You Saved Me Once Book 1

The only female in a house of all boys. Still don’t know how I survived. Now it’s just Jake and me. Jake’s the youngest among the four of us. I’m the middle, then Adam, then our oldest brother, Jack.

They’re both off, living their lives. Just thinking about life outside of Versa, gives me chills, makes me envy them.

I miss them. We haven’t been together, in forever.

~~~~~

I get out of the shower and wrap myself in a towel. I give it 3 sec-onds, before Jake barges in. I watch the steam in the room, vanish in the new air.

“Is it just me or do females take so long in the bathroom, it’s in-sane.” He says.

I smile at his comment. I’m happy to hear Jake’s humor. It lets me know he’s doing better than before. It got bad a couple of months ago for him. Sometimes I’m scared, that he might be faking it.

“10 minutes is forever Jake, you’re right. Sorry about that.” I say. He ignores me.

We share a bathroom in our 4-bedroom 2.5-bathroom home. We’d never use the downstairs bathroom, the room closest to the kitchen, closer to the laundry room. We haven’t been in that room in years.

“Can’t be late, got a game today. The team’s already riding my ass.” He says.

He’s scrambled, and the day just started. Seeing him like this makes me worried. I call his name, but he ignores me. My wet hair drips on the steamed floor.

His cold hands touch the humid mirror. He slides it open. The fau-cet runs, everything else is quiet. I watch him gulp it down with the wa-ter. He leaves the faucet running. He smiles at me.

“You’ve had like 20 games in the last two weeks, you guys haven’t won, one yet.” I joke.

Jake almost falls on the wet floor. This makes us both smile through the hate. No matter what Jake said, I could never hate him. It’s just cold, humor hate. It’s us showing our love to each other.

“Of course, you wouldn’t understand, the only thing you're commit-ted to is photographing oceans, and stuffing your face with ice cream.” He says. I laugh.

“Hey! Make another sexist joke again, and I swear I’ll-” He slams the door in my face.

“Fuck you!” I yell. He shouts it back.

I smile through the cold chills that now coat my skin.

~~~~~~

was going to be just like every other day of the week. Super simple, super repetitive, yet tolerable. Tolerable

feel like I would crash. Crash and

breakfast, get in my car and drive to school. The weekends aren’t much different.

school, sounds bittersweet. I’m thankful though, because I can finally leave this

legal age. We can do whatever we want with it.

though. I need him as much as

every day. I sit on

the collages,

my bed, I can see my once perfect, happy family, frozen in time, taped to the mirror. Then I look at another family on the mirror, the Bartley’s.

stained with black scribbles. Now it’s just a shitty, smudged mirror. I should throw it away.

the smudges, I look at my short messy hair, and my

quiet too fast. I can hear the shower running. I grab my

and hate relationship

a super dark time for me, for all

I let this dark coping,

the habit. It’s a secret though. One of my darkest secrets. I try to not think

apple, it’s cold. The crunch warms me. Stops me from thinking too

Jake comes downstairs.

have a

are you talking about?” I ask.

down the

spare. For my car.”

words are heavy, almost mean, yet recovered. We’re close to the

and go to the

you have a spare?” Jake asks again. I

is a spare, inches away from him.

I see a car parked in front of

for years. We were

car is

are you whispering?”

think it is?” He