Season: Summer
Weather: no idea. No window. In hospital.
Day of the week: Saturday
Date: 4th February, 2024
Well, I've definitely lost my Saturday morning job now after not turning up. After Stony Boss called them to tell them I wouldn't be able to go in because I was in hospital, he had received a 'harumph' over the phone and a mutter about unreliable employees who are lazy and just want to exploit their employers. His mutters resulted in Stony Boss having a row with him and Stony Boss sending a complaint in to Fair Work to report the man.
"How have you found all these unscrupulous, black hearted employers who all just want to exploit their workers?" he demanded when he had gotten off the phone. "They must be doing illegal activities or something. Maybe even evading tax. No. I have to report all of them. It isn't right."
If word got around that it was my fault that the illegal cash-in-hand casual work market was receiving a crackdown, I would never be able to find another job again. All the people earning illegal wages that they weren't paying tax on would likely curse me to hell and back again.
I received a scolding from that same, familiar doctor for not taking care of my health.
"Your health is like an account you open in the bank. When you overdo things and your health is overdrawn without being able to repay the bank, your account gets frozen until the debts are paid. Your health is like that. You've overdrawn and not taken the time to pay back what you've owed for too many years. With this fall and concussion, you've really gone and done it. Your health is likely to be fragile for the next few months. You really have to take better care of yourself and be responsible for yourself. You can't keep abusing your body in this way."
I had only stared at the doctor silently, not wanting to listen any further.
"Last night, you had surgery to remove the blood clot in your brain. Once you've stabilised a bit more, we're also going to do the other surgeries you've been lying to yourself about and putting off. We're going to deal with those problems you don't want to believe you have for once and for all. You can't keep burying your head in the sand just to save money. At the same time, we're going to try and deal with whatever else is wrong with your body and really work on getting more nutrition into you. I did further blood tests and investigations and found you also have chronic poisoning. We didn't pick it up last time, but at least I now know what is causing some of your symptoms and why you have such problems. You or someone else has been poisoning slowly you over the years. Someone has been abusing you too. Look at all these scars. Is the person who abused you in the past still around you at home?"
There was a reason I had moved across the country. I hadn't realised I was being poisoned though. No wonder I had been feeling weaker and sicker over time and only started feeling better after living alone all the way on the other side of the country. There was no need to guess as to who the poisoner might be. There could only be one person.
Huh. I had allowed him to play with me and my body in return for him taking care of our parents.
"Jane, would you like to get the police involved? Something like this should really be investigated and stopped. What if that person who poisoned you also starts poisoning other people? Although the poison is slow, it's still attempted murder no matter how you put it. Don't aid and abet a criminal. It's not right."
Bezel's evil best friend loved her and our parents so much. He would never harm them. Right? Especially not with our agreement in place. Right? Without me around to get in his way and obstruct his aims of monopolising all their affection and attention, he could get all the love and attention he wanted, right? Right? He'd never harm them, right?
My parents didn't mind him being with Bezel as a friend, but they had been against any marriage. He wouldn't hold anything against them for that, would he? After all, the three of us had grown up together like siblings, although Bezel was the only biological child of our parents. My parents must have had an inkling that something was wrong. It was why they had told him to live independently once he became an adult and had him move out.
As if that would solve the problem.
It hadn't solved anything. For me, at least. It had made things worse. It had given him a base of operations and a private space hidden from the eyes of our parents. Nobody knew how much I had suffered when he vented his anger and frustrations on me. Always where nobody could see, of course. Bezel had loved having somewhere to go to hide from our parents and I had been expected to keep her company to prevent any of her harebrained impulsiveness, leading to her evil best friend teaching her how to torture me and make my life even more miserable than it already was.
And I... I could only remain silent. After all, I knew too many secrets and I didn't want to die. I didn't want Bezel or my parents to be hurt because he couldn't control himself. So while he showed his angelic face to everyone else, sweet talking them into loving and trusting him, I became the scapegoat and had to suffer when the evil side of him came out. Our parents even asked him to discipline me on their behalf on more than one occasion when he turned the tables to make things look like his evil deeds had been done by me.
What could I do?
I can especially remember the time he had made a rope from twisted tree bark for fun and had whipped my back to shreds while Bezel had watched on, eating a bag of chips while cheering. And then afterwards, he had helped me pick out the splinters and clean up my wounds using salted iodine. Man, that had hurt. It was me on cleaning duty in the house that night. He and Bezel had purposely made a mess so that they could watch me be forced to repeatedly bend over and pick things up despite my reopening wounds. I'd barely survived the fever I had that night. My health had never been the same after that.
Was he jealous of me? Because I had been the quiet and obedient one and so had gotten more affection and rewards from our parents when we were growing up? Because I had initially received more trust, love and attention, he had to ruin my life and make it a misery?
I should thank him for have gotten me banished from the family so that I could escape from him. I imagine how he must gloat over the recounting of my misfortunes when I send him my monthly reports. But now, if my life is getting better, he's likely going to make a move. I should emphasise losing my jobs, fret over my medical fees and going in and out of hospital. That should keep him happy and out of my life for a bit longer. If he knows that my finances are no longer so tight, he may instigate Bezel and my parents to demand more from me.
Now that my parents handed my 'discipline' over to him to watch over me as my 'older brother', they didn't want to care about me anymore. Not after I had broken their hearts one too many times. He had managed to wash and change his image in their eyes so well, making them think he was the perfect angelic big brother, while blackening me so much that I was nothing but an evil demon they couldn't wait to get rid of.
Little did they know that ever since she was born, this evil 'big brother' has been coveting their precious Bezel and waiting for us all to grow up so that he can make us his own in a whole other way. I say, all of us, because... Nevermind. Let's not talk about or even think about it.
He had brain washed Bezel to love him so deeply that she ignored everything else he did. She only listened to him. Only adored him. No matter how I tried to warn her or protect her, it only led to me being punished or hurt. She didn't see what humiliation I had to suffer at the hands of her evil best friend just to protect her.
But now she was an adult. She could make her own choices. I was absolutely against their marriage and had done everything I could to stop them. And because I had disobeyed him and gotten in the way one too many times, I had been severely punished and banished. However, I had at least managed to stop any kind of agreement from happening. At least for now. But it was inevitable. I knew it. Sooner or later, I would receive news that they were going to get married.
I had been out of my mind with worry for her, but then she turned around told me that she knew everything and didn't care. She loved him anyway. She loved that evil side of him. She loves his flaws and all. After all, if he was having an evil fit and needed to hurt somebody, she could always find a way to make me go home and take the pain in her place, right?
If they ever got married, I was doomed. I would have to go home for the wedding or have to be prepared for the couple to come and get me themselves, whereupon they would ruin this new life I had built for myself, before dragging me home in metaphorical chains so that I could become the entertainment for their friends at the wedding. Or after the wedding.
I hope that I will never receive the news of their marriage. Perhaps I should run away to another city and discard my current mobile phone. Was there anywhere I could go and hide where Bezel's evil best friend wouldn't be able to find me? He had found me here not long after I had moved in, after all. Was there anybody who would be able to protect me when the time came? Probably not. Nobody had ever listened to and believed me before. Nobody had bothered to protect me before. Everyone said that I had deserved it.
I love my younger sister, but I'm terrified of her as well. In some ways, she's even more terrifying than her evil best friend, our so called 'big brother'. I don't love our 'big brother'. I hope I never have to see him again.
I had given up. I had done my best and failed. This banishment was good. It was just right for me.
I didn't want to think about it. I don't want to think about it.
Stop thinking. Stop thinking.