Melted Ice Cream

(c) C.

A/N: Written for a contest. If the wording seems childish, that’s cause it’s supposed to be. Yay style. xP …okay, I have nothing to say because everything gets explained eventually…

Prologue - Nick

"Only a child can understand how a child feels." - Lagoon Engine volume 3

My brother says it's his fault.

Mom told him over and over again it wasn't - he didn't cause it. The doctor says the same thing - that it was an accident and there's no way its Chris' fault. He listened to them and nodded, with his face he wears when he doesn't want people to know what he's thinking. But I still find him in our room with his face buried in his pillow, his shoulders shaking up and down like an earthquake. Even then, he won't admit he ever cried.

Chris got sick.

He couldn't go to school and stopped eating, and he never wanted to read or watch TV. He didn't even want to play explorers with me, his favorite game. Mom told me he didn't have a cold or the chicken pox, but something was wrong inside. We moved into Aunt Evelyn's house so Mom could afford Chris' doctor and medicine.

Chris still cries at night, when he thinks I'm asleep and can't hear him. He calls out for Dad, some nights telling him to come home and other nights screaming. It scares me, so I always get Mom and she holds him. Sometimes I'm the one crying, and Chris holds me.

So we live here now, in a small apartment that Mom says is far away from bad memories; miles from our old house and Chris' old school. That was the last place where I saw Dad, and where Chris really smiled.

He still doesn't go to school; he stays home all the time now. The doctor says he might have to stay in the hospital if he doesn't get better. He's scared me a lot in the past few months, but nothing scared me as much as when the doctor told him that.

Chris only looked at her, with his face that doesn't change, and replied, "I don't want to get better."

When I told Aunt Evelyn, she just laughed and said someday he'll get better, and then he'll go back to school. One day we'll have a Dad again, too. That's why Chris is sick.

Chris told Dad to die, and he did.