Chapter 5 - Chapter Five

Jet continued to skip school, and he usually skipped school every Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday, sometimes skipping on Monday as well. Whenever he was at school, he’d go talk to her at recess and eat lunch with her and her friends.

He visited her every few days, hiding in her bedroom. Tia would sneak him dinner and he would stay till really late, usually at twelve or even one in the morning, before leaving through the window.

Tia was dying to know where he usually went when he wasn’t at school, but she didn’t ask him again. She didn’t want to push him. He’d tell her in his own time.

A month had passed and it was a Saturday night. Tia was just about to fall asleep when he heard a scraping sound against her window. Knowing it was Jet, her eyes opened immediately and she limped over to her window and helped him in. It was pouring that night, and Jet was dripping wet.

He was a bit drunk, if not very. Tia looked at her watch. It had just gone twelve.

“Jet, have you been drinking?” she asked him in a low voice.

He nodded.

“Are you okay?”

He nodded, and then shook his head. He sat down on her bed and buried his head in his hands.

Tia ignored the fact that he was making her bed wet and sat down next to him and put her arms around him. She could smell the alcohol. “What’s wrong?” she asked him.

He lifted his head from his hands to look at her warily. “It’s my sister’s anniversary today,” he said quietly after a while.

“Oh? What kind of anniversary? Her wedding anniversary?”

“No. Her death anniversary.”

Tia froze. “I’m sorry,” she said after a while. “How old was she when…”

“Nine.” A pained look entered his eyes. “I killed Lily, Tiana,” he said, his voice breaking. “I killed her.”

If Tia wasn’t frozen before, she surely was now. “What…what do you mean?”

He shook his head. “I killed my own sister,” he whispered. “What kind of brother am I?”

She hobbled into the bathroom as quickly as she could to get the biggest towel she could find and wrapped the towel around him. “What…how did you kill Lily?”

He shook his head.

“How old were you?”

“Thirteen.”

“Tell me what happened, Jet,” she said softly.

She had to lean in really close to hear what he was saying, because he started talking really softly but also very quickly at the same time.

“I…it was an accident. We were alone in the house. I pushed her into a pool. She couldn’t swim and—and neither could I. My friend had just left. I…I slipped and accidentally pushed her into the pool. I tried to…I called the police, but—but…” he trailed off.

“But it was too late,” she finished for him gently.

He nodded. “I killed her, Tiana.”

“Of course you didn’t kill her. Jet, it was an accident.”

“But it was my fault that she fell into the pool in the first place,” he burst out.

Tia shushed him. “You’ll wake my parents.” She stood him up and walked with him towards the bathroom. “Here. Dry yourself off, okay?”

He stared dully into the mirror. “The face of a murderer,” he muttered. “Staring right back at me. What kind of a brother am I?”

Tia turned around again to face him. “Jet, it wasn’t your fault. It was an accident. I’m sure your parents understood.”

He laughed. “My parents? No, Tiana, my parents did not understand. They scolded me for killing my sister. They told me I was the one who killed my sister. Lily was always their favourite. And she always will be,” he said, his voice soft but dangerous.

Tia was shocked. “Your parents told you that you killed your sister?”

He laughed again. “They did more than tell me that. They reminded me. Every single day. Every time I made a mistake, they’d say ‘how many Goddamn mistakes are you going to make? Is killing your sister not enough?’” He laughed again. “They told me all right.”

He leaned in close to her. “My parents ruined my fracking life, Tiana,” he said softly.

Tia’s blood ran cold. This was the first time she had ever heard Jet use the word frack in all their conversations. The word shoot came up often enough, but he never said frack. Never.

Jet looked back at the mirror. “When my sister died, a part of me died with her. Then my parents killed the rest of me.” He lashed out suddenly, his fist colliding with the mirror. It smashed into pieces.

Tia hurried over and grabbed Jet’s hand. “You’re bleeding now,” she scolded gently as Jet went limp against her. She rinsed the blood and glass off his knuckles and bandaged them up after drying them.

She sat him on the edge of the bathtub and told him not move while she went to get a t-shirt and a pair of her dad’s shorts in his room.

“Put them on,” she said, looking away as he changed, and after helping him to her bed, she went back to the bathroom and cleared away the remains of her broken mirror, the sharp shards of glass cutting into her fingers. It was incredibly hard to kneel down with a broken leg. She rinsed her hands off afterwards and applied bandages to her cut fingers before curling up in the big armchair that was in her room and falling asleep almost immediately, letting her left leg rest on the floor.

~

When she woke up, she was in her own bed. She rubbed her eyes and sat up. Jet was sitting in the armchair, looking at her.

“Good morning,” he said.

“Good morning.”

“I’m sorry about breaking your mirror. I didn’t even realise I broke it until this morning when I went into the bathroom and saw the broken pieces of glass in the bin.” He held up his bandaged hand. “And thanks. For cleaning my hand up.”

She smiled. “No problem. I hope you feel better now.”

He nodded. “I get a bit depressed at this time of the year when the anniversary of Lily’s death comes up.” He walked over and held up her hand. “You’ve cut yourself.”

She withdrew her hand. “I did that by accident when I was picking up the pieces of glass.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“Thank you. You could’ve just thrown me out. But you didn’t.” He groaned. “I’ve made a complete idiot out of myself, haven’t I?”

“No, of course not,” she assured him. It was nice to know that he had a dark side to him. He was always so cheerful and full of jokes all the time. Not that it was good that he had to suffer for his sister’s death.

He closed his eyes. “I have a terrible headache.”

She grinned. “You have a British accent.”

He opened his eyes again and grinned. “You’ve caught me. My family and I are English. We moved here a few years ago, but the British accent still slips in every now and then.” He groaned again. “My head’s killing me.”

She got up from the bed with some difficulty. “Here. Sit. I’ll go get you a Coke.”

“A Coke?” he asked doubtfully.

“It cures hangovers.”

“I thought that was water.”

“Shut up and wait for the Coke.” She took her crutches with her as she limped down the stairs at the speed of a snail.

~

“You’re right,” Jet said.

“I usually am, but what in particular am I right about this time?”

“Coke does cure hangovers.”

“Told you.”

He put down his Coke and looked straight at her, his sharp blue eyes making her shiver involuntarily. “Thank you, Tiana. For saving my life.”

“I guess we’re even, then. I have one question though: if your sister died six years ago…how did you cope before?”

He looked down. “I…I always spent my sister’s death anniversary in the hospital. My parents always found me just in time.”

“See? Your parents do care.”

He laughed another cold, bitter laugh. “The only reason they kept me alive was so that they could continuously remind me that I was the one who killed Lily. I remember last year, I was in the hospital again. The doctor there recognised me. He was my doctor almost every time. He said to my parents ‘Sir, Ma’am, this isn’t a good habit for your son’. Do you know what my parents said? They said ‘Let him mourn for his sister’s death. After all, he was the one killed her.’ Scared the living shoot out of the doctor, they did.”

She put her hand on his arm. “Listen. Lily’s death wasn’t your fault. If Lily was here right now, I can bet you anything that she would say that she’s forgiven you. Were you and Lily close?”

Jet nodded miserably.

“Lily would be…fifteen now,” Tia said, quickly doing some calculation. She was quite pleased with herself for getting it right, since she was absolute crap at Maths. “Do you think she’d want her brother to suffer for something that wasn’t his fault? If you don’t let go, she won’t be able to, either.”

Jet nodded again, staring into his can of Coke. He finished it and threw it into the bin. “Thank you, Tiana,” he said, standing up.

“Do you want to freshen up? I have a spare toothbrush.”

He gave a small smile. “You reminded me of Lily that night, when I saw you down in the well barely alive. I thought she was you for a second. I couldn’t kill another person. I couldn’t let another person die because of me. I was determined to save you no matter what.” He took the spare toothbrush from Tia’s hand and disappeared into the bathroom.

Tia stood there, not moving. She reminded him of his sister? Obviously their chance of a romantic relationship was now officially zilch. Great.

But she understood. He was grieving over the loss of his sister. Besides, he had just confided in her. He never confided in her. He refused to talk about himself, his family. His family…wouldn’t they be wondering where he was? Surely, they would think that he’d get himself into a mess this year as well.

She asked Jet that when he came out of the bathroom. He stared at her, and then blinked a few times.

“I…don’t live with my parents anymore,” he said after a while.

“They kicked you out?” she asked incredulously.

“No, I emancipated myself after getting out of the hospital last year.”

“So…where do you live now?”

“In a rented apartment, and I take days off school—”

“—to go to work to pay off your rent,” she finished for him, and he nodded. “You know, if you need help financially or anything, I’m sure I—”

Jet laughed. “You’re sixteen, Tiana. You come from a happy family. I shouldn’t even be telling you things like this in order to maintain your…innocence, if that’s what one would call it. I shouldn’t be weighing you down with my problems. I have no problems supporting myself financially.”

“But you miss out on education,” Tia argued.

He cocked his head to look at her. “Do I look like I’m failing school?” he asked her.

She suddenly remembered that he was the top student in the school. “Right. But still…”

“Tiana, I’m nineteen. I’m an adult.”

“You’re also technically still a teenager, hence the nineteen.”

“Tia, drop it, okay?”

Great. The only time he actually called her Tia was when he was annoyed at her. She turned away and felt a hand on her shoulder.

“I didn’t mean to snap at you,” he said gently. “I just…don’t like talking about this part of my life.”

“I know. I’m going down for breakfast. Do you want me to bring you something?”

He grinned. “As long as your mother isn’t the one who cooked it…”

Tia smirked. “My mother never cooks anything. She’s an expert at heating food up, but she can’t cook to save her life.”

She opened the door to her bedroom and Bingo bounded in unexpectedly, heading straight for Jet’s crotch.

“What are you hiding in there?” Tia asked him as Jet struggled to push Bingo away.

“Do you really want me to answer that question?” Jet asked, smirking.

Tia was a bit startled. “You’re a crude, crude person,” she scolded him mockingly before leaving the room.

You are not authorized to comment here. Your must be registered and logged in to comment