The iron-wrought gates close behind me, as I set foot on the stone pathway leading to Edenfield. The wind rustles the verdure nearby, while my hands almost clench at my hair.

What was wrong with everybody today? It’s not like what I do is on purpose…

A grunt escapes from me as a strand of my hairs slaps my face, because of the wind. I jerk it behind my ear and focus on the leaning shadow next to Dylan’s Aston Martin. The tree nearby prevents me from seeing the face.

The figure takes his hat off, as he turns towards me.

It’s Alfred.

He gives me a swift bow before I can say anything, and I resist the urge to grind my teeth.

Instead, I put my hands on my hips and say:
“What’re you doing here? I mean- next to this car.”

Calm down.

I can't.

His brown irises arch towards me as he says, “Don’t you know?”

My shoulders flinch at him.

“Your brother is leaving for Ireland, today. Don’t you remember when he told you that at the fencing court?”

My mouth and hands drop.
“He never told me that he was going today.”

Alfred tries to say something else, but I keep pounding towards Edenfield. I expect the door of the Main Entrance to block my path, but it’s already open.

I wave the door behind me, and the tall-rosewood cupboard calls out to me. With tightened lips, my hand touches the silver handle of the coat cupboard and swings its left wing open. There’s only one coat in there, and it’s ancient.

He’s really packing.

My head turns at the sudden clang of various items nearby. I don’t know exactly what it is, but it seems to be coming from the far end of the East Wing.

That's where Dylan's room is.

The cupboard’s wing sways back and forth from my grasp, as my eyes scan the surroundings.
The wing hits the cupboard’s magnet, instantly closing behind me.

Now or never.

I march towards the far end of the East Wing. Thunders rumbles from the outside, making the chandelier near the staircase and me rock.
The kitchen and a clump of grey hair escapes my view. I ignore both.        

The door to Dylan’s room is slightly ajar, providing very little view of its interior. The floor proves to be a soft cushion for my falling bag, as I lean down to get a better view. Dylan is shuffling some of his clothes into a packing cube. He looks up from the cube, making me hide myself behind the door.

He does not come at my direction, rather he just goes to his dressing table and opens a drawer to find the M. M’s letter that I left him there.

The mirror of the dressing table gives me a clear view of his expressions as he reads the letter. His brows furrow and his eyes shut tight as he puts the letter back into the drawer. When he opens his eyes, his gaze follows my reflection in the mirror.

My right hand creaks opens the door, before it falls down to meet my left hand. Dylan turns around and his eyes widen a bit but they narrow themselves within a few moments.

“Lindsey.” He looks at the clock on top of his bed. “Aren’t you supposed to be at school?”

“Mr Henley let us out earlier today.”

He folds his arms across his chest.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”
My voice comes out like a low hiss, even though I don’t intend for it to.

He raises a brow, while still keeping his gaze to the ground and counters,
“What didn’t I tell you?”

“You know.”

He takes a deep breath and crosses his arms in front of him.
“I forgot to tell you about my leaving date.”

My fingers rub the side of my forehead, and the windows cast grey shadows at my brother and me.
“I know you don’t forget something as important as that.”

His gaze falls to my wrist, creating several ripples on his forehead. He takes a few steps towards me and examines my wrist gently.
“Where did that bruise come from?”

My eyes travel to my beheld arm, and see that the sleeve fell back while I was waving at him, revealing my bruise.

I pull away and button the loose sleeve of my blazer while saying, “I fell, and my wrist hit a step.”

He shakes his head at me and slowly takes his hands back. Dylan alters my previous sentence,
“I know you don’t trip.”

Doesn't everybody.

Thunder cackles from the outside, but neither of us flinch nor react to it.

I look at his bedside table, and the ceiling lights shine on its dark coloured wood. It’s spotless.
His study table near the full length mirror is also clean.
In other words, the white bottle and journal aren’t there.

Dylan looks around himself and asks,
“What’re you looking for?”

“The white bottle and journal that I once saw here,” I blurt out.

He pulls his lips to the side.
“Thanks for the concern, but they’ve been tucked away.”

Why won't you look at me?

“Along with our shattered past?” My irises point towards the full-length mirror, while my arms straighten my posture by folding themselves behind me again.

His eyebrows ricochet, and crease his forehead.

“You know you’re not alone.” I try to consolidate but my arms still remain clenched behind my back.

“How do you even know about the mirror?” He neglects my previous statement.

I arch my head down and tap one of my heels.
“Guess.”

His face grimaces, still not looking at my scowl.
“Henry… what else did he tell you?”

My eyes narrow.
“Just that, and a scene from your old school days with your friends. Though, I still don’t know why Kathy and he showed me that."

“It’s better you don’t know,” his voice comes quicker than usual.

"Is there something happening between you and Henry?" My head tilts to the side, a gesture lighter than the actual situation.

Dylan's eyes stay on the mirror.
"I'm just not comfortable with the amount of things he's been hiding from us. Especially from you kids." He moves towards his suit case.

"That's your job, right?" I say, making him stop midway and sigh.
"And we kids never listened to him unless his answers were satisfying."

Dylan walks to and fro across the room, almost giving me a headache. He stops and looks at the open wardrobe, shaking his head.

Instead of closing it, he moves to take his cube off the bed with eyes firmly transfixed on it. He puts the cube on the floor and presses the button on the handle to elongate it into a trolley bag.

The wheels of the cube skid near and before he can escape, I burst out,
“WILL YOU JUST LOOK AT M-ME!”

My voice cracks at the second word.

The handle drops from his grasp, as he tries to put his hands on my shoulders. I wrench them away.

“Lindsey, look…” he stops mid-sentence.

I scoff and hammer a finger at his direction as he rubs his temples,
“I try to reach out to you, and all you do is push me away!

“You’re the only blood relative I’ve got left, and I’m not fucking going to let you go even to hell without me!”

His hands fall from his temples as he stabs them towards me.
“You. Don’t. Even. Know. What. Hell. Is!”

Lightning crashes outside just as he completes his sentence.
“You don’t know how it is to be a teenager one day, and being an adult the next!

“You don’t know how it is when voices hunt you down in the night!

“You don’t know how hard it is to have a pit of guilt clawing at you whenever you allow yourself to sleep!

“You don’t know how hard taking pills for your shitty condition is!

“And you certainly don’t know wonderful it is to find out that someone, who you thought had long abandoned you, actually wrote to you for entire year!”

His chest heaves up and down, while I freeze at my position. Still, he walks towards his dressing table. He fumbles through tunnels and tunnels of drawers till he finds one of his need.

He returns to his last position and places a labelled bottle in my hands. The bottle almost falls from my grasp while my eyes widen.

It’s an anti-depressant.

I look up and he holds his hands up at me.
“Now you know that your guardian is a Major Depressive Disorder patient who looks at his sister, remembers her twin ancestor’s corpse and gets chilled to the bone because of it! THAT'S why I can't look at you!”

He takes the cube from the floor and storms out.

The entire gamut of these events almost shatters my knees, with the bottle almost falling from my grasp. Words stumble into my mind, and I wish I would have said them while Dylan was here.

You never had to be my guardian; You’re just my brother.

...Sugar Honey Iced Tea(that's an acrostic poem, by the way).

Hi everybody! I hope y'all are well. :)

Anyways, I wanted to let you know that my(dreaded and yet inevitable) finals are on 25 May. I'm just doing the 'final' revisions these days.
(Which means that I'll try my best to update, but no promises).

I'm just thankful to nano that got my lazy bum to actually write some chapters beforehand, but editing is always necessary. I don't update, till I finally am able to edit properly.

So, onwards to this chapter: Here, we find out Dylan's actual reasoning.

When I first thought about him, I just had this image of a guy for whom smiling is like second nature but then, he also has a lot of secrets.

Then I became more aware about different mental illnesses and their symptoms.

Dylan definitely had those symptoms, and they're hinted at throughout the novel.
I'd also like to applaud to first theorise that Dylan's mental illness way back in C12. I know you first suggested he had PTSD, but that's the closest anyone's gotten to solving the mystery. ;D

Also, I'd just like to add that Major Depressive Disorder/depression/clinical depression is actually really common. About 350 million people have it and it is the leading cause of disability(according to the World Health Organisation).

It doesn't matter if you're a man or a woman; a mental illness can occur to anybody, and it is NOT something that one should feel ashamed of.
I'm tired of this stereotype that society has. That men can't have feelings, or that women always have to be social and just basically HAVE to be an ingenue. That men are just lumps of meat who only know how to cocky or have sex, and women have to look pretty at all times like a decoration piece 25/8(I changed this on purpose).
Every gender(man, woman, non-binary, agender, pangender, bigender, androgyne, etc) has feelings and they should be respected.

To those who have a mental illness: You are stronger than you think. Don't let anyone tell you that you're not. Of course, only you know exactly through what you have been through, but remember that there will always be people out there who love, adore, admire and respect you for being the beautiful individual you are.

To those who don't:
If you are aware of mental illnesses and still understand others, don't underrate yourselves.
Very few people have it in their hearts to care for others.

If you want to add anything related, then please you are most welcomed to do so. I don't mind. :)

I hope you all have a great week and even if you don't, well, I know you can get through this.

Music- Taking Off by One OK Rock.
I feel as though this really captures Lindsey & Dylan's relationship. They're mad at each other, but they're never going to let go of each other.
It, imo, really describes their relationship. You'll see when you listen to the lyrics carefully.

(P. S. I know what the Japanese lyrics mean. Just keep the English ones in mind, all right. I don't plan on adding any sort of incest, please *cringes*)

And here's this week's question:

What do you feel about Dylan revelation?

(Man, I got really preachy up there. Didn't I?)

Avoid weird typos.

Love you to the moon and back,
MS Zame