1All characters in the story are 18 and above. This is a story of incest between a brother and a sister. If that's not what you are here for, I would suggest you not read any further. Also, to understand what is going on, I suggest you start from chapter 1 if you just found this story.
Happy reading!
BHW
Chapter 7
Waking up the following morning was like Deja Vu. Hot, sweaty, hungover, having to piss like a racehorse, and a pounding headache with Katie nowhere to be found.
"What do I have to do to get someone to turn the air condition on around here?" I called out angrily and expecting my question to go unanswered, to which it did.
Kicking and flailing around like an idiot, I finally freed myself from the covers and stomped off towards the bathroom. Still pissed, sitting on the commode, something I found myself doing more and more lately, I contemplated whether to take a shower or not. There was no need if we were going straight to the beach.
"Honey, are you awake?" Katie asked, entering the room.
"No, I'm sleepwalking. What the hell do you think? And what the hell is wrong with the air conditioner, is it broken?" I growled.
The silence that followed was short-lived as Katie began to cry softly. What a fucking asshole you are. Could you be any more of a dick? I thought, hearing her sniffling from the bedroom. The number of angry questions I asked did nothing but cause her to shut down and cry. I knew better than to even raise my voice. She sobbed at commercials like they were true stories. Her crying was the runner-up to her morning sickness and a constant in our life since becoming pregnant. Just sitting there getting more and more pissed that she was still crying, I took a few deep breaths, flushed the commode, and headed toward the bedroom.
"Baby, I'm sorry. It's not your fault. I'm just being a dick for no reason. I have hands and feet. I know how to get up off my fat ass and turn the air conditioner down." The harsh words I said about myself only matters worse.
"No, you're not. Please don't say that," her sobbing showed no signs of slowing down.
I apologized profusely the whole time while stroking her hair, and after ten minutes of holding her, she calmed down. Even though it killed me inside to speak to her this way, it wouldn't be the last time I talked to her that way.
"Wanna go to the beach?" She asked happily. It was like the flick of a light switch, her mood now cheerful and giddy.
"Yup," I replied with the same enthusiasm, even though the pounding in my head only seemed to get worse. A recurring occurrence over the last few months.
The rest of the week was filled with several more blow-ups toward my family and my need to consume as much alcohol I could get my hands on to drown out the headache from the previous night of drinking. Katie began to distance herself far away from me, I was taking everything out on her, and the more I did, the more I was scolded by our parents. My anger issues started to become a huge problem. By the time our vacation was over, I had been cut out of all the family activities and left to my own accord.
The flight home was no different, and I scolded Katie for leaving me out of everything and not standing by me. Katie only had to deal with me on the first leg of our trip home. Once we stopped in Ft. Lauderdale, she changed seats with our mother, and I had to listen to her tell me that I needed to control my drinking, along with many other things. I couldn't wait to land, and when we did while they were waiting for our checked bags, I took a cab home just to get away for a minute to try and calm down. Apologizing to them would be a good start; I thought, now that the two aspirin's had done their job and my headache was all but gone.
Over dinner, I laid the groundwork for what I thought would become our starting over point, but after several glasses of wine with our father throughout dinner, it was short-lived. Our mother was still upset about my behavior and attitude over vacation. She was not going to let me off that easy.
"Honey, would you like to go to bed and relax?" Katie asked. "It's been a long day, and I think if we just get a good night's sleep in our bed, it will make all the difference."
"Maybe you're right. We all need a good night's sleep, so we're not so judgmental," I hissed, getting up from the table.
"Connor, let's calm down. Nobody is judging you, and your mother is just upset with how you have treated us over the last few days. It happens to the best of us, so please get some rest, and tomorrow we can all just take it easy. How does that sound?" Our father asked.
The alcohol was doing the talking for me. "It sounds to me like somebody needs to get their wife in check," I said sarcastically.
"Connor!" Our mother hissed at me.
"Just calling it as I see it," I shot back and walking toward my room.
Standing in our bedroom doorway, I could hear her talking to our father about how I was acting and if Katie was safe sleeping in the same room with me. Mom was a little too loud with her questions, and Dad asked her to lower her voice so that I wouldn't hear her. He was mainly trying to defuse the conversation, but I could hear everything and instantly felt like shit. Am I pregnant? I asked myself, standing there with my own emotions like a rollercoaster.
"Let's take a shower so that we can sleep comfortably," Katie said, getting my attention on her and not our mother, who was clearly pissing me off.
The thought of hurting my wife, my beautiful little sister, had never even crossed my mind. I would never do such a thing, and hearing our mother say those things about me began to hurt. Sliding down the door frame, I began to sob at the thoughts of my family, thinking I would abuse her. I would die before I would consider doing such an act, but I couldn't go back in there right now because all it would do was start a huge fight.
"Baby, it's ok. I don't feel unsafe with you," Katie said, knowing I heard everything our mother said. "I love you, and I know for a fact that you would never hit me. I don't want to make you angry, but the words you use toward me do hurt. I wish you wouldn't speak to me that way because it is painful," Katie said, unsure of the response she was about to get.
"I'm sorry," I said, wiping the tears from my eyes and standing to my feet. "I would never...," I tried to get out the words, but the pain I was feeling began to overwhelm me, and the flood gates opened again just as I crawled into bed and passed out.
The following week wasn't any better. I was sent home twice from work by my father because of my drinking. I was turning into a raging alcoholic, and it wasn't pretty. Katie did everything she could to help me. She even enabled me, helped me hide the smell of alcohol with mints and small bottles of mouthwash I could take to work. She did any and everything she could do to keep me happy and not mad at her, even though it never worked.
Moving into the guest room that weekend, tired of hearing our mother bitch at me for making Katie cry, put me on a downward spiral. Now locked away in my own room, it was easier to conceal my drinking late into the night. Several times in the early morning hours, I found myself drunk and laying outside Katie's door, listening to her sob. She began to leave her door open to hear if I was ok after finding me passed out on the floor in my own vomit.
Two days after being put on personal leave from my job and missing Katie's six-month ultrasound appointment, my parents and Katie forced me into rehab. I was drinking every day and all day. It only made me feel more alienated. Feeling everyone had abandoned me, I checked myself out the same day and set out in search of something to cure this headache hangover. I stopped at the first liquor store, grabbed the largest bottle, the twenty dollars I had in my pocket could buy and headed for cowardly peace.
The more I drank, the more upset I became. My long walk wasn't doing anything to help my anxiety or anger toward them, and I questioned everything. Do they even love me? Do they even care if I die? With the realization that I just didn't care anymore, I picked up my walking pace.
Finally, with the base of the Ravenel Bridge under my feet and my bottle of liquor almost gone. I started the trek up the long bridge. The late August sun was relentless, and by the time I reached the top, sweaty and gasping for air, I was too tired to climb over the six-foot fence. All my strength was used on the walk-up. I felt confused, dizzy, nauseous, and my head was killing me.
"Hey, man, are you ok?" a passerby asked, just before I blacked out.
**
My dry mouth was the first thing I noticed, followed by the constant beeping. The amount of effort it took to get my eyes open was exhausting, but I managed to do it after two failed attempts. Katie laid curled up, asleep in the bed next to me. While our parents didn't have the same luxury Katie had, they did the second-best thing, using each other to keep themselves upright on the small couch and currently asleep.
Realizing I was alive gave me a short sense of relief. What a dumb idea that was, I thought. Darting my eyes around the room and seeing the countless amount of machines hooked to me all but wiped that away.
"Ugg," I moaned, trying and failing to move even the slightest bit.
"It's me, baby, Katie. Everything is ok, but I need to go and get the doctor real quick. I'll be right back. I love you so much," she said and hurried out of the room, only stopping to tell our parents, "He's awake."
"Hey buddy, how are you feeling?" My father asked, wrapping his hands around mine. By the tired look on his face, I imagined he had done a lot of that during my hospital stay.
Biting down on the soft tube that protruded from my dry, cracked lips, I knew my words wouldn't come, so I just nodded my head up and down. How I really felt was as if someone was sitting on my head. The pressure was immense, but I had very little pain. The vast amount of noisy machines hooked to me probably had something to do with that.
"Hi, Connor, it's mom...," her voice trailed off as the doctor entered the room.
