The Story Of Us(Original)

8

"To the outside world, we all grow old. But not to brothers and sisters. We know each other as we always were. We know each other's hearts. We share private family jokes. We remember family feuds and secrets, family griefs, and joys. We live outside the touch of time."

—Clara Ortega

It was Thanksgiving break and I was still grounded. Lucky for me, I have a brother who would do anything to make me smile.

I used Wrenner's phone to keep in contact with my friends and Kellen. By then, my whole life had quickly become Kellen Riaz. Two weeks into dating, he had convinced me to stop taking my medication and go the holistic route.

Kellen didn't have a television. They weren't exclusive enough. My ex coveting items no one else had; like his ceiling projector that he said a tech savvy friend set up so he could stream content. We would lay together on his bed, watch shows, smoke weed and talking about everything on our minds, and I finally felt alive. Like the fog had suddenly lifted and my every thought was Kellen. I had just forgotten to tell Wren about it.

It was Black Friday. Mother nature taking the name literally because I woke up to black stormy skies. The condominium was empty. Walking through the sea of mute colors in search of my brother and, for the first time in years, realizing how bland our home was.

Everything was a shade of white outside our bedrooms and the home office. There was framed art on the walls but even those bursts of color lacked substance, life. It was a dollhouse.

"Good morning, Mai." I yawned, entering the kitchen. "Do you know where everyone is?" I asked, fixing myself a bowl of cereal.

"Good morning, Miss," she responded, before asking if I would rather her make breakfast.

Mai was the new Marta. A kind college student just trying to get by. She lasted almost ten months before she started asking the wrong questions.

"Rue, Mai, and no, cereal is good," I sighed.

My mother is a classist. Her short time slumming it with Cal gave her a bad taste towards the working class. She thought it was best her children never associate below their station, incorporating titles to remind everyone where they stood.

She called the staff servants and insisted they address everyone down to my three-year-old brother Akhil by Miss, Mistress, Master, and Sir.

I hated it.

Mai's smile was robotic. It lacked joy and the personality I adored. "The Mistress informed me she and the Master are taking your youngest brother upstate to escape the weather, and to remind you, you're not to leave the grounds," she explained.

"Mai, they're not here - you can talk like a person," I assured her, watching her deflate after a moment's hesitation.

Mai collapsed onto the island chair while I fought the urge to roll my eyes. She only had to put up an act for five hours a day. I did it every moment of my life.

"It's hard to turn it off once it's on. Anyway, um... I don't know where your other brother went. He left a few hours ago," she told me.

Along with the cleaning, it was Mai's job to tend to my brothers, the young caretaker visibly uncomfortable when it came to my brother Wrenner.

When Colleen came back for us, I told Wrenner "We do what they want. No matter what it is, it's better than what we came from. It's like Cinderella except now, there's a prince and a princess."

"What if it's like Hansel and Gretel?" he narrowed his eyes.

"Then we throw that bitch in an oven." I smiled pulling him into a hug.