Page 159 of John + Siena: The Complete Duet

It wasn’t exactly purposeful. It wasn’t like John meant to be so quiet, or off-putting. At the moment, he simply had nothing else to say. He had other things to think about. He had memories that continued to stick to the back this mind like tar.

Impossible to get off or shake, and burning him over and over again. It wouldn’t let him go, and instead, taunted him with the reality he had not been able to see before.

Memories of those he trusted, and those he distrusted, had muddled together overtime. He had mistook his paranoia and his raging emotions, and directed them in the wrong place because of his own bias. He had assumed wrongly about those who had never given him a reason to think that way.

It was a strange conclusion to come to.

Yet, he knew that no one around him would hear him if he tried to explain. It was hard to hear John when he was manic. The rational side of him was often lost to the irrational. In violent outbursts, and rambling admissions.

Who could make sense of that?

He understood.

He didn’t blame those around him. It wasn’t their fault. They could only deal with what was presented in front of them because they didn’t know what was hiding underneath.

“You know now,” Andino said, “don’t you?”

John looked up at his cousin. “Know what?”

“That you can’t trust any of them.”

“Not all.”

Andino shook his head. “John, the Calabrese family has done nothing but try to ruin you, and the Marcellos. You see that now, don’t you? We’re damn near in an all-out war with them on the streets right now. This is exactly what they wanted from us. Matteo might as well have just fucking admitted it.”

“Not all,” John said again.

His cousin’s frustration grew, and with it, John’s irritation spiked up as well. It was another by-product of being in the state that he was. Conversations were not easy, and communication was made harder.

He could talk and talk and talk for days like this, but it would still lead them in the same goddamn circle. That’s just how it was.

John knew it, and it made him less willing to speak in the first place. Besides, he had said his piece. He said what he meant, and he meant what he said.

He couldn’t help if Andino did not—or could not—understand John’s compromise.

He didn’t blame any of them, though. None of them understood what it was like to be him.

John couldn’t explain it.

No matter how hard he tried.

Mania for John was a vicious bitch. It manifested in so many different forms that it was sometimes hard to keep track. One day he could be highly productive, and laughing because he was almost high with the way he felt. The world seemed to move so fast around him on those days. The next day, he could be so low that the only thing he felt was right was lashing out at anyone he could reach.

It was violent.

It was mean.

It was nasty.

He knew after it was all said and done, and the dust cleared, that for those around him, his mania could be terrifying.

It was every reason why Cella and Liliana no longer made any effort to have a relationship with John. They had been some of the first people to experience the way his mania manifested in horrible ways. Like a tornado, he had ripped through their lives when they should have been doing anything but trying to hide from their older brother.

Instead of having happy memories of years that should have been good, they were tainted and colored dark. Too many moments of peace when John had been stable, and then bouts of chaos when his mania came out to play.

His sisters never spoke as adults about how their brother’s episodes had affected them when they were younger; they simply kept a distance. They didn’t allow him into their lives beyond the shallow surface, and they didn’t intrude on his life, either.

It also taught others in John’s family that when the mania darkened, it was better to step away unless they could handle what it might throw at them.