Alex

When you think of family, you think of a mother, father, daughter, and/or son. Not an older brother taking care of his younger ones. Well, Sam thought that was what he’d been doing. No. Jack didn’t want to stay with him. After every court procedure he’d been following. After spending all his money on a house, beds for the house, trying to make it feel like a home. What was the point? What was the point of trying to be the best if nobody took notice? For days, Sam slept in his truck, overworked himself almost to death occasionally.

Maybe now it was pointless. Maybe he wasn’t fit to be a guardian. Maybe he wasn’t even fit to be a brother. Jack and Hearts deserve someone better. Maybe if they stayed with Rory, everything would be fine. Sam already lived his short life of freedom to the fullest, there was no point now. Sometimes, he told himself that if he never left, everything would be okay. That if he had just called the cops before, none of this would’ve happened. If he just stayed in the home, nothing bad would’ve happened to Jack or Hearts. Why did he leave?

The house itself was quiet, the moonlight shining through the window and casting a faint light. Sam sat on the couch, head in his hands. He was shaking, his breath uneven beyond normal. He was sobbing. Hiccups shook through his body as tears fell down his pierced face, sobs genuinely escaping him. He knew he wasn’t a good brother, but his mind was forcing him to think that now. “You’ll never be good enough for them, you left them after all.” Phrase after phrase, it didn’t matter now. “They don’t want someone who will leave them again, and again, AGAIN.”

His body shook with each sob, but he didn’t speak a single word. He wanted to go home. Not where he was now. Back to when he was younger. When he could run into Rory’s arms and cry. When everything was okay. In the midst of his cries, his broken out voice spoke. Nobody was there, but he didn’t care. “I wanna go home..” What even was home anymore? His parents hated him. Their father was a horrible person, and his mother.. God, why couldn’t he be brought up differently? Why couldn’t any of them be brought up differently then?

He had stood to his feet for a moment, walking towards where the backyard’s door had been. Yet he paused in the hallway. He stared at a photo. Where everyone seemed.. Happy. He was quiet as he stared at it for a moment or two, before taking it into his hands. Sam was careful to take the photo out of the frame for it, but it didn’t take long for him to gently begin tearing himself from the photos. He did it with every single one in the hallways. He could reprint them later. He had them in his gallery.