I never thought that this is how life would be for me. For us. But here we are, the three of us standing in his room, just yelling at each other. Not knowing – about what to say, just yelling – swearing. The curse words come so fluently, as though they belong there. That’s all they want, is the attention, to be heard and to be flashy. That’s all those swear words are, flashy. I can’t believe them, how they work their way into my mouth and onto my tongue, to be thrown out into the air.

Home is like a war zone. While school is a haven, and friends’ houses are sanctuary. But they’re still not the same. Never will they be the same as they once were, no matter how much I try to make it that way. I can only pretend, like a little kid pretends to play house and everything’s alright.

I’m brought back to reality when I hear the loud banging noises, only to lose my balance and fall into the wall. Anger bubbles beneath the surface, and finally escapes my body like smoke out of a locomotive. Without even thinking about what’s going on around me, I push between them and yell as loud as I possibly can. As loud as it will take for me to be heard, “You guys are acting like idiots! Why can’t we just get over all this like normal civilized people?! And why must we Y E L L when we’re not even two inches away from each other?!”

I don’t care what I say. I need to be heard for once in my life, even if there are a few unfathomable words mixed in there. I don’t care who hears, they just need to get the words through their head, and understand what is happening here. I’m the only one who’s not just noticing but actually seeing what’s going on, or maybe it’s just the fact that I’m the only one who cares.

They book look at me, wide eyed, astonished. I still don’t care. I calmly say how ridiculous we’re all being about something we’d been through before. We’d gone through this crap last year, for crying out loud. When I’d made the wrong decisions and got screwed over – of course, I didn’t get the attention like he did. You’d think the older brother would learn from the little sister’s actions and all the torment she’d gone through.

Apparently not, seeing as how I always have to yell at him about everything. About girls, our dad, his depression, sports… girls. “You can’t just yell at me! What good will it do to make me feel even lower than I was already feeling?! You make me feel like complete ****!” That is the intention. To make him realize that this is not what he needs. That he can do better than this.

But having a house containing three depressed people isn’t always the brightest of decisions. It just leads to arguments, and yelling, and fighting. But it’s easy, just waking up in the morning, getting ready for school, and just going. Most of the time we don’t even talk… And if we do, it’s them, the brother and the mother, who converse with each other. I’m always the odd one out who’s left in their room to listen to their music and converse with her teddy bear. Asking him questions about if life is supposed to be this way. Is growing up supposed to be the way that it is? Of course, he doesn’t answer. I wonder if that’s because he doesn’t know.

I’m sure that we’ll get over it someday. We’ll move on to a place miles away from each other, and we’ll be happy. We’ll be normal. With our friends and our lovers, whoever they may be.