The Sister of the Keepers

A/N: This is the first chapter of an unfinished story I was writing when I was twelve so I just want your perspective on the writing skills. I kept the name of the story even though it doesn't have much relevance to this chapter. I hope it's any good.

P.S. Please don't expect any more chapters. I only had a hard copy of this chapter when my computer crashed. And I lost everything. :|

The last time I saw my brothers,step brothers actually, was seven years ago. I was five when Sammy went off to college and seven in Danny's case. I loved them more than anyone in the world, even more than my own dad. Even though I was thirteen-eleven years younger than them, I was never out of their sight. They loved me as much as I loved them. A typical teenager wouldn't hangout with a kid, they'd 'chill' with their friends and never notice the kid, but they weren't like that at all. I would be a part of everything they did; I would go everywhere they went. They'd never leave me alone. I would follow them everywhere and they never told me off. In spring we'd go to the valley at the other side of the town to pick primroses. We would pick and pick and pick until sunset. I always thought that we spent the entire day picking flowers; it never occurred to me that we went in the afternoon. But now I know. Sometimes at night we would 'camp' in our backyard. We would set up the camping tent and we would lay awake for hours listening to Danny's stories. They were bloody stories about a man wearing a mask with an ax who'd kill the people who went in the forest where the man lived, to camp. If I got scared, I'd hide under the blanket, trembling. Sammy would tell Danny off for scaring me. Like I said, they weren't the typical teenagers. They were my parents to me. I worshiped them. But it didn't stop them from leaving home or from my life.

Typically I was a heartbroken kid who had lost her teddy bear when they left. But it was much more than that. So much more. When Sammy left, I'd cry all day and pester dad and Danny to bring him back. But he didn't come back. He didn't come back ever to meet me again. The first few days it was almost impossible to make me eat anything. Danny didn't go to school for a few days just to be there with me. No one could make me eat anything or take things off my mind. But Danny succeeded. He and Sammy always did. My parents didn't really mean much to me when Danny and Sammy were there. They weren't a important part of my life unlike other five year old kids whose world had technically only two things,their mother and father.But after Danny left two years later, I fell violently ill. I hadn't eaten or drunk anything in three days. I'd cry myself to bed every night. When in morning I'd wake up, I'd jump out of my bed with a big smile on my face and scurry downstairs hoping to find them in the kitchen, making breakfast. I hoped that it was all a bad dream and it never happened. But finding my dad making breakfast in the empty kitchen would turn my world upside down again. No matter how much I cried and prayed, searched all their hiding places, I didn't find them. Neither of them ever returned. Maybe he and Danny never liked my mother. They most certainly never approved of her. They hated her for taking their mother's place. They would've liked it better if dad never remarried. But then I wouldn't be born, of course. Maybe that's why they never said those words.But if they love me so much, why didn't they ever come back to visit me? I would often replay everything in my mind but it never helped, of course. It burnt me and every little emotion I had left for them. I was very little when I was left heartbroken; my most precious belonging was lost.

Forever.

It wounded me terribly. Wounds heal overtime. But not this one. It's a wound too deep to heal. It wouldn't ever heal. It left a scar in my life. The scar made me scared of losing people I love the most. Now I love my dad the most in the whole world and wouldn't ever bear to see him leave. And even though I fretted too much, I never actually thought that I'd loose anyone again in my life. I didn't think that I'd live to see it.

You could imagine my shock when I had heard that my dad was dying. Dying of a disease even the most experienced doctors couldn't identify. And here I am, sitting near my dad's deathbed. Just sitting. Nothing around me mattered anymore. Not the silent tears rolling down the cheeks of my family members (most of them I never met until today). Not my mother praying to the cruel god day and night. Not even my brothers' arrival. I don't think I even know them now. They're just strangers to me. I refused to recognize them. I didn't care that they came. If they would've come six years ago, it would mean the world to me. But not now. Not anymore. All I cared about right now was my father. All I wanted was for him to get well and mother, he and I would be a happy family once again. I wanted to go back to my almost perfect life again. I wanted dad to coach our football team again, play baseball and watch classic movies with me. Usually Sammy, Danny and I would do that. Just they would tell me to close my eyes during the make out scene in the movie. And I would do as they said like an obedient little sister.

But I'm not that little sister anymore. I'm my father's daughter. No longer 'the sister of those kids next door', like the neighbors would say.