sunday_reveries picture number eight
Leo is pretty sure it's the sight of the little blond that had done it. The sight of her all battered and bruised triggered memories in him that he had been trying to suppress for so long but as soon as he's alone, they come rushing back.
She hadn't been blonde, her hair had been more of a caramel color as she had always been lighter than him but she had been dainty and perfect. Right from the time she was born, he had been infatuated with her. He had been five years older than her, no more than a child himself but he had wanted to be her protector.
Sometimes, when it's late enough and he's had enough to drink, he swears he can still hear her laughter. The quick little noise that was like a bubble of mirth coming out of her in a rush as though she had a hard time containing it. When she laughed, her brown eyes danced and she could light up the entire room. He wanted to be near her all the time, there was no denying that. Whenever she cried, he did anything it took to make her smile or laugh again.
He learned from a young age how to get her bottles and he learned how to climb up on shelves to get her the cookies that she claimed were her favorite. He had a habit of lingering near her whenever he was awake but that couldn't be all the time. He had to sleep and eventually he had to go to school. He couldn't continue the full time job of protecting her and he hated himself for it.
He should have known it from the first time he met their mother's boyfriend, the one who would change everything in their life. For a long time, she had slept in Leo's room but the new boyfriend insisted that all children should have their own rooms. Leo could have never guessed, being as young as he was, that the man just didn't want any witnesses.
She knew it was wrong though and after it happened every night for a week, she ran to Leo. He remembered the stories, what he had been taught in school and so he went to his mother. When she didn't listen, he went to a teacher. A kind eyed teacher whose heart was in the right place but Leo didn't know what the system would do at the time. That people from the system would come in and take the two of them away. That they would split up the fourteen year old boy and his nine year old sister to send them to different homes.
Leo didn't like the system though and so he ran. He preferred to live on the streets as he could look after himself there but he never found her. His sweet little sister had been tainted by what happened and then further wrecked by the system that swore to protect the children it looked after. She moved to the streets as well but the streets were often cruel to young girls who had no one to protect them and because they had been apart, Leo didn't know what happened until it was too late.
He didn't know what had happened to her till he saw on the news what happened; till the night he showed up at the police station and was taken down into the darkness of the morgue. But he knew what happened when he looked down at the nearly unrecognizable features of the young Jane Doe that he knew as Emma. She had been beaten and broken nearly beyond repair but he knew her. He knew her without the laughter and the smiles that he once loved so well.
Now he sat alone in his apartment, nearly a decade later, listening to the murmurs in the next apartment. He swore he could almost hear his sister laugh but he knew it was just in his head.