Page 18 of Fame & Chaos

So I would.

We brought her home that night, and she never went back to live in her old house. There wasn’t even really a discussion about it.

Mum and Dad took one look at her and decided she’d stay with us permanently. She was still seventeen. Still a minor. If they didn’t take her in, she’d likely end up bouncing between relatives or foster placements.

None of us was letting that happen.

Over the next week, Dad and I packed as much of her stuff as we could manage while Mum handled the legal side. The spare room across from mine became Indi’s bedroom, though half the time she still ended up asleep in my room anyway after nightmares woke her up.

I felt so damn sorry for her.

And angry.

Christ, I was angry.

At her parents.

At the world.

At whatever cruel force decided that Indi deserved this kind of pain.

I knew deep down it would scar her forever. There was no surviving something like that without damage lingering behind. My only hope was that maybe I could help carry some of it for her.

Because I would have done anything to ease her pain.

Anything.

The weeks afterward were rough. Indi barely spoke to anyone except Mum and me. She stopped answering texts from people, stopped caring about school, and stopped caring about almost everything. Most days, she stayed locked in her room, listening to sad music while staring blankly at the wall.

It scared me sometimes.

Mum eventually arranged counseling for both of us.

I needed it more than I wanted to admit. The nightmares alone were brutal. Some nights I’d wake up sweating after seeing the bathtub all over again. Other times, I’d hear Indi screaming in my dreams so vividly I’d run across the hallway to check she was still there.

Usually, I’d find her awake too.

Neither of us slept much after that night.

But while I slowly learned how to process what happened, Indi seemed to drown in it instead. She hated her parents for leaving her behind like that, and I didn’t blame her. I would’ve hated them too.

Still, even while grieving, she kept trying to push me away emotionally, and it frustrated the hell out of me sometimes because now we lived under the same roof.

“You can’t just stop living, Indi,” I snapped at her one afternoon after she skipped school again.

She glared at me from the couch, wrapped in a blanket. “Watch me.”

“Jesus Christ.” I dragged both hands through my hair. “You’re smarter than this.”

“What’s the point?” she shot back. “I couldn’t even save my own parents.”

“That wasn’t your fault.”

“It feels like it.”

“It isn’t.”

She looked away instantly after that.