MUTE

Prologue:

It was midnight, twelve o’clock sharp. I went out of bed after I heard my parents yelling at one another. I was terrified, my parents never fought until that horrific night. The wooden boards of the hallway creaked as I slowly walked towards their room. The door was not entirely closed, but I only saw mom because I was afraid they’d see me if I peek any further.

Mom was crying and lashing out at dad. I tried, but my ears failed me and I barely heard a single word even though I was right there, and all their words blended with their screams and cries. Just then, mom noticed me and instantly went over to me with tears streaming down her cheeks. “Uriah,” she began to say, but I didn’t let her finish as I ran back to my room, slammed the door shut, put a table against the door and hid under my bed.

My parents were fighting and I saw it, and I didn’t want to hear any excuses or explanations from them. I didn’t want to hear it.

“Over here, pass!” Yelled a boy from my class as he hopped around, trying to get the attention of the other boy with the ball.

Football was a fascinating game, I love the role of the goalkeeper, he’s a hero for the patience of standing there and bearing the boredom of waiting for the ball to come to his side. I always play and almost never loose, my big brother told me that the best feeling is to win after so much effort during the match.

But this time, I did the role of sitting on the bench, the watcher role. That’s because I didn’t feel like playing, and I didn’t feel like thinking about football either. My mind swirled with the thoughts of what had happened yesterday night. What was this yelling all about? Why couldn’t I hear them clearly?

I ate my lunch slowly, not like usual. It was peanut butter and honey sandwich with some milk and chips, my favorite meal. I like to eat it quickly because that’s how I enjoy food, unlike my brother, who eats ever so slowly.

I finished my food a second before the bell rang, I closed my lunch box and got up to leave. It was extra hot today, and the sun blinded me, that was the excuse I made for not playing, but my friends didn’t buy it and thought that I was upset with them. Sometimes, people don’t understand simple, simple things.

“Alright class, put your food away and NO bathroom, you just had recess!” Said miss Sarah as she stared at the boys raising their hands and pretending to be desperate to go.

I sat on my chair which was in the middle of the class, I was quite the extrovert, but I didn’t feel like one right then. And for the first time, I envied my classmates sitting at the back of the class.

Miss Sarah teaches us English, she is our homeroom teacher and she’s the nicest and sweetest teacher, even though she’s strict. Usually, her lessons would be really fun and quick but now the minute felt like hours.

“Uriah, here buddy!” Yup, that’s my name- no not Uriah Here Buddy, just the Uriah part.

I hate my name because it’s so weird, but I smiled as the person who said it was my brother, Wallis. I liked how he says my name. I ran to him and joined him as we headed home.

I loved our neighborhood, and I knew every house and every corner and every tree. It was always clean and lovely and everyone knew one another. My best place was the little park at the center of it, Wallis and I would always go there and play or cause trouble.

As he and I walked, we were greeted by a couple of people from the neighborhood. But unlike their usual “hey, how’s your day?” cheerful attitude, they seemed a bit too sad as they stared at us and it puzzled me.

“Did the entire neighborhood know about our parents' fight last night?” I thought,

but didn’t realize that I have said that out loud.

“What fight?” Asked Wallis with a glint of worry on his face.

“Oh, you were sleeping. Mom and dad had a fight about.....” then I stopped.

“About what?”

“I couldn’t hear, it was so unclear and I was sleepy,” I replied.

“Oh, I see,” Wallis mumbled as he looked around. “Don’t worry yourself too much, Uriah. Don’t you and I fight a lot? Our parents are humans too.”

“But I’ve never seen them like that before!” I said, but I think I said that I little too loud.

Everyone stared my way in distress and worry, they started mumbling things.

Things I didn’t hear.

A woman from the neighborhood stepped forward and said, “Are you okay sweetie? You know, if your need anything we—“

“What?” I couldn’t hear her. “Excuse us,” I said, grabbed Wallis’ arm and ran home.

I opened the door and we went in. "Mom we’re home,” said Wallis. But no one replied.

“You need to work on high pitches, dude,” I told Wallis as a flung my shoes away. “You go: MOM I’M HOME!” I yelled.

We heard a glass fall and break in the kitchen, I squinted and almost closed an eye, my shoulders stiffened and I clenched my teeth at the sound.

“Uriah, dear,” my mom emerged from the kitchen. Her eyes were so swollen that I wondered if she was wearing flashy eye contacts again. “You scared me.”

“Sorry,” I said as I started biting at my lower lip, it’s a bad habit of mine.

“It’s fine,” she said and went back in the kitchen.

We stood there listening to the sound of shattered glass being moved and thrown in the trash bin.

It took me a while to snap out of it, then I turned to Wallis and said, “Let’s go.” “Yeah,” he replied.

We went upstairs. The second floor of our house was basically a one sided hallway

with four rooms, the first one is the bathroom, the one next to it is our parents room, after that there’s the locked room which I frowned at as we passed by, and finally we reached our room. It sucks to share a room, right? But we don’t care because our room is the biggest of bedrooms in the whole house, so it can fit a million kids in there and all can feel like they are in their own rooms.

“So, tell me what happened last night. With details,” said my brother.

“I already told you! All I heard were muffled yells and that’s it!” I snapped.

Wallis sank into his giant bean bag and frowned at me, “why so cranky, man? I said it’s normal, don’t worry.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

____________

It was mom who woke me up in the morning, not my alarm.

“Mom, it’s the weekend,” I mumbled as I buried my head in my pillows.

“But It’s 11AM already,” my mom replied, “Uriah, we also need to talk.”

I sat up and looked around, I wondered what my mom wanted to talk about...is it that night’s incident? I wore my cloths and ate my breakfast, ready to start the day.

And I asked where Wallis was when I noticed that he wasn’t home, but my mom’s reply wasn’t exactly satisfying; “....why don’t we sit on the couch and talk?”

“No. Where’s Wallis?! Tsk. That’s not fair I bet he went out to play with the older kids without me,” I grumbled, "It’s really annoying to be honest. I specifically told him not to go play without me and leave me sleeping.”

Suddenly my mom started getting angry again, she snapped and started yelling at me, and then my ears went blank again.

“Mom, I can’t hear you,” I mumbled as I bit my lower lip.

But she kept yelling and crying, so I yelled too. “I can’t hear, I can’t hear!”

That’s when my dad came in. I didn’t expect him to come home that early, but today he bursted in when he heard the yelling.

“What’s wrong? What happened?” He asked as he put his hand on my shoulder.

“Ayan, I can’t do this. I won’t deal with him!!” My mom yelled, she scares me when she says my dad’s name instead of “honey” or “sweetheart.”

She was seriously mad. But what did I do? Why can’t she 'deal' with me?

When my question transformed into words, my dad looked at me and shook his head, and my mom stormed upstairs.

“It’s okay, Uriah. Mom can get a little upset sometimes. You know...given the uh...circumstances,” my dad is a rather clumsy man that often stutters and doesn’t find the right words to say, but he was always nice to us all and rarely yelled.

“What circumstances? Why are you home early? And where’s Wallis?” I snapped again.

Dad’s eyebrows shot up and disappeared behind his messy bangs, that was his way of hiding sadness or tears.

“Well...let’s take one thing at a time, yeah?” He smiled slightly and sat on the couch.

He tapped the area beside him as in wanting me to sit next to him. And I did.

“First, I’m home early because I forgot it was a weekend for us too,” He giggled and nervously scratched the back of his head. Then continued, “Second, second....you

know....the day when..yeah-............look, Uriah, I’m really sorry I just—-...”

I silenced him, which was unlike me because both Wallis and I have been taught never to interrupt our parents or any grown up that’s talking to us, “It’s okay, grown ups fight too, not just us kids. I forgive you, dad. And it’s really fine if you don’t want to tell us, we don’t mind anymore. I mean, grown ups have their privacy and we respect that.” Perhaps pretending not to care about that night’s incident would make me actually not care, but soon I found out that this was not the way.

My dad went silent before talking, he was probably replying that night in his head. “Thank you, Uriah. And about Wallis, why don’t you go look for him? I’m sure he’s not far.”

And with that, my dad immediately got up and went to the kitchen, “I’ll make us some nice snack for when you return, sounds good?”

“Great,” I said and swung off the couch, “please check on mom, though.” Then I wore my boots and ran outside.

____________

No matter how many times I’ve been told not to do it, I still always make wrong assumptions. My brother didn’t abandon me and play with the older boys, I found him in the grocery shop picking some snacks.

“Hey, man,” I giggled as I approached Wallis. “What are we having? A movie night?”

“Hey, and yes! I found a great movie to watch,” he exclaimed. “Pick whatever you want, it’s on me.”

Wallis always says that whenever we are shopping anywhere, he’s really generous that it worries me sometimes. No, not that I’m worried about him from others that might use his kindness, but I’m worried about him from me. I laughed with myself as those thoughts crossed my mind and Wallis questioned me, but I said it’s nothing.

“Have you heard of that movie called Mrs. Doubtfire?” Wallis asked on the way to the football arena.

“Well yeah but, I think it has some bad stuff,” I rolled my eyes. We are a very strict family, so Wallis and I can’t watch a movie unless—

“Well, I found a censored one~” giggled Wallis with pride, “I heard it's a great movie.”

____________

The movie was great, actually. It was about a divorced couple where the father really misses his children that he pretends to be a nanny at his ex-wife’s house.

I hope that my parents don’t divorce, because then my dad will have to wear nanny cloths and sweep this house’s floors if he wants to stay with us all the time.

“What?” Laughed Wallis. I was shocked that he heard me, how did I not notice that I said those thoughts out loud? “Listen, Uriah. No one’s getting divorced, no one’s gonna be a nanny. Stop worrying for no reason!”

I rolled my eyes and sank under the soft cotton blanket that we were covered in as we watched the movie. Some popcorn bits fell here and there, and the empty chips

bags lay on the floor, waiting to be picked up before a gang of ants devour the crumbs and scare my mom. She hates ants.

I looked up at the clock, it was 9PM and we ought to hurry to our beds before our parents return from whatever visit they are having. And so, Wallis and I cleaned the room and flung ourselves in bed.

Though I could have sworn I heard my parents talk about a doctor appointment later that night....for me.

____________

It must be my ears, it’s about time they noticed, I thought as I looked out the car window and quietly counted red cars to pass some time. I didn’t really like the idea of wearing hearing aids, but if that’s going to make my ears better, then I’ll just accept them.

At some point, I stopped counting and started thinking of a way to hide my future hearing aids somehow so that my classmates in school wouldn’t notice and bully me for them. I had enough in my plate and other kids picking on me was the last thing I was hoping for. But the more I thought about it, the more anxious I became, and my anxiety formed into loud, desperate words that filled the atmosphere; “but I have school tomorrow and...and..what if I get hearing aids? Then they’ll start picking on me and....and...”

“Well, look who’s stuttering like his dad now,” my mom joked, then laughed at her own joke when she realized that no one found it funny.

After a while, my dad started talking, “Listen, young man. Even if you end up wearing hearing aids,” then he said this with a mumble; “which is highly unlikely,” then he continued with his normal tone as if I didn’t hear the mumbling, “you don’t let anyone get to you or tease you, you hear? You’re strong and you can defend yourself. So no matter what it is, whether it’s hearing aids or....or.......—-“

I stopped listening. And stared at my dad who talked -with all the stuttering- and also had teary eyes even though he smiled. He seemed to stutter even more, a tear fell and he seemed to find driving a struggle.

I tried to hear what he was saying but there was no way I could, so I slowly turned back to the window and started counting the red cars out loud this time.

I started getting butterflies in my stomach as we heard our turn in the speaker, I wasn’t stressed, I was just a little nervous. I knew I needed hearing aids, and I gradually pushed myself into accepting this fact. I knew it wasn’t that bad, Wallis told me that hearing aids can be even better than the normal ear’s hearing, which was pretty cool because now I can overhear my parents and figure out the strange issue they were fighting over and what was going on.

“Hello, little man! What’s your name?” The doctor said. He had a funny voice that seemed like it was right out of a cartoon.

He smiled when I answered and told me to sit on a chair in a soundproof room to test my ears. I was given a pair of blue giant headset that took me a while to adjust on my head, then the door was closed and I was alone in that small room.

I heard the funny voice of the doctor through the headphones and it declared the starting of the hearing test. I could see the doctor from a small window in the front, and he was sitting on a desk opposite to the small window where he could see me as well.

“All you have to do is repeat the words that I say,” the doctor said, “and also point to where the sound is coming from, whether it’s from the right or the left.”

I nodded and said, “Okay.”

The doctor lifted a notebook and read off of it, I wondered why he had to do that while he could just come up with random words. But in this case, the words he was about to use seemed to be precisely picked because he stared at the notebook for a few seconds before saying; “Cow.”

I repeated the word.

“Bird nest.”

I repeated, pointing to my left ear.

“Book.”

I repeated and pointed to my left again.

“Interior design.”

I repeated, and put my finger on my right ear.

“Rabbit.”

“Cotton.”

“Bed sheet.”

I heard the three of them all right, but it got a little intimidating as the doctor started saying things faster and faster.

“Syringe.”

I repeated hurriedly.

“Nurse.”

“Wheelchair.”

I stuttered but kept up. “Bed.”

“Red.”

“Big window.” “Roses.”

I was falling behind him, and started stuttering even more. “Heart.”

“Proscription.”

“Pills.”

“Surgery.”

And that was the last thing I heard before my ears shut out completely.

____________

My parents talked with the doctor in private for such a long time that I wondered if I’ll keep waiting till I grow old and die of hunger, then they’ll have to deal with my half decomposed body that’s rotting in the corner of the waiting room.

Well, you can say I had quite the imagination. They came out eventually, both clearly were crying, and I was starting to get sick of it and no one is telling me anything and anger rose within me and almost flared and exploded in front of my parents—

“We’ll get you hearing aids, eh?” My dad said, hugging me tightly and ruffling my hair.

That calmed me down, and instead of exploding I felt much more calm, though sadness and confusion is what remains after anger. And I still intended to find out if my parents are actually getting divorced.

“...yeah, and then they said that I’ll get hearing aids!” I said to Wallis, “I’ll get better in no time.”

Wallis giggled as he sat there watching me talk and talk about my trip to the doctor.

“But to get the hearing aids, another doctor will come every now and then and test my hearing patterns or whatever,” I said.

“Oh I see...” When Wallis said this, he seemed to be a little distant. When I questioned his spacing out he brushed it off and told me to go to bed.

____________

I went downstairs when I heard my name, and I sat on the couch opposite to Dr. Nicholas Burnlock. He was a thin, tall man that had his brown hair neatly tied behind his head, and he wore a powder blue vest with a white shirt under it. And his jeans were neater than my entire room.

“Uriah was it? Tell me about yourself.” Those were the first words he said to me.

I told him that I liked football, and I told him about our cool neighborhood, and about Wallis and how we watched that fun movie that other night.

He smiled to me and listened to everything I said, he never once interrupted me. And throughout the entire session, I was the one talking, he just asked me random questions. And here I thought that a hearing test is about the doctor talking, not the patient.

Anyway, telling you the details of the entire 2 hour session’s gonna make this story a lot longer than it should be. So I’ll spare you the boredom; he asked about why I

liked this neighborhood so much, and where was Wallis right then (he was in the chess club), and some stuff about my parents and if we have family issues. I told him there were none because my parents only fought once. But how was all that any of his business? I developed a disliking to Dr. Nicholas when the session ended and told my parents everything, but they brushed it off with a ‘Doctors Always Know What They’re Doing’ phrase.

And when I asked him when I’ll be able to have my hearing aids, he avoided giving me an answer, and instead, he said; “You never know.” What a weirdo.

After dinner time, Wallis and I got a little extra curious about that locked room next to our parent’s room, they told us it was the forbidden room and we can’t go in there

for a long while. But I thought that maybe that it’s because they’re hiding their divorce papers in there.

“Come on, let’s try peeking in,” I said as I nudged Wallis forward. But he seemed hesitant.

Then I realized that I was the only one who was curious when he prevented me by saying that we shouldn’t disobey our parents. It upset me that Wallis clearly knew about the divorce issue and chose to lie to me. But sooner or later, I will know.

____________

The next morning was horrific. I stood there, breathing heavily and sweating. And my mouth made the shape of one, giant ‘O’. My eyeballs were going to be sucked from their sockets as I glared at my mom who was packing her entire room into boxes with her name on them and labeled as “moving goods.”

My heart beat ten times faster than it should, and my head spun in confusion waiting for an explanation.

“Uriah, don’t give me that face,” my mom said with a blank tone.

Yes. I was right. I predicted right. My parents divorced. And worst of all, they didn’t tell me any of this! I fell to my knees and almost had an outrageous breakdown, I didn’t want to have a breakdown so I did as my body told me: closed my ears and screamed so loudly. I didn’t want to hear it.

“URIAH!!” My mom yelled at the top of her lungs as she forcefully removed my hands away from my ears. “Uriah, what's gotten into you?!”

“You never...told me!” I said between muffled breaths.

“Told you what? About the moving? Of course we told you, sweetie! What are you talking about?” My mom replied as she stroked my hair, treating me like a baby.

“Liar! You never told me that you were getting a divorce!” I yelled as I pulled away from her.

“Divorce?! What are you talking about? Sweetie, I said we were going to move houses!”

I paused. I tried to fetch a memory of my parents telling me that we were going to move but there weren’t any. Was my mom going crazy? Or was I the crazy one? My question didn’t linger for long before my dad came and supported my mom’s claim.

“But why? Why are we moving?” I asked, ignoring the fact that I forgot that we even discussed this.

My dad began talking; “Uriah, we talked about this...!.....—-“ and he said

something after that, but my ears went blank.

“It’s happening again,” I said with tears in my eyes, “I swear I can’t hear you, but please..! I don’t wanna move, dad. I love it here!”

“Uriah, we have to move. We just can’t—“

“No, we can! Give me one reason for moving away from this nice house with nice people and a beautiful neighborhood—“ I started saying, but my dad cut me off.

“We are moving because we can’t take this anymore!! Uriah, listen to me! —”

And my dad said something, and again I couldn’t hear a thing. I can’t hear him. I can’t hear him. I can’t hear him.

____________

The place we moved to was filthy, Wallis said he’ll talk to my parents and try to understand what’s going on but I told him not to. I didn’t want him to get in trouble because of me.

Days went by, and by each passing moment I miss our old home more and more. I hated our new home although in truth, it wasn’t all that bad. But I hated it because I was forced out of the home that I loved and into one that I didn’t even want.

I started hating everything, including Dr. Nicholas. And so, I ended up staring at him all the time whenever he came to 'test' me. And that added anger to my depression.

“So, how do you like this new home?” He asked me once. And I had told him what I just told you. He reacted with an ‘I Understand’ face, which I didn’t appreciate because no, he didn’t understand my situation one bit. And I felt like one day I might actually murder him.

But on the positive side, his talk was often interesting. It felt like he was giving me hints to something...something that I just failed to notice.

“Uriah,” he told me one day, “sometimes, bad things happen to us. And then the brain tends to...change those things..”

I looked at him all puzzled, I didn’t know what this had to do with my hearing issue.

“So then we block out those bad memories, and create fake ones.....”

And that’s when I stopped listening to him, not that I couldn’t hear him, this time I could. But his talking made no sense to me and the way he spoke made me sleepy.

The next day at school, I sat on my desk and stared out the window, I couldn’t wait

until this boring school day ended because Wallis promised that this time, he’d take me to play with the big boys to make it up to me. Next happened what I did not expect; a boy from my class -one of my friends- came up to me with a neat blue box in his hands, it was small and seemed like a gift. I wasn’t wrong.

“Hey, Uriah...I um..I’m really sorry for our delay but, we’d like to give you some little gifts to express our ——-“

And I didn’t hear the last word, I didn’t want him to know about my hearing issue so I just smiled nervously and thanked him, and only a little while afterwards, I found my backpack loaded with gifts and letters.

First my parent’s fight, then my hearing issue, and then that annoying doctor, and now this. I was fed up, I was mad.

And all my anger combined into one giant ball in my head, and I started to tear up. Everything seemed to spin around, and my classmates’ faces blurred as they spoke things that I didn’t hear, as they gave me gifts that I didn’t understand the purpose of. All this anger and confusion voiced itself through my mouth and out into the entire classroom. I yelled. And at the top of my lungs. And as tears ran down my cheeks, I looked up at them and said;

“Tell me what’s going on! What’s happening?!” Then my voice cracked, “why is everyone treating me like this?! I didn’t do anything wrong! You’re all weird!

Weird!” And with that, I stormed out of the classroom like a hurricane. I felt like my entire body was on fire, and all of a sudden, I had a desperate need to go see Wallis.

“Uriah! Stop right there, boy!” miss Sarah yelled as she happened to be walking in the hallway on her way to our classroom, “how many times do I have to tell you not to run in the hallw—“

But I didn’t let her continue as I pushed past her and ran faster and faster, with no particular place in mind. I whooshed past teachers that yelled my name, everyone yelled at me and I heard them say things like “this is the one” and “his parents had a fight and they’re getting divorced” and “it’s all because of him.”

I ran faster and faster till I could barely see what’s in front of me until I heard a loud voice saying, “No, stop!!” But it was too late, I felt my face banged on something really hard that it knocked me off balance and I fell on the floor, hard.

“Oh my God!” I heard, “Is he okay?” “Call the ambulance!” “Uriah, Uriah!!”

And I fainted.

____________

The first thing I heard was the beeping sound of that pulse indicator, then I opened my eyes to the roof of a hospital room. I started to panic. For some reason, this place made me very anxious. I looked around and saw a needle on my arm and noticed some bandage on my head. Then a horrible sting of pain on my head made me flinch

and groan. Again, I looked around frantically and noticed my mom sitting on a chair beside my bed, she was asleep and her head was resting on the side of the bed.

I needed to get out of this place and find Wallis. So I quietly started to fiddle around with the needle trying to get it off me. But suddenly, my mom woke up and stopped me instantly. She didn’t say anything, and her expression was unexplainable and I couldn’t tell whether she was mad at me or worried.

“Uriah,” she finally said. “I’m sorry.”

My eyes widened a fraction, and I calmly asked her why. But she didn’t give me the answer directly.

“I know you’re a strong boy, I know that you’ll get better. I believe in you, Uriah,” and she held my hand.

With tears in my eyes, I shook my head slowly and whispered, “what do you mean?”

“You’re going to get your hearing aids, Uriah. I’m sorry they came a little late,” my mom whispered back, and I felt something in my hand after she let go of it.

I looked and it was a key.

“The items in our old house are almost all packed. But there’s this...one room that dad and I locked,” she said. “I promise you that I’ll take you tomorrow, but please rest—“

“I want to go back home, mom. I don’t want to move! I want to see Wallis. He promised me he’d let me play with the big boys at the field of the neighborhood we left! Mom, both of us hate it there. Please-“ I started to say, but tears spilled down her cheeks and she nodded and said,

“I know, I understand.”

____________

I found myself running outside the hospital with all my might. Clenching the key with my hand. I couldn’t wait for my mom, she was with my dad arranging some things, I didn’t know where they were but they asked me to be a little more patient. But apparently, I wasn’t a patient kid. I have been told that I hit my head with a corner of a locker and that my head needed intense care or else I’ll experience internal injuries, but I had completely erased that from my mind because now there were things that mattered more, and I ought to get my priorities straight.

I had Wallis with me, he didn’t like the idea because he said that our parents will be mad, but I managed to convince him and he came along. I had asked him why he didn’t come to visit me in the hospital but he answered me as if it was awfully

obvious that he could never enter a hospital. And when I asked him why, he told me that I'll know everything when we get to that locked room.

My heart was pounding with every step I took, I clenched the key so hard that I felt as if the metal of it melted in my palm. I was panting hard and my head hurt more, for some reason I was really anxious and it seemed to take forever to get to our old home but we eventually did.

____________

There was a man at the door and we immediately recognized each other, he was someone from the neighbors that worked as a renter. I kindly asked him to let us in even just for a little while and thankfully, he was kind enough to do so.

“Uriah....” Wallis said worriedly, “you got this, yeah?”

“Yeah, I got this. Let’s open it together, Wallis,” I said with a smile on my face. Wallis put his hand on my shoulder and smiled back, but there was something off about that smile. It wasn’t a brave nor happy one, it was rather sad. I didn’t

understand why until I opened the door.

I slowly put the key into the peephole and turned it. The door let out a loud squeak as it was never really oiled for a long time.

The first thing I saw was the sun, it was so bright in my eyes that I had to close and open them multiple times to adjust to the light.

The next thing I saw was the window the sunlight was coming from. I slowly turned my gaze to the right to see a wooden bed with crisp white sheets and gray pillows.

And on the wall were soccer posters hung all over, and there was a long syringe stand next to the bed. And there was a small table which had dozens of medicine and pills.

I turned my gaze to the left and saw a big desk with so many books piled up on top of each other, and beside it was a couple of movie CDs.

I picked the first CD, it had a label on it; Mrs.Doubtfire.

The CD fell from my hand, how did it get in here? I was certain is the same CD that Wallis and I used to— ......Wallis. Wallis.

I looked around, and Wallis wasn’t there anymore. Or -to be precise- he was never there for the past three weeks.

My heart sank into the bottom of my chest and I forgot to breath. My eyes widened with the shock of reality. The shock of the truth. The shock that my brother is........

In that moment, everything went blank. In that moment, I felt everything come together. In that moment...I accepted the fact that Wallis was dead.

_____________

“Uriah!! Uriah!” I heard my dad yell. Then suddenly I came to my senses, giant tears formed in my eyes, I ran downstairs and almost tripped on them and landed in my parent’s arms. I hugged them tightly like never before, and sobbed into them as they slowly caressed my hair and rubbed my back.

“I’m so sorry, Uriah,” my mom whispered, “we just didn’t want you to...” but then her sobbing choked up her words. My dad tried to say something but he was just as sad.

“He was just telling me that he’ll let me play with the big boys with him today...we were watching Mrs.Doubtfire just a couple of days ago, and he was just....right next to me when we....when I opened the door,” I sobbed. “I didn’t know I...thought that he was with me....I thought that...that he.....was still there.”

I was crying. For all the trouble I caused, for all the commotion, for being rude to everyone while they were simply trying to express their condolences, for being in denial all this time and pretending to have a hearing issue whenever someone

mentioned Wallis’ death.

____________

Turns out, my brother had cancer. He hated the hospital, he hated all the injections and procedures. They injected him with so many needles and restlessly tried to save him while they knew it was hopeless. He was suffering, he wasn’t happy.

Sometimes he’d come home for a while, but the syringes and injections would follow him, as well as his miserable illness.

It all came so suddenly and without warning, but despite all these terrible circumstances, he had high hopes of living. And so did we.

Anything was better than my brother dying. When we returned from the hospital that night my brother died, I went to my room and cried myself to sleep, then woke up at the sound of my arguing parents. And whatever they were arguing about, my mind immediately created the image of a whole other issue, so I completely erased my brother’s death and busied myself with the divorce issue that didn’t even exist.

I started doubting people, I started getting mad at my family for ‘lying’ to me. I started going crazy.

My parents brought me to an ear doctor, it’s true. But he also tested my mind, not just my ears, because he suspected that something was off. So they got me a psychologist -Dr.Nicholas- who tried to make me accept my brother’s death, but he didn’t seem to be making much progress.

I was then told that when my parents wanted to move, Dr.Nicholas suggested

otherwise. He wanted me to stay and figure out the situation and remember the incident before moving on to my new home. But my parents did exactly the opposite of what they had to. They locked my brother’s room, they delayed his funeral and looked for a new home as fast as they could. They thought that keeping me away from reality was the right thing to do. But thankfully, Dr.Nicholas managed to at least make them open the door to his room for me to see for myself. And so, I accepted his death.

I will miss him. I knew that I will. And I do now, as I’m typing this text. I will never forget our laughter, our bickers, our jokes and good times. He was truly the best brother anyone could ever wish for, because even though he was in the hospital, barely breathing, he still always managed to make me laugh and feel happy.

And so, I took one more look at his room, heartbroken. And said my goodbyes.

They were tears of sadness, but also tears of relief. I was relieved form the confusion, and I know that now, my brother is in a better place.

My dad had told me that Wallis would have wanted me to move on, he told me that Wallis would have wanted me to be happy, to grow strong, to grow confident.

And so I did.

____________

My parents had prepared for a funeral for my brother, that explained why they were busy. And as we got ready, I asked my parents that one question that’s been bothering me all the while.

“dad,” I said as I inched towards him, “can you tell me why you fought that night?”

My dad giggled sadly, “sorry you had to see that, young man.” He was packing more stuff from our old home and I started helping him. Mom was probably getting dressed. “Your mom...she was so sad about the incident..she blamed me for his death, because I couldn’t afford any more medications for your brother. And because I

started telling her that..that he is now in a better place. She, I guess, took it as offensive and lashed out. I don’t...don’t blame her though..”

I sat next to my dad as he, too, sat on the couch we once sat on when I was arguing in denial three weeks ago. I erased my tears and smiled at my dad and said,

“Neither do I.”

I let go of my delusions, I let go of my depression, it’s true. But the memories of

my beloved brother shall stay forever, gracefully carved in our hearts.