10 Years Ago…
I was sixteen when my father killed my mother. Sixteen when he turned the gun on himself.
It should have rained that day. It should've stormed, or the skies should've cracked open and screamed, or… something. But the sun kept shining, and the birds kept singing, and the world just went on like it hadn't shattered into pieces in front of me.
I still don't understand that.
When I got off the bus that afternoon, the first thing I noticed was the flashing lights. Red and blue danced across the worn pavement in front of our house, spinning wildly, painting shadows across the neighbors' yards. The second thing I noticed was the crowd.
Everyone was there—the neighbors, a handful of kids I recognized from school, even old Mr. Hesson, leaning on his cane and whispering to his wife. They all turned to look at me the second I stepped off the curb, their faces heavy with pity and something else. Something colder.
Then I saw the ambulance.
I don't remember running, but I must have, because suddenly I was standing at the edge of the yard, out of breath, staring at the mess of uniforms and yellow tape that had swallowed my home.
"Malyen!" a familiar voice cried out, and then Aunt Zoe was there, her hands gripping my shoulders so tightly they shook. Her face was streaked with tears, her hair wild, like she'd been tearing at it.
"You can't go in," she said, her voice breaking with every word. "Baby, please, you can't—"
But I wasn't listening.
I shoved past her, stumbling up the porch steps. The door was wide open, but the house didn't feel like my house anymore. The front hall was crowded with strangers—police officers, and paramedics, all speaking in low, clipped voices. I could smell it before I saw anything: iron, sharp, and sour, mixing with the faint, familiar scent of Mom's lavender cleaner.
Someone called after me. Maybe it was my aunt, perhaps it was one of the cops—I don't know. All I could hear was my heartbeat thundering in my ears as I ran from room to room.
"Mom?" I called out, my voice cracking. "Ellie?"
I checked the living room. The hall closet. My bedroom. Nothing. The cops were trying their best to hold me back, but I ducked and ripped out of their grips.
And then I walked into the kitchen.
My feet stopped moving.
There was so much blood. More than I thought a person could have in them. It was everywhere—on the floor, splattered across the cabinets, soaking into the cracks between the tiles. My mother was on her stomach, her hair matted and dark, her hand stretched toward the table like she'd been reaching for something. My father was slumped against the far wall, the gun still resting in his lap.
I couldn't breathe. I couldn't think.
"Ellie," I whispered. My voice sounded hollow, far away.
I turned and stumbled back into the hall, past the strangers, my legs barely holding me up. Where was she? Where was my sister?
"Where is Ellie?!" I yelled, storming out of the house, tears streaming down my face. Aunt Zoe tried her best to hold me back and calm me down, but it was useless.
"Where the fuck is she?! Where is my sister?!"
I spun and spun, searching for her, until I stopped.
I found her on the neighbor's porch.
Ms. Hesson was sitting in her rocking chair, holding Ellie's hand in both of hers. My sister was perched on the edge of the porch swing, her feet dangling, clutching her stuffed bear to her chest like it was the only thing keeping her together.
For a moment, I just stood there, staring at her. She didn't look up. She didn't cry. She just sat there, her eyes unfocused, staring out at nothing.
And then, in the corner of my vision, I saw her—Jupiter.
She came skidding into view on her old bike, throwing it to the ground as she stumbled toward me, her knees bloody from where she'd fallen.
"Malyen!" she shouted, her voice trembling as she ran across the street.
I didn't move. I couldn't. My legs felt like they'd been carved out of stone.
She reached me in seconds, grabbing my arm, her small hands gripping me like she was afraid I'd disappear. Her dark curls were wild, her cheeks flushed from pedaling so hard, but her eyes—those wide, brown eyes—were filled with fear.
"What happened?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper. "Malyen, are you okay?"
I didn't answer. I couldn't. The lump in my throat was too thick, and the weight of it all was crashing down on me too fast.
Her gaze darted past me, toward the flashing lights and the yellow tape, and her grip tightened. "Malyen, talk to me. Please."
"I…" My voice cracked. I couldn't look at her. "They're gone."
Jupiter froze.
Her hands dropped from my arm, and for a moment, all she could do was stare at me. Then she did something I didn't expect. She pulled me into a hug.
"I'm so sorry, Malyen." Her voice rasped as she spoke softly.
I didn't hug her back. I didn't know how.
But she didn't let go.
Aunt Zoe's voice broke the moment.
"Malyen!" she called, pointing toward the porch.
That's when I saw Ellie, still clutching her stuffed bear, her tiny frame dwarfed by Ms. Hesson's rocking chair.
I let go of Jupiter—or maybe she let go of me—and ran to my sister, dropping to my knees and pulling her into my arms. She clung to me, her face buried in my shoulder, trembling but silent.
"I've got you," I whispered into her hair. "I've got you. I promise."
When I looked up, Jupiter was standing at the edge of the porch, watching us. She didn't say anything. She didn't need to.
She just stayed there, like she always did.
That night changed everything, but it wasn't the first crack in our family. It wasn't even the deepest. My father had been falling apart long before the blood soaked into the floorboards of our kitchen. And I hated him for it.
He wasn't always like this. That's the hardest part to explain.
There were moments—fleeting, but real—when he was just… Dad. Like when he bought me my first guitar one summer. Or the time he taught my sister, Ellie, how to throw a proper right hook after some kid pulled her braids on the playground. I was ten, and I thought he was invincible.
But people change. Or maybe he was always like this, and I just didn't see it.
The drinking started when I was twelve. At first, it was just a bottle here or there, a way to "take the edge off" after a bad day. That's what he called it. "The edge." By the time I was fourteen, the bottles outnumbered the days. He'd come home smelling like whiskey and bad choices, muttering under his breath, or worse, picking fights with my mother. A storm in human skin.
And then came the debt.
I didn't know the full story—I was just a kid—but the whispers started when we sold the truck. Then the tools. Then the spare furniture. Everyone in town knew, but no one talked about it. At least not to my face.
By the time I was old enough to understand what was happening, my mother had stopped trying to hide the fights. She didn't cry anymore, not even when he slammed the door on us for the last time. She just sat at the table, staring at the empty chair where he was supposed to be, her fingers tracing the edges of unpaid bills. She told me once that love was supposed to hold people together.
But love wasn't enough to hold him.
The shouting came next. The slamming doors. The nights when Ellie would crawl into my bed, clutching her stuffed bear while I told her stories about heroes who didn't break things when they were angry. He blamed my mother for everything—the debt, the bad harvests, the peeling paint on the walls. And then he started blaming us too.
By the time I was sixteen, I hated him. I hated the sound of his voice, the smell of him, the way his fist slammed against the table when my mother asked him to try harder. I hated the way he looked at me like I was just another mistake he'd made.
We moved in with Aunt Zoe after that.
She didn't hesitate to take us in, even though she was barely scraping by herself. Her apartment was small and cluttered, but it felt safer than that house ever had. Ellie slept in the bed with me for months. She didn't like to talk about what happened, and honestly, I didn't either.
Aunt Zoe was the one who told me about the note. She'd seen it when the police went through the kitchen, sitting on the edge of the table, just out of the blood's reach. My name was scrawled across the front in my father's jagged handwriting.
I didn't want it. I didn't even want to look at it. But the police gave it to Aunt Karen anyway.
She keeps it in a drawer somewhere. I've never opened it.
Not that day. Not the next. Not for a long time after. Still haven't. Still won't.
Because I know what it says.
It doesn't matter what words he chose, or how much effort he put into pretending he was sorry. He wasn't sorry. Not for what he did to her. Not for what he did to us.
I'm not giving that motherfucker the satisfaction.
Ellie's the reason I didn't fall apart. I don't know what I would've done without her. Raising her wasn't easy, but it gave me something to focus on, something to fight for.
I packed her lunches. Helped her with her homework. Played my guitar at night while she fell asleep on the couch.
Music was the only thing that made sense back then. It was the only thing that felt like mine.
I didn't think it would lead to anything. But Ellie believed it would. She was there the first time I played in a real venue, the first time I scraped together enough cash to record a demo. She was there when I played for empty bars, when I slept in my car between gigs, and when I finally got the call from the label.
I still remember the way she screamed when I told her. "I knew it, Malyen!" she said, tackling me in a hug. "I knew you'd make it!"
But success isn't as clean as people think it is.
At first, it felt like everything was finally falling into place. The gigs got bigger. The paychecks got fatter. People who'd never looked at me twice suddenly wanted to be my best friend.
But the thing about running is, that no matter how far you go, the past always catches up with you.
The spotlight didn't drown out the silence of that house. It didn't erase the blood on the floor or the weight of that note. And it didn't stop the nightmares.
So I drank.
It started simple enough—a few beers after a show, a shot to calm my nerves before a set. But it never stopped at one drink. It never stopped at anything.
And then there were the pills.
At first, they made it easier to sleep. Then they made it easier to wake up. Then they made it easier to forget. Forget how empty I felt, how exhausted I was, how the cheers of the crowd never seemed loud enough to fill the silence inside me.
It worked for a while. Until it didn't.
Jupiter tried to help me.
She was the only one who could ever see through the bullshit—the only one who ever tried to pull me back from the edge.
But I didn't listen.
We were adults by then, living different lives but still orbiting each other like planets caught in the same dying solar system. She'd gotten good at picking me up when I fell. Too good.
But even Jupiter had her breaking point.
It happened on a night I can't even remember. She came to one of my shows like she always did, and I was already three shots deep before I stepped onstage. By the end of the night, I was too far gone to even stand up straight, let alone hold a conversation. I don't know what I said to her—what I did to make her leave—but I woke up the next morning with a pounding headache and she just disappeared from my life.
Zoe said she left the country, and to say she wished me the best.
I called her, but she didn't pick up. I told myself I'd fix it, but I didn't. Days turned into weeks, weeks into months, and by the time I sobered up enough to realize what I'd lost, it was too late.
Now, as I stand on this stage, the crowd screaming my name, the spotlight blinding, I should feel like I've finally made it. This should be the moment where it all feels worth it.
But some nights, no matter how loud the cheers are, I can still hear the silence of that house.
And other nights, I hear her voice instead.
I play to drown it out.
Or maybe I play because I'm still running.