Read Through Glass: Episode Four for Free Online

said as I
ripped open the brittle plastic bag, spilling the once soft cotton
on the dusty mattress. “Although I don’t remember ever having to
scrape off the dust when I changed my sheets.”
    “ You obviously didn’t share
a bedroom with three boys.”
    “ I don’t want to know.” I
tried my hardest to fight the eye roll. “I am just gad I finally
get my over priced, perfectly matching bedroom set.”
    “ Why do you think I picked
them?” Travis asked, a playful grin spreading over his face in a
way that only made the wild joy inside me grow. It was a feeling
that I hadn’t felt in so long that I clung to it, in desperate need
of the way my soul seemed to swell like a balloon, the way the fear
didn’t seem quite so real.
    “ They did have the old
patchwork quilts that Grandma used to make, but I thought for once
in our lives we could splurge a little bit. I am disappointed you don’t like
princesses anymore.”
    “ Yeah, well, princesses are
a little bit twenty-thirteen…”
    “ Giant monsters,
however…”
    “ They are all the
rage.”
    “ I think Jason would have a
field day.” Travis said the words so casually, but I couldn’t stop
the painful twist of my stomach, the way the pleasant balloon
deflated into an angry thump that ripped through my chest as he
threw the name of our little brother around so casually.
    It was a name I had tried my hardest
never to think of, a name that I had locked away deep down inside,
though I could never rid myself of it forever. I couldn’t because I
could still see his little face so clearly. I could see the
menacing smile he always had, the way the evil glint would light in
his eyes right before he did something that he knew he
shouldn’t.
    I could see it all because it was what
I had covered my walls with. It was the history that I had lost
myself in from the day the sky had gone black. From the day that I
had realized that everything had changed, and that there was
nothing I could do to stop it.
    I could still tell you exactly where
each of Jason’s smiles were on the walls of my rooms. I could tell
you the stories for each picture, and the tales I had made up for
the unfamiliar grins that I loved just as much.
    “ Yeah,” it was the only
word I could get out.
    I didn’t dare look at Travis as I
pulled the fitted sheet over the old mattress, the elastic snapping
into shards of dried rubber as I secured it. I focused on making
the bed, on the feel of the cotton under my fingers, as I listened
to the crack and the pop of the fire. The heavy, painful pounding
of my heart returned as I tried to banish the memories.
    “ Do you remember when Jason
turned seven? All he wanted was a superman cake…” Travis said into
the silence, his voice trailing off as the memories sliced into his
heart.
    “ That showed superman’s
death,” I finished his statement without thinking about it, the
memory coming back in a torrent of heartache whether I wanted it to
or not.
    Jason had insisted on the bloodiest
cake possible for his birthday, complete with blood and guts and
mass amounts of red frosting that our slightly hippy mother had
insisted on making with beets instead of the regular food coloring
stuff that she had deemed poisonous.
    “ It tasted
awful.”
    “ Jason didn’t seem to think
so. He ate it on top of every meal for a week.”
    “ You do realize he only did
that to gross you out?”
    “ Oh, I am fully aware now,
just as I was then,” I said with a smile, the memory not seeming as
painful all of a sudden. “Doesn’t make it any less
disturbing.”
    We both chuckled together as I lay
back on my now freshly made bed, the sounds happier than they had
been a moment ago. While I could still feel the hollow knocking
that ate at the pit of my heart, it didn’t run through me in sharp
regret and pain anymore.
    I had always hid memories in the fear
that they would destroy me, but now, having someone to share them
with made it a little bit more manageable. It took