The Bolton Families Monster(s)

TW: Gore and abuse!

“I’m sorry you know.”

Huh, that wasn’t expected, my eyes met my twin’s, for all the ‘sorrys’ he gave me, he didn’t look sorry. Or if he did it was carefully concealed. One I was far too used to in this family.

“I don’t know, I don’t think I know a lot of things honestly”

“The professor who double majored in psychology and chemistry doesn’t know everything? Color me shocked.” He said, and I wish I could say I didn’t huff a small laugh.

“You know I don’t, never did. Never will. Now why aren’t you up front with the others?” I asked, looking at Annalise, Martha, and Stewart. The priest gave his solemn words to the small crowd as Anna’s old cheerleader friends comforted her.

Or the ones that were still alive, that is, bats twisted and scrapped all around in my stomach. A feeling that was always going to be there as I remembered that fateful night. The night I discovered what it really meant to meet a monster - to be one.

“I…can’t. I miss Bran as much as anyone else here, but I don’t think I can lie that she was perfect” he muttered. Looking down at his hands. 

“I think you miss her far more than others.”

“Is that your way of saying you hated our sister?” My brain picked up on the tone quickly, it was accusatory, dangerous.

“Of course not,” I rectified. “All I mean is look around, did anybody know Bran like Anna and you? Or Martha and Stewart? I sincerely doubt it”

“I suppose not,” he said, drawing the words out like there was tar stuck to the roof of his mouth. “Why do you call mom and dad that?”

“I’m sorry what?” I asked. Yes, it had been a while since we last talked. But with the apology I had started to think…

“Mom and Dad, you keep calling them Martha and Stewart. Little mean don’t you think?”

“They haven’t been my mom and dad in a long time” I snapped back, pausing as I stared coldly at the priest. He continued to talk out of his ass and everyone here ate up every single word.

They didn’t know Bran, they didn’t know this monstrous family, they just wanted to act morally righteous. I was no better, but at least I acknowledged it. At least I was spending the rest of my adult life trying to fix it. 

“What are you sorry for Jacob?” I asked my brother slowly, raising an eyebrow, “cmon,

you say you're sorry and don’t know why I separated myself from all of this?” he waved his hand wildly, to the beach, the people, their white picket house up the sand dune, all of it.

In

“I was sorry I didn’t call you more, that I let us drift apart. Maybe that I stole your candy when we were eight and went trick or treating”

“Of course that was you” I muttered, watching Annalise fall to the ground sobbing on Bran’s grave. “I forgive you for that, but that isn’t what you should be sorry for. And i’m not the one you need to be sorry to”

“Who do I need to be sorry too then?”

Silence, I stared at him and he stared at me. “You can’t be serious” I choked out, watching his face remain stuck on one of confusion. Oh god he was serious. What has this world come to? 

“Maybe all those dead kids? The ones who we buried” I hissed.

“I have no clue what you talking about” Jacob hissed right back, matching me tone for tone. “You may be the college educated sibling but you seem to lack the brains to shut up about things.”

“Oh I'm sorry, didn’t you want to follow in Stewart’s footsteps and become a doctor? You were just a bit too dumb right?” I watched as he flinched, too on a roll to stop. “I can’t stop thinking about it, and it’s been thirteen years. Thirteen years since I saw that scene Jacob, do you think I can just forget?”

“I did.” Jacob said, with such finality most would believe him. If not for the way his hand seemed to clench unnaturally. His light brown hair falling over his eyes in a way mine couldn’t, mine was slicked back after all. Sometimes I wished I could cover my face with it though, hide away again.

“You're a liar then Jacky” I spoke, the nickname coming out without much thought, “You can’t have forgotten it, not that easily.”

Nothing was said, his hands clenched as he stared at Annalise and the others. His face was painfully neutral. It was strange, seeing how much he changed. How much they all had. I left at thirteen, after that painful year when everything went downhill, choosing to go study abroad. Seeing the age lines on everyone’s faces remind me that no matter how much I had gained, time wasn’t in my favor.

“Did you really hate our lives? Hate Bran that much?”

For a few seconds I couldn’t respond, not because I didn’t have an answer - I did. Oh, did I have an answer, I spent so long analyzing the moments, thinking to myself about it all, the memories seared into my mind in a way that I didn’t know how to change - how to fix. In the end, I studied psychology just to process it all. Not like I could tell anybody about the mutilations, the makeshift surgery, the legs. Oh god, all those legs.

“No, she was never at fault” I insisted. Glancing at him and then back at Annalise who was in Martha’s arms, sobbing as she took in the loss of her ‘sister’. “She never asked for anything here, she should have gotten to stay in the ocean - where she belonged.”

“She belonged with us, her family” Jacob insisted, glaring at me, his eyes painful like daggers. “We gave her a home after she washed ashore”

“Martha played dress up with her, Stewart was more focused on analyzing her DNA and taking her apart, and Anna was forced to raise us,” I pointed out, closing my eyes as the beach’s air blew past me, tainted with sand. Not even the air could escape being contaminated by this god forsaken beach. Or maybe it wasn’t the beach - it was those who lived on it. “I don’t think we should have been her family - we weren’t fit”

“And a science lab was?”

“She had octopus legs” I pointed out, “pale scaly red skin, when we were five, she had those antennas-remember?” I questioned. Trying to describe that angler fish antenna. The light that was meant to trap you. “She didn’t have vocal chords, she could only say her name and ‘mama’, that was no life.’’

Silence between them again. The only echoes were the quiet as people trickled out, leaving Anna, Martha, and Stewart alone with the two of us and the grave. None of the people here had ever liked silence, that much I was sure about. Even Bran had protested the quiet, thrived in feeling the loudness of others as they talked and had her participate. With the broken sign language she would explain, she would share. It was a love that the mer-creature had. After all, Bran had always been so scared of her sentience being taken from her. As if not being human automatically meant she lost the right. The loudness of the music, the movies, and the others would help her forget those fears. 

I never did like that loudness though, my voice ever so often got drowned out. Sometimes I forgot I even had one. It sometimes made me wonder how I ended up in the teaching profession. The loudness didn’t just drown out thoughts, it drowned out life. Even now it wasn’t quiet. The waves were brushing to the shore, smacking across the rocks. Sniffles from Anna and squawking from the birds made sure that any idea of silence wasn’t going to be reality. But maybe it never was meant to be, maybe life was just meant to be full of noise.

“She talked to you more than me, she had that sign language- she had Anna.” Jacob finally pointed out, getting the attention of our other family members. “She wasn’t alone.”

“Did she know that?” I asked, not needing to think over his words. “Brutal murder of a group of kids isn’t something a sane person does is it? Neither is mutilating yourself to try and fit in.”

In fact I could still see it, coming in to check on her after a long day. Telling her that dinner was ready, seeing the blood everywhere with what was once part of her on the floor. A human leg next to her that she was desperately grabbing onto. I felt small as I thought back to how my throat hurt as I screamed until people came up - pushing me aside until Stewart dragged me back in to help save her from bleeding out and- 

“Nicholas? Is that you? Oh my baby!” Martha yelled, diving in to hug me as I awkwardly got forced into it. The touch burning like fire, one that sent snapshots to my brain to remind me of what was real and what wasn’t. One that I hated alongside Jacob’s stone cold eyes. “When did you get here?”

“He’s actually planning to leave now,” Jacob said coldly.

“What? Oh Nicholas I haven’t seen you in years! C'mon let me make your favorite egg scramble like old times” Annalise smiled, perfect as always. “There is…much to discuss, and I’m sure none of us want to be alone in such times”

The writing on the wall was so obvious, what she meant. Only one death concerned her, not the death of twenty kids, not the death of me - the one who walked in on Bran mutilating her own body, the one who had to help Stewart save the mer-creatures life. No, for to them nothing had died. In fact, it had never existed in the first place.

Monsters were an interesting thing, one that Bran herself had told me she was afraid of becoming. Afraid of being the villain, being the non-sentient monster. But in all the research I had done, all the reflecting and understanding. A realization came about.

Something with sentience is a lot scarier than something without. Without it can’t formulate big plans, it can’t act. Bran was sentient. She thought, she felt, she wished, she planned, she created. Nothing she did was by instinct. She had also mutilated and killed twenty of her classmates who bullied her. But that hadn’t been an instinct, that had been a desire to get back at the cruel - She was never a monster. Just a scared creature away from their family, from the home they were supposed to hail from.

Even the tomb stone felt wrong. It was perfectly white. Talking about how much of a loving daughter and sister she was, how she was kind and had such a beautiful life. Which was a lie - her life had been filled with hardships and hidden existence. It was one of torture, and now she was free.

So I turned to look at the real monsters, the ones who laid the trap. Who kept her there. Smiling with perfect white teeth and the beautiful picket display. No matter how long I ran, how far I left from this place, I’d always be a monster with them. Always be stuck from my past.

“I think Jacob’s right” I said with my own pearly white smile, “I have business to attend to back in New York after all”

After all, the worst monsters are the ones with the best intentions.