When she was called down to the office so suddenly, without notice, she began to tremble. Something’s wrong, she thought nervously as she was brusquely ushered out of the room by her teacher. Something’s wrong, and I don’t think that I want to know.
As she stepped into the office she caught a glimpse of her mother as tears spilled over her eyelids, staining her olive cheeks red. “Ma, what’s wrong…?”
Olivia shivered as she head her mother’s voice, trembling and gasping, choking on tears, utter the words: “Alan, he’s dead…”
The office grew absolutely silent. Her older brother, Al, so handsome and well-kept, the same older brother that had brought her flowers when she cried as a child, the one that left to fight that war…
She swore. “You told me that you’d come back,” she said. “What sort of a big brother are you?”
“Al, I hate you.” She thought that she sounded childish, but she couldn’t help it. “You told me that you’d come back, you promised. And now you can’t. You’re never going to.”