I am suffocating on my own emotions. Choking on the feelings I hold back just to satisfy others. My brain may implode from all that it stores deep within itself, as I try to keep it all at bay. Things haven't ever been simple for me. They are always complicated, and scary. This suffocation didn't start six months ago, but it did amplify with the loss of Marley. I had no one to talk to after she died. No one was left to empty my brain out and allow it to breathe.

I had thought maybe Emma would be that. Sisters did things like that right? Well, I guess normal sisters do. She had proved to me that she was not as I expected, or perhaps she has always been this way and I never had the guts to acknowledge it. But now I am forced to. My mind has been on overdrive since yesterday. Me, Tyler, and Logan were leaving in two hours, and here we were eating lunch before we did. The tension was noticeable, but no one said anything about it. Tyler was the one to finally break the silence.

"So I have something I wanted to tell all of you." He was looking directly at me as he spoke. "Um, Izzy, Finn is going to come with us." He told me, almost cautiously.

"Oh." Was all I said, being completely caught off guard. It was his mom too I suppose but he hadn't known her. He didn't really have anything to mourn. But who was I to decide that? He had every right to be there just as much as I did, even if he hadn't known her.

Fin looked at me nervously. "Is that alright Izzy?" He asked. "Cause if it's not, then I understand, I mean I didn't know her and you did and this is pretty personal-"

"Fin it's fine." I said cutting off his nervous ramble. "You can come, I didn't mind." I wasn't sure I meant that, but like I said-Who was I to decide whether or not he got to mourn our mother? Fin sighed and gave me a small smile. "Thank you."

I nodded swiftly, not returning the smile. I caught Emma looking at me weirdly out of the corner of my eye. I was surprised she didn't want to go. She had expressed interest in learning about our Mom before and I expected her to jump at the opportunity to learn more. I think our brothers noticed the look she was giving me as well, because Logan looked between the two of us and sighed.

"Okay, what is going on with you two?" He asked. I shook my head and looked back at my food.  "Em? Everything okay with you?" Emma was happily eating her dinner, not looking the slightest bit upset.

"Hum?" She hummed looking up from her plate of pasta. I had been poking at mine for the last 15 minutes, my appetite nowhere to be found.

"I asked if everything was okay." Logan not so subtly nodded towards me, silently asking what my problem was.

"I'm okay." Emma shrugged looking at me. I couldn't help the quick glare I shot at her. She was either clueless or bitch. God I hope it was the former. I so badly wanted it to be the former.

"Izzy what's going on? Did something happen between you two?" Tyler asked, evidently seeing my side eyed glare.

Emma shook her head. "Not that I know of."

I scoffed, finding a new sense of courage amongst the anger. "So you didn't sit there and laugh as your friends made fun of me twice?"

Emma seemed taken aback. "That's what you're upset about?" She laughed humouslesly. "Izzy, they were just joking."

"It wasn't funny."

"Don't be so sensitive, it was just a joke." Emma rolled her eyes and looked back at her plate.

I gripped my fork so tight my knuckles turned pale."They made fun of my accent, called me ugly and told me I was the walmart version of you. In what universe is that a funny joke?" A lump settled in my throat. "And you laughed. You sat there and laughed as they attacked everything about me." The rest of the table was silent. No one knew what to say.

"Izzy, I only laughed because they were joking." Emma was relentless. Either that or she truly didn't see what was wrong with the way she acted.

"It wasn't a joke." I gritted angrily.

"Is this true Emma?" Tyler asked, seeming surprised.

"It was just a joke." She defended a little too loudly.

"Doesn't sound like that joke was too funny." Jace frowned at her and crossed his arms over his chest.

"They were just playing around, she's just being sensitive." She was getting more upset by the second, seeing that she was not creating a convincing argument for herself. "

And you laughed at Izzy getting upset? Whether she was being sensitive or not, it's not okay to laugh when your sister gets upset." Tyler scolded.

I wanted to interject that this was the first time I had brought it up, therefore I was not being sensitive, but I found it in my best interest to keep quiet.

"Ty, they're kids, I'm sure no one meant any harm." Liam defeated Emma, putting a hand on her arm.

"Yeah, I mean it sounds like typical kids stuff." Henry agreed.

"Izzy said they called her ugly and made fun of her accent, last time I checked that was well beyond well intentioned teasing." Jace glared at our brothers.

"Oh c'mon give Em a break, this is just a misunderstanding." Liam tsked.

Tyler shook his head. "No, Emma give me your phone."

My sister gasped dramatically. "What? Why?" She asked angrily.

Tyler put his hand out in anticipation. "Because we don't let other people be mean to our family and we certainly don't laugh along with them."

She scoffed loudly. "Family? She's not my family." I felt my heart drop to my stomach. "She's just some country hick who happens to have the same DNA as me." And with that she walked away, leaving me with a shattered heat and more pain that I knew how to deal with.

I sat there wide eyed and mouth a-gap, shocked and hurt by her words. I didn't know how to react. I didn't know how to feel. What did one say to being told who they thought considered them family did not? It was a foreign and painful concept. One that I thought better belonged on a TV show where you knew by the end of the half an hour, everything would be alright. But this wasn't an after school special.

This was real life, and in real life, words hurt and they can leave scars that aren't healed by the end of those thirty minutes. A lump rose in my throat, as I dropped my fork gently against the plate. My appetite had vanished along with any hope I still had in me. God help anyone who tries to ever get close to me again. I had let them too far in. All of them. It would start with Emma, and it would end with the rest of them.

"Izzy, she didn't mean-"

"She meant what she said." I cut Nolan off as he defeated her softly. I shook my head. "And she's right." They all looked at me with sad, hurt eyes. "I'm not your family. I didn't grow up here and I don't know you." I was just some country hick who happened to have the same DNA. They may not know that now, but they will eventually. Family isn't this. I may not know what it is, but I know it's not this.

"Izzy no, you're our family, same as Emma and everyone else in this room is." Tyler spoke sternly but I couldn't bring myself to agree. I was not part of them. And I'm not sure I ever would be.

"No." I whispered. "No, no I'm not." I stood up slowly, and walked away ignoring their soft pleas for me to come back. The lump rose higher, until it restricted my air way. I sank down against the bed frame. My stomach twisted in painful knots, from stress. I was tired. My body, my mind, my soul is tired. Tired of fighting, tired of not being okay.

When is it my turn? When do I just get to be okay? Why is it always someone else's choice whether I'm okay or not? I feel like a puppet sometimes. They pull my strings in whatever way they want, and I just flail around letting anyone and everyone jerk me and my emotions until I hit a wall.

But even then they don't stop. I had hit my wall. Smashed into it at full force around the time Brayden showed up at school. But it didn't stop there. I was still being pulled and thrashed around by everyone else. When the first tear rolled down my cheek, I let it. Because I needed to be reminded that I could feel something. That it was okay for me to feel something. They came out, in silent streams dripping off my chin and onto my folded legs beneath me. But it didn't last for long. Soon enough I wiped my face, and forced myself to stop crying.

Because in this world there is no room for my tears. This world is full to the brim with sadness and I had no reason to add to it all. It packs in so much despair and pain, and I don't know how it all fits sometimes.

This world has no room for my tears, and seemingly no room for me.

A/N-I wanna give Izzy a hug. She really needs it.

I wrote this during class and I'm so freaking sorry it's late. I had a lot of homework thsi weekend and didn't have time to write. I just updated Butterfly as well so please go check that out.

Side note:What is everyone being for Halloween. I'm being a deviled egg. A white t-shirt with a felt yolk and a pair of devil horns.

Also, this is short. Sorry babes others will be longer.