Why didn't I wait?

"I'll come back", I grinned, lying through my stained teeth, hand on my brother's small shoulder. I knew far too well that I was never setting foot in his house again. What we had all gone through that night was frankly the last straw, I hid finally broken into a million jagged pieces. I would not live through another god knows what with my step "father" if you could call him that, I didn't.

I had seen my imminent death one too many times and I was evidently done. My brother seemed to see the lie trickling down from my eyes as he shot me a knowing glance. He hugged me as if to pull me deep into his heart to hold me there, safe from our shared traumas. He held me in a silent goodbye tightly enough it may heal us, perhaps our broken pieces could be placed together to form one whole person.

We were snapped into reality though the coaxing tone of my father's voice, blissfully unaware of the events that had just finished unfolding like a poisonous flower. I could feel my heart curling up to die, apart from my dearest brother. I pressed one final ember of a kiss into his clammy forehead before walking out the front door, forever this time.

I would not feel the same ever again, I had forsaken my brother, left him alone in that house and neglected to look back. I had stumbled upon a sadness unlike any my young heart would ever find again, a guilt no twelve year-old should lay claim to. I knew all was not well with him, with no way of knowing exactly how he was. I could rarely call, as there was a heft restraining order placed between his father and I. He could not read or write well enough for letters, and I had made it clear I would not be going back.

I no longer found school interesting, something I used to pretend I was not sick in order to attend. The whole day would be spent, eyes fixed on one area, unwavering until the end of class. I cried between each class, unsure when this pain could ever leave me, trying to cleanse myself of my vexing thoughts. I was a shell of a child, and my bipolar hadn't manifested yet. I used to be a warrior, a knight created to protect those I held dear, now? Well, now I was a traitor, a sister and daughter who abandoned all duty.

My flesh became worn with the overlapping damage grazed into it by my nails first, then blades. I was my own aggressor throughout high school, plotting my own death in the same way my mother's husband had. I fell into a regressive pattern of becoming the enemy. Becoming much like my mother's husband,. Much like the man she chose over her own children repetitiously, something I will plainly never forgive.

I can forgive much of her neglect, her drug use, but I cannot forgive her continuously looking the other way as her husband had his way with me. I know she was not mentally capable many things, but she ought not to have had children had she not known the very basics of humanity. She was unaware of my pain despite being the cause, despite being told over and over as I attempted to carve it into her.

I was immersed in a feedback loop telling me time and again that nothing would ever be okay, that it was my fault. The guilt was nearly insurmountable. I was slowly remembering more and more of my time in that house, showing me I made the right choice, yet wishing I had laid down my life for them. I was well into my adulthood before I extended an olive branch to myself, allowing myself to heal. It was okay to have chosen life for, okay to be selfish enough to enable myself to breathe another breath, to help others later.