The Girl With The Tattoo

20. moment of realisation

Lexi

I open the door to Carl's room. Dad had a "business meeting" to attend to so it leaves Carl and I to do whatever we want while he's gone. But he's actually just going to fuck some girl that he's seeing and there is no business meeting.

Carl seems startled as I open the door, throwing his headset onto his duvet.

"Wow, chill!" I tell him, hating seeing him so panicked because of his door opening "What's wrong?"

He shakes it off "Nothing, you just scared me, that's all."

I furrow my brows in confusion "Why would you be scared? I'm not about to come in here with a rifle to blow your head off!"

He shakes his head at me "Fuck off."

"Okay, so you don't want me to come and keep you company while dad's gone?" I say to him, knowing that he'd hate it if I was to leave.

"Of course I do." He admits to me, patting an area of his duvet to gesture for me to take a seat on his bed.

I do what he wants me to, throwing myself onto the duvet which creates a loud thud. And I watch as he's also startled by that which shows me just how bad things must be getting here for him. But I don't know if he wants to talk about it right now.

"What are you doing in here?" I ask him.

He looks over at his small television which is now paused "Just playing on the Xbox."

"What game?" I ask him, sort of hoping that he'd let me play too.

"Call of Duty." He tells me, a little embarrassed.

"Oh, so you're more likely to blow my head off! Don't you get to shoot people in the face and like blow shit up on there?!" I start to get excited at the game, desperately wanting to have a go now.

"It's about a war actually." He tells me "It's not all about shooting people."

"No way, I wanted to have a gun!" I show that I'm disappointed about that.

"I wouldn't trust you with a gun."

I decide that I should tell him that I'm leaving soon. It's only for a few days but I know that he might not be very happy about it. He's already on edge and me leaving him is probably going to make things worse.

And just as I'm about to start rambling on about how I'm spending time away from home, I notice something that makes my stomach drop...

"Vaseline?" I question him "Why do you have that?"

He shrugs his shoulders, clearly not wanting to talk about it "I don't know."

"No, I remember seeing that before." I admit to him, remembering where I'd previously noticed the tub "That's dad's. I've seen it in his room before..."

"Carl, why do you have dads Vaseline?" I panic.

I can tell that this conversation is making him uncomfortable. He moves around, fidgeting with his bedsheets as he now avoids looking in my direction. He knows that I'm figuring out what's happening to him again and I know how ashamed he feels about it.

I decide to bite the bullet "Has he been doing it to you again?"

The look on his face gives me my answer.

"Carl, I told you to tell me if he was doing it again?" I start to breathe heavier, the palms of my hands now sweaty as I realise what's happening to him "You said that he'd stopped! Why didn't you tell me?"

Unexpectedly, he looks at me once again, but this time he seems angry at me "Why should I tell you? You clearly don't care when he hits me! Why would you care about this?!"

"Because I'm your sister! We tell each other everything!"

"Yeah, we used to. Not anymore, clearly." He says, and I'm instantly confused as to what he means by that.

"What do you mean?" I ask him.

He then asks me "When were you gonna tell me that you're going away? I heard about it from one of your ex's the other day. When the fuck were you gonna tell me?! What, you were just gonna tell me the morning you were leaving? Is that what you were gonna do?!" He gets even more furious at me, raising his voice as he asks me all of these questions.

"I was gonna tell you!" I try to convince him.

"The fuck you were!" He shouts back at me "You're gonna go away, having sex with that little girlfriend of yours while you pretend that you can fucking dance!"

He continues screaming at me, and I'm taken aback by the way that he's speaking to me "Because everyone knows that you can't dance, Lexi! You're not good at anything! You stopped going to school because you were behind in class because you couldn't even fucking count to ten!"

I look into his eyes, in disbelief. He's never talked to me like this before. Of course we've had disagreements and we've argued but he's never once hurt my feelings like he's doing now.

"Why would you say that?" I ask him, tears now beginning to form in my eyes.

I guess he's noticed what he's done, as he says "Sh-shit. Lexi, I didn't mean any of tha-."

"Leave it!" I tell him, not wanting to hear any excuses from him

I stand up, not wanting to be anywhere near him right now. I try to help him but he seems to be in denial about everything. He's an adult now, he's perfectly capable of getting help with what he's going through.

He shouldn't take it out on me.

And then I hear him say to me "You say you want to help me but you're leaving me here with him! You know what he's gonna do to me! And It looks like your social life is more important than being there for your brother!"

I've had enough of him right now, so I look him in the eyes as I say "Go fuck yourself!"

And as I'm walking out of the room, he continues shouting at me "Yeah, just walk away! That's all you fucking do!"

I cover my ears as I walk out of the room. I can hear his voice echoing in my head and I'm getting so overwhelmed. I try to calm myself down but my hands are shaking and I feel like I'm suffocating.

I slam my bedroom door before jumping onto my bed to try and comfort myself. I breathe heavily into my duvet, my tears pouring down my cheeks which leave stains on my pillow.

I can't do this anymore. I love him but I can't help him.