Post by StoryGirl83 on Aug 27, 2008 21:39:44 GMT -5
Chapter Six – It Wasn’t Me
Chris watched as Wyatt returned to the room with Victor. Victor helped Chris stand and supported him as he walked over to his bed. Victor sat down next to him and put his arm around him. For several minutes they all remained silent as Chris just shivered on his bed, trying not to remember.
Chris stared across the room at Wyatt who was leaning against the wall. “Why don’t you leave?”
“I can’t leave you,” Wyatt told him, his voice concerned. “You’re my brother.”
“Grandpa’s here,” Chris reminded him.
The hurt in Wyatt’s eyes was impossible to hide. “I’m not him, Chris,” Wyatt whispered. No one would really tell him what he had done in the other time line, but he knew it hurt his brother. It hurt all of his family who knew anything about it. “I don’t know what he did, but . . .”
“And you don’t want to,” Chris assured him. “Go.”
“How is leaving going to help anything?” Wyatt wanted to know.
Not knowing how else to get his brother to leave, Chris kept pleading with him. “Please, Wy. I know you’re not the same, but with Grandpa I don’t have to remind myself. Please.”
Wyatt looked Chris in the eye. “It wasn’t me.”
“Too bad you can’t say the same for me,” Chris told him. Except wasn’t it the same. Wasn’t he a different person than that. Just having the memories did not make him the same. It did not make him the one who had killed that innocent. It gave him power, the power to not make the same mistakes.
“It wasn’t me,” Wyatt repeated. “Part of you knows that.”
“All of me knows that,” Chris corrected.
“Then, let me stay,” Wyatt requested.
Chris shook his head. “I promised Dad I wouldn’t burden you with the other time line.”
“I’m sure he only meant not to hold me responsible for what happened there,” Wyatt told him reasonably.
Chris heaved in a deep breath.
Wyatt sighed. “If you ask me, again, I’ll leave. Is that what you want, really want?”
Chris stared at his brother, breathing hard, but no longer shaking. As he watched Wyatt his breath slowed to normal. His lips twitched. “Stay then. The worst thing you . . . he did to me I already remembered. If I could reconcile that, I can reconcile everything else. It’s just a lot to take in at once. I have to keep in mind that it no longer happened. It means something still, but the people hurt or killed may easily still be alive and well.” Chris shivered.
Wyatt took a step toward his little brother before catching himself. “Chris?”
“I’m fine,” Chris told him, sounding anything other than convincing.
“No, you’re not.”
“No, I’m not,” Chris agreed, “but I’ll survive. I always do.”
“We are going to get you past that stage,” Wyatt informed him firmly.
“Stage?” Chris asked confused.
Wyatt nodded. “We are going to get you from surviving to thriving.
Chris’ lips twitched.
“I saw that,” Wyatt informed him.
Chris’ lips twitched a little more, almost smiling.
“It’s okay to remember, Chris,” Wyatt assured him. “And it’s okay to tell me about it. I admit I’d rather if you thought of this evil me as an entirely different person, but I want you to talk to me. You need to tell me about it.”
Chris glanced over at Victor as if drawing strength from his grandfather. Then, he looked back across the room at Wyatt. He smiled. It was a tentative smile, but a smile all the same. Finally he spoke. “You know it’s not only the other time line I remember. I remember this one, too. I remember that in this time line you are a great older brother, a brother I can depend on to have my back. You’re good. I can depend on that.”
Wyatt smiled at his brothers words. “Thank you.”
Chris stood up. “Let’s go to the manor and see if we can find anything in the Book of Shadows on the demon that attacked me.
Victor stood up and looked at his grandsons. “Are we orbing over there?”
Wyatt looked at Chris.
Chris smiled, again, laughing just a little. He shook his head. “I’m afraid not.”
“Why not?” Victor asked in surprise. “What’s up?”
Wyatt moved away from the wall. “Mom didn’t tell you?” It was beginning to dawn on him that as much as they had tried to hide stuff from their mom, she wasn’t doing much better at telling her dad. Maybe she had an excuse because he probably hadn’t asked, not those particular questions.
“Tell me what?” Victor asked, looking between his two grandsons.
“We can’t orb,” Chris replied simply.
Victor looked at Chris, then Wyatt, than back at Chris. “You can’t orb? How is that possible?”
“We don’t know yet,” Chris admitted. “It was some sort of gel.”
“We can’t orb,” Wyatt repeated Chris words, “so we are going to have to drive. Do you want to come with us, Grandpa?”
Victor looked at his two grandsons.
Wyatt walked toward Chris.
Chris flinched and Victor’s mind was made up. “I’ll come with you.”
Wyatt had seen his brother flinch, too. “Do we drive together or would you rather have your own car?”
“I’ll be okay,” Chris assured him.
“Chris, would you call the manor and see if our parents are there?”
Chris nodded and walked out of the room.
Wyatt watched him leave. Misery was written on his face.
Victor watched Wyatt. “Are you okay, Wyatt?”
Wyatt looked up at Victor, shaking his head. “I hurt him. It may not have been me exactly, but somehow with other set of circumstances, I hurt him. And now he has to live with that memory. How do you make up for that? How do you make up for something an alternate version of you did?”
Victor put his arm around his around his oldest grandson. “You don’t. You just make living okay despite it.”