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Kel’s lost a lot in his thirteen years of life, Mari’s death acts as a catalyst for their tightknit friend group to fall into ruin. The months since then have been hard. Hero spends all his time dead to the world as Mari was. Kel tries his best to keep going. To be the only constant that remains unchanged, as Sunny locks himself away, Aubrey becomes angry, and Basil begins to jump at every sound.
Kel likes to pretend everything is fine, and nothing has changed, but it isn’t true. As he silently falls apart behind hastily constructed smiles, which he knows never look quite right.
There’s a lot of things Kel can pretend are normal, like the blade he takes to his thighs every time he thinks negatively about anything. Or the way they itch when he messes up at school. The way his parents don’t even look at him when he enters the room.
He sits in his bathroom late in the night, when everyone is asleep, one of his dad’s disposable razors in hand, but he was just naïve and ignorant Kel, who never had any problems, so everything was okay.
Aubrey’s once teasing words and light smiles become insults and glares that burn into Kel’s subconscious. She makes new friends, friends that decide that Kel is deserving of all their harassment, he knows Sunny and Basil would be too, if either of them bothered to come to school anymore.
He’s alone at the bus stop every morning now, Aubrey and Basil used to walk the extra distance so the six of them could get on the bus together, but now Aubrey waits with Kim, at the bus stop closer to her house.
Their bus driver is a polite older lady and Kel is always sure to force a smile and a greeting as he passes by her, before sitting down as close to the door as possible and staring out the window. Pretending he doesn’t hear Aubrey laughing at whatever her friends are talking about.
That morning, someone pushes him over, as the bus pulls away, his palms hit the ground first and get scraped across the concrete, he can feel the blood welling up as he pushes himself up.
“What the hell-” he begins, only for his eyes to lock with Aubrey, who’s standing behind Kim, they’re both laughing. He bites his cheek and shoves past the pair, pretending he can’t feel the tears which they must’ve seen too.
He shoulders the bathroom door open so he can rinse his hands in the sink and gingerly dries them with a paper towel, before heading to homeroom. His teacher gives him a look of disapproval but tells him to sit down, he apologises and rubs his neck sheepishly before sitting in his usual seat.
Unfortunately for him, Aubrey’s in his homeroom and doesn’t hesitate to whisper cry-baby tauntingly from somewhere behind him. He pretends it doesn’t sting more than his palms do, and he presses down against his thighs, which are itching again.
If he can just get through another day, maybe tomorrow would be different, maybe Hero would get out of bed, maybe Sunny would be the one to open his door instead of his mom, maybe Basil would come to school, maybe Aubrey would smile at him and apologise.
But then, maybe Mari would rise from the grave, and fix everything.
Or maybe, Kel would realise that life wasn’t worth living anymore, that thirteen years was enough, he doubted his parents would even care.
The rest of the day goes by as it always did since she had died, and the receptionist would come during his last period to hand him a folder of work for his brother, to add to the pile of folders on the desk in their room.
He tries to speak to his brother again, he bites his lip before starting.
“Hey Hero, everyone really misses you. We all want you to get better.” Kel tells him, Hero doesn’t move.
“It’s not been the same without you, I’m really lonely, Sunny won’t come out, Basil’s afraid of me, and Aubrey, she’s made some new friends-” he takes a breath “- I just don’t think Mari would want to see you like this.” He says, and clearly, he’s overstepped the mark. Hero is up and out of bed, and he’s angry.
Kel almost swears he can see a red outline around him for a moment.
“You don’t know what Mari wants, because she’s DEAD!” Hero yells, stepping towards him.
“You didn’t even care. You got on with your life. You kept going and she never will. You didn’t even cry.” He continues, Kel cowers away, and Hero steps even closer.
“If I’d spent more time with her, she would still be here. But I spent all my time babysitting you.” He accentuates with the point of a finger.
“I wish it Had been you instead of her!” He shouts, and their parents finally step in. Their bedroom door swings open, and they rush in, hugging Hero, and whispering things that Kel couldn’t hear. The three of them leave the room. The tears that have been threatening to fall finally do.
Kel feels like he can’t breathe, despite how hard he feels like he’s trying to, he just can’t draw any air into his lungs. His fingers are absently clawing at his thighs through the fabric of his shorts. Part of him thinks he should run, since he clearly wasn’t wanted. But he can’t move. His body refuses to cooperate as he struggles.
His parents only care about Hero, he’d always been faintly aware of that, but now more than ever it was glaringly obvious.
Hero comes back into the room, and Kel presses up against the bedroom wall. Hero looks apologetic and tries to move towards him. His legs scrabble against the floor as he tries to get further away, but there’s nowhere for him to go and the room feels impossibly tiny in that moment.
“Kel, I’m so sorry.” Hero tells him and Kel shakes his head. Finally able to suck in a solid breath.
“I don’t understand how you think you can just apologise to me after saying something like that.” Kel says, his voice is shaky, he can still feel the tears rolling down his face, and he can’t stop speaking.
“You said you wanted me dead; I know you were upset, but I can’t just come back from something like that.” He continues, Hero looks guilty.
“How dare you act like I haven't been hurting, I didn't just lose Mari, I lost you, lost Sunny, Basil and Aubrey. I feel like I'm losing myself, Hero.” He finally admits.
“Kel I’m sorry I didn’t-” Hero tries, Kel cuts him off.
“Stop apologising. Apologies can’t bring back the person I was a year ago. Apologies won’t undo the damage I’ve done to myself, but it doesn’t matter because I’m just happy and stupid Kel.” He finishes in a mocking tone of voice. Hero looks torn.
“I’ll give you some space, if that’s what you want.” Hero says defeatedly, he gets up to leave, and Kel tries his hardest not to breakdown again. He hears Hero go downstairs and he finally stands up from the spot he’d been cramped in on the floor.
He crosses the hallway into the bathroom and locks the door behind him.
It’s not an uncommon sight anymore, once again taking refuge on the bathroom floor, another disposable razor in his grasp. Today is different though, he thinks as he pushes the razor against the base of his right wrist and drags it upwards towards his elbow.
Hero wanted him dead, his parents didn’t care about him, Sunny didn’t leave his house anymore, Basil was afraid of him, Aubrey hated his guts.
But he was just Kel.
Innocent, always smiling Kel.
And everything was fine.