now it's three in the morning (and i'm tryna change your mind)
Peter woke up. He didn’t even bother to move his head to check the time, but seeing as it was still dark outside, he’d say he got up on time. His legs wouldn’t move, he noted. He also noted that he didn’t want to move. Peter stared at the ceiling, only moving to blink. He found that his eye itched, but he didn’t move his fist to scratch it.
Peter was frozen, a statue, a resemblance of the normally bright, charismatic boy, but rather the remains of him. Why was he here, Peter thought? What if he killed himself? He wouldn’t have to look after his siblings anymore.
He rolled over onto his side.
He stared at his wardrobe.
Ximena opened the door. She walked in and sat by his bedside, frowning knowingly. “Are you alright, Pietro?” she asked. Peter didn’t deign her with a reply. He didn’t even hear her question.
Ximena kissed his forehead lovingly. She stroked his hair back, even when a few tears escaped his eyes and fell onto the bedsheets, and even when he dribbled onto them. Her lips formed a sympathetic purse.
“Lo que sera, sera.” she muttered. Ximena shivered as she got up to leave the room as she heard Mario start crying at Luigi’s vomit all over their bedroom floor, though her mind was stuck on Peter. How familiar his predicament looked to his mother. Ximena was sure that there was some pills around somewhere that had belonged to her, but that idea was quickly erased from her mind as she realised they would probably be expired.
Mario ran into Peter’s room, crying, shouting in Italian about Luigi or something, Peter couldn’t tell. He continued to lay there, unmoving, not speaking, a shell.
Caterina grabs Mario by the shoulder, ushering him out, but not without a worried glance at her brother. He didn’t glance at her.
“Peter’s unwell,” Ximena spoke into the phone, a thick Italian accent put on. “He won’t be coming in today.”
One thing Ximena prided herself on? The ability to imitate others. It wasn’t hard to imitate Mary Parker. A thick Italian accent, batshit crazy undertones, the whole shebang? Easy.
“He’s alright. Alright. Bye.” she put her phone down. Caterina came downstairs, the unspoken question in her eyes. “Doesn’t it look familiar?”
“No. No way.” Caterina shut her off, putting her bag over her shoulder and taking the kids out of the door.
“We’re speaking later.”
Ximena sat by Peter’s bedside all day, a small notebook in front of her where she was observing him and writing things down, a small list in front of her.
Carlotta started to splash in the toilet, so Ximena left, but Peter did catch a glimpse of what she was writing down. “POLAR” was written on the top of the page, but he wasn't bothered about it.
When the kids got home, Caterina ran upstairs. Ximena was still sat next to Peter, who was in the same position he was when she was there.
“As much as you don’t want to admit it, it really is familiar, Caterina.” she whispered.
“It’s just a hangover, Ximena.”
“Is it really, though?” she said before she picked Peter up. Carrying him like a baby, she took him downstairs and placed him onto the ratty sofa, asking Mario to move.
Caterina was already stripping Peter’s bed, throwing the sheets over the edge of the stair rail. She knew she was lying when she said Peter just had a hangover. She didn’t want to admit it to herself, because Peter was her rock. If he went down the same path as their mother and her mother, Caterina didn’t know what she would do with herself. Peter had taken responsibility of their gaggle of siblings at 10. She was 14. She wasn’t ready, even though her siblings had done it at younger ages. Ricardo, she thinks, was 5!
She stared back at her brother’s unmoving form. Caterina could already see her future as she looked into his dead eyes.