Free Pieces of a Mending Heart by Kristina M. Rovison Page A

bathroom, one carrying me away while the others d id all sorts of things to David’s unresponsive body. Then I blacked out.
    A year later I transferred from public school to private school. My brother was sent to “The John Adams Developmental Facility for Traumatized/Disturbed Adolescents” in Canada, and I hadn’t seen him since . Other than a letter once every other week, we had no contact at all. The letters were sneaked; David’s friend would give them to me when he saw me walking home from school every day, and I would stuff it in my backpack.
    You’d think the near-death of a child would make parents motivated to change, but my “parents” seemed completely indifferent to their son attempting suicide. The notebook that was sitting open on the counter was filled with two pages of his reasons for killing himself, and one p age was an apology letter to me, but it was illegible.
    No one, especially not me, knew what Davi d was going through; at sixteen , he had been drunk at a party and gotten an eighteen year old pregnant. Because the girl was eighteen, she was afraid of getting charged with rape, so she had the child aborted. David found out about his would-have-been child during a fight at school, in which a fellow student of his screamed out that he was a “punk-ass baby-making killer,” which made David slam t he boys head into the gym floor, giving him a concussion and broken teeth. My brother has always had anger issues, but that was the day everyone found out.
    Not only was he coping with this drama, but he was now being incessantly bullied and teased in school for various reasons. Some rumors about him were true, others completely false, but even he couldn’t tell the difference anymore. David began using drugs, sneaking our parents’ Valium one tablet at a time. Then the time came when he was pushed over the edge, by no one other than our father himself.
    A stern man with no conscience, our father was a firm believer in “ spanking ” sense into his children. After getting expelled from school for fighting, Father brought David home and pushed him into the kitchen wall, hard. I was upstairs, but I heard the door close so I ran to see what the commotion was.
    I saw our Father hit Dav id repeatedly with a spatula; a weapon o f convenience. David was crying and I had n ever seen him cry. Not like that. The man we called father was beating David into unconsciousness, and I becam e terrified for my brother. I charged into the kitchen, grabbed my father’s arm and yanked as hard as I could. He whirled around, smacking me across the cheek with the spatula, leaving a sharp sting that spread over my entire face.
    “If you EVER screw up as much as this your brother, I will kill you before you have a chance to blink an eye. Do you understand?” the man screamed, following his decree with obscenities.
    David wrote an apology letter addressed to me, which I still keep inside my lock-box. I don’t know why I keep it; it’s too strong a reminder of my brother at his worst. He’s growing now, changing into a better person and accepting his past. I admire his strength, his courage to fight his demons head on.
    * * *
    A half an hour into my story, Tristan reaches towards me and pulls me to him. Together, we lean against Dino on the grass, my head on Tristan’s chest, his head on Dino’s side. The trust he has in this animal is frightening…
    “Katie , I didn’t mean to make you cry,” Tristan whispers, voice wavering.
    I don’t want him to be upset; I need him to be strong. My angel deserves to know my story, and I am telling it to him in all its gory truth.
    “You didn’t, Tristan,” I say, sniffling. I snuggle my face into his neck, breathing in the smell of… home . He tightens his arms around me, giving me an anchor to hold onto, urging me to continue, but not wanting to push me too far. I figure I may as well push as far as I can.
    * * *
    I turned s eventeen on July 4th, 2012 . That night was