the way this fandom has a tendency to frame maddie as having a more black-and-white, or at least less hurtful, relationship with her parents than buck is so interesting to me because it has never registered that way to me for one single second. like you're a child and your brother is sick and that is scary enough on its own, only they test your blood to see if maybe you can save him and you can't, you can't do anything, you're a child, so your parents take the only option left to them and they make you another brother and he's so small but he can save Daniel, right? they're saying he can save Daniel, only he can't either, in the end (it's the first thing you share), and you had all of this hope and now one of your brothers is dead and the other one is so small and has no idea the big brother he missed out on.
and not only that but your parents are so taken over by their grief that they decide to push Daniel out of their minds and hearts and house entirely, but they need you to be on their team to do that, because they need you to go along with the story. that Daniel was never here and Evan is the only brother you've ever had.
and you couldn't save your brother, but maybe you can do this. you're just a child, but maybe you can do this, even though you can see the cracks and the way they grow, the way the pretending doesn't actually mend anything.
and your parents are so invested in keeping the story as true as it can be that your new brother, the oh so very little one, relies on you more than you expected. and you couldn't save the first one, but you can do this. you can do this. you didn't do anything wrong, you tell him when it gets hard, when they have trouble looking at him as he grows into Daniel's very face. they yell because they care, you say, and you really really take that one to heart and let yourself believe it even as you grow up, even as you leave the house with a man who proves its truth.
you have this secret, and you can't give it up now, even after all of these years, because you couldn't save your brother, see? you couldn't save your brother and you can't save yourself and is there not so much shame baked into the very core of the thing?
you were never allowed to grieve, and it's your own fault, when you really think about it. because if only you had been able to save your brother then your parents never would have asked something so terrible of you and you never would have learned about how much people have to care to start yelling and you never would have adopted the ability to bury your hurt deep in the ground for the sake of keeping everyone around you calm and even-keeled and quiet.
your desire to bring your parents back into your life isn't in search of a simplicity you can't even remember from your early years, but because it's what you're built to do. you were tasked, so young, with offering peace to them upon the silver platter of your own neglected mourning, and so you invite them in and offer it again, offer it again, offer it again.
you're just a child and then one day you're holding a child of your own and all you know to accompany a love this big--the same love in so many ways that you had for that little boy who couldn't save Daniel either, the boy born with grief in his blood-- is shame and grief and fear and being quiet about it. this is the first time you say i need help and this is the last time you run away and still, and still, you are a child.
there is so much you've forgotten about your brother, the one you couldn't save, because you weren't allowed to.
there is so much you've lost of your very own self, because you were forced to shed it with the memory of him.
there is so much space to grow, if only you could tend to the weeds left untended for too long.
and through it all, part of you will always be a child sitting across from her parents at the kitchen table as they tell you: you never had two brothers. he was never yours to keep. look at the pain you'll cause if you remind us of him, maddie. look at the pain you've caused.
because, despite it all, that hurting little girl is the one who remembers him best. and you can't purge her entirely. not without losing him too.
dailybridgerton
pixelskylines
ellievsbear
turnnoffyourmind
vaporwave
