pulls his keys out and opens the door, its quit inside unlike Isaacs mind which is still raging over the fact that there parents keept it a secret from him that his brother was dying, yes he survived but what if not ? Would they have told him the truth or would he have to figure out on his own. And he know which week it was because he can clearly remember when his parents told hin that they would go to a vacation to have some couple times since with him here they couldn't do it.
Just as Isaac expect it he finds his mother with a glass of wine in the kitchen making some kind of dinner, maybe its in his genes or maybe he is just a bad person but seeing her so relaxt while this storm of emotion takes over his mind brings everything to boil over.
"Where you ever going to tell me that Evan was nearly dying!" He shouts full of anger at her. She turns around shock visible on her face but it turns to an angry expression real fast " don't talk to me like that!" She yells right back at Isaac."what would you have done if he really did died from the lightning strike day? Would you still would have not told me?" He shouts hurt and anger visible but his mother doesn't seem to care he walks over to him and says in a stirn voice" you don't know what your talking about." Isaac scoffs " really, because my brother could have died and i wouldn't had the chance to say goodbye to him" he yells again anger taking over his mind again overriding every self preservation he normally has. He can see the vain on his mothers forehead getting bigger from the way she frowns that should have been his first waring the second was that she didn't even picked up her glass to drink some wine. Her hand rised and smacked across his face, leaving a red mark in its trail. "You don't talk to me like that, and i don't want to hear about that ever again" she sais while Isaacs anger slowly swindles into a mask of nothingness. "Go to your room until your father gets hear" she sais in a calm but still angry voice. Slowly he picks up his backpack from where he had put it when he walked in and moves silently the stairs up where his room is.
He closes the door behind him and falls face first into his bed, his hands find his short brown hair and he pulls on it while silently screaming into his bed. He knows what happens when his father gets home, why did he do it he should have just swallowed the pill and let this information sweep over him but no he had to yell at her, he was really nothing but useless. He moves up from his position and steps over to his mirror looking at his face, his left cheek was really red and a blue mark was visible where the ring she always wore hit his face.
It hurt but he is surprised that the ring didn't tear anything open. At least something good came from it being nearly winter, the water bottles he puts outside his window are cold.
He opens his window and grabs on of them and holds the cool surface against his cheek, he let a sigh out at the effect and sits down at a chair he put under his window to see the street and watch when his father was coming home. He waited and doom scrolled on tic toc, watching some new art techniques he wants to try out to some funny cat videos until he hears the sound of a car he knows by heart. His heart begins to beat faster and a lump forms in his throat. Suddenly he cant sit still anymore, so Isaac stands up and walks up and down in his room. He spots a stress ball that maddie gave him the last time he saw her when he visited her and he couldn't sit still until she was finished with work. Isaac picks the ball up and after a minute just clenching it he sits down on his bed and plays around with it until he hears footsteps coming up the stairs, their kinda light so its his mother.
He is proven right when his mother shortly after opens the door and announces in a even voice "come down, we're eating" Isaac doesn't utter a word and just nods, following her downstairs. At the dining table sits his father two plates are on the table and none at his place. He sits down opposite his mother and his father is left next to him. He feels the unease growing inside him, he doesn't look up, he knows that they are disappointed in him, why shouldn't they he fails school in most classes and at home he is just to loud and talks way to much. "Isaac" his father says like always it sounds as if he doesn't even want to say his name "yes" he whispers. " your mother told me you yelled at her?" Under the table Isaacs hands clench into his pants he gulps and answers " yes sir" his father nods Isaac can see how his fathers jaw tenses and he moves his mouth in a displeased way "and why is that?" Isaac clears his throat and says " i...ah just came from detention and was angry that you both didn't tell me that buck was in a coma and nearly died" his voice cracking here and there. " so not only are you ungrateful at home but you are also a disappointment in school, what else should we expect from you" its still hurts to hear those words even though he heard them at least a thousand times. "But one thing that we don't allow in this house is you getting disrespectful against me or your mother, am i clear?" My father says in a sharp tone and on accident Isaac slips something put of his mouth " you should tell her that, she is the one hitting her child"
Isaac sees his father stand up and grabbing his arm squeezing it painfully and dragging him to another room "listen Isaac this is your fault, your just so hard to deal with, you let us no other option" his father says with and angry tone ad shoving Isaac hard against a wall, his breath gets knocked out from him, his father grabs him by his t-shirt, a star wars one that buck brought him to his 17 birthday, putting pressure against his chest, it hurts bad he feels as if cant breath . "I don't want to hear one word of disrespect against your mother ever again is that clear!" He sais in a sharp tone. Isaac just nods still trying to get his heartbeat under Control. "Good" sais his father and with one really hard shove that leaves Isaac coughing.
He watches as his father leaves the room and just slides down the wall after some more coughs, after a minute he slowly stands up and moves out of his fathers home office that he was dragged into. Just as he wants to go upstairs his mother calls " Isaac dear, come here dinner is still not over.
Against his will his legs move and bring him back again in the dining room where the two sit as if nothing happened, he still doesn't get why he has to sit with them when he isn't allowed to eat but it's probably some kind of power game these two are playing but he is past the point of caring, only one more year and he is 18 and can finally move out and live on its own, maybe far away in some town no one ever heard of. His stomach clenches with hunger but he is so used to it that its kind of normal after all he will get his next meal tomorrow.
After another 30 minutes of sitting there and watching the, eat he is finally allowed to leave. He walks up the stairs and into his room, he lets himself fall on his bed, his head tilts to the side and he sees his school bag, with a groan he stands up and pulls it over pulling out his homework and other material he needs to study for a test he has this week.
For the next hours Isaac sits against his headboard with his schoolwork in his lap working on one problem after another, he knows some time ago his phone gave a notification but otherwise he doesn't senses how the time passes. When he finally deemed everything finished enough for tomorrow he locks at his clock and stares at it for a minute, its 2:18 at night. Internally he knows that Tomorrow will be another long day and he is tired already from it. He changes into a pyjama and as he try's to plug his phone in he sees that the notifications from earlier was buck, who sent him at least ten different articles on how to fix a bike.
A small smile creeps on his face, he sends a thumps up emoji back and try's finally to fall asleep but the pain in the chest keeps him up for a long time.