Biscuits

Title: Biscuits
Word count: ~1k
Warnings: Not for the faint hearted.
Dedication: The girl in the room next to mine who threw a biscuit at me and told me to go write when I went begging for inspiration.
Summary: When you lose something that meant everything to you, what are you left with?

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Chocolate biscuits were his favourite. The ones with the dark chocolate bits in them. Not everyone liked them, they left a bitter aftertaste. He liked bitter things, dark chocolate, dark coffee.

She preferred cream biscuits. The ones with strawberry cream were her favourite. She liked the taste of vanilla cream more than strawberry but she liked strawberry best, because it was pink.

So by the time he came home, it varied between once a week to once a few months, she stocked up on biscuits. Both kinds. That was their favourite way to spend time together, better than any evening spent playing ball in the park or eating icecream at the amusement park. Dipping biscuits in cold milk, sitting on the couch with their legs crossed.

The world could go do what it wanted and he wouldn't care, just as long as they were together. She would have said it too, if she were as articulate.

'You're my everything,' she once said. He'd ruffled her hair and pulled her onto his lap, holding her close. He felt the same way. All he needed was her. All he had was her.

She was three when everything became the way it now was. Now she's six. She doesn't remember much from then, but he does. He was sixteen then. Their parents had just gone through a messy divorce and mum had up and run away with some guy to France or Albania or someplace. Dad was given custody of both kids, not a responsibilty he particularly relished. It was when the man who called himself their father was seen to prefer doing anything, from reading the newspaper to doing the dishes, than pay attention to her that he decided how things were going to be. He confronted his father first, and found him trying to brainwash his son into believing that it was because she looked so much like her mother that dad didn't pay attention to her instead of the real reason, pure heartlessness.

That's when he decided he was going to be her family. Anyone she needed. Mother, father, brother, he'd be all three.

Three years since, she still lived with their old man and though he paid for her tuition, he didn't have much of an emotional connection with her. She didn't want it either. All she wanted was her elder brother. He was the world to her. And when she had the world she needed nothing else.

When he comes home, she runs towards him as soon as he steps inside the gate. He walks to her, sometimes running if it had been too long, and scoops her up in his arms and carries her in, listening to her chatter about the things he'd missed out on. That time she fell and scraped her knee, the other time her friends came over and they played with all her dolls.

As soon as he's removed his shoes, she asks him how long he is going to stay. When it is too short a time duration, she frowns, pouting cutely until he suggests an activity to compensate, like going to the amusement park twice or buying her another ice cream cone.

By then the maid (someone needs to take care of her) downstairs would have made dinner and they'd go down to dinner filled with her favourite food. He preferred it that way. Seeing her delight while she ate was better than all the steak in the world.

He'd take her to the amusement park one day, holding her hand, buying her ice cream that melted all over her fingers, spicy hot dogs and salty popcorn, laughing at the tiny people below while riding the ferris wheel.

He'd take her to the park, push her on the swing, they'd kick a ball around, have burgers and pink cotton candy that made her giggle when it melted in her mouth.

He takes her to places he'd known and loved at her age, she rediscovers them with him, and he finds things he never knew existed.

---

She used to mean everything to him. If she were still around, she still would.

A part of him, a very big part of him, stays with her, six feet under. It has been a few years now, he's not sure exactly how long, he still remembers it like it were yesterday. It has been a few years now but she still remains how she was back then, filled with the all innocence and curiosity of a six year old.

Conspiracy theorists say it was staged. You know, to accelerate the making of anti-small arms laws. Debates still go on, was that shooter, a boy of sixteen, insane? Or was he just sadistic?

He's not sure who to believe anymore. All he knows is he misses her everyday. That he imagines her voice in the other room and runs towards it only to find the room empty. Empty, like his heart. Empty, like his life. Meaningless.

He sees her on the street with hair tied up in pigtails and runs to her. It's not her.

Each cycle of hope and disappointment, slowly crushes him, part by agonizing part.

He goes to her grave every once in a while, when he fears he's completely lost his grip on reality. He sees her name engraved in stone but it means nothing. He falls at her little feet and cries. Cries for forgiveness.

Ever since the call, when his hysterical father told him in between huge sobs what happened to her, he can't help the 'what-ifs' that run through his mind. Day and fucking night.

What if he'd just let her come live with him? Another school, another neighbourhood. What if he'd insisted... He stops there. He knows the questions are pointless. They still drive him insane.

He still lives, even if only barely. He's not sure how much longer he can go on. He takes the pain as it comes, each day, every moment. Each time he sees a ferris wheel, each time he sees a pink that reminds him of cotton candy, each time he sees strawberry cream biscuits.

She didn't deserve to die, he thinks. It should have been me instead. Then he thinks that she wouldn't have been able to live if he were gone. For a split second he thinks maybe it is better this way, if one of them had to die, it is better it was her. Not because he wanted to live, just because he would never have wanted her to deal with the pain he was feeling.

He curls up in his bed one night. He hugs his knees to his chest, his whole body shaking with the force of his sobs. Each burning tear rolling off his face and onto the bed eats away at his soul. For not the first time since her death, he prays. He prays with all his heart, that this time is the last time he'd have to do this. And slowly, the pain drifts away. Slowly, he falls asleep.