Barley’s POV of the Last Chapter
WARNING: Contains attempted suicide attempt, please read with CAUTION. Barley’s POV of The Confession
The drive home was excruciatingly silent. Ian stared out the window and nothing Barley said or did would bring him out of the pain he was feeling. He wasn’t crying anymore, just staring blankly. His eyes were almost lifeless and that’s when Barley realized it had been too long since he had seen a true, genuine smile on Ian’s face or heard him laugh.
The moment the car stopped, Ian rushed to the door and then to his room. Barley was just able to get inside to hear his bedroom door slam shut and their mother looked from in the kitchen, confused.
“His magic isn’t working. He had a breakdown and then just stopped talking,” he explained, quietly. He didn’t want Ian to hear the worry in his voice.
He’d never heard of someone’s magic simply stopping on its own. Either the person didn’t know they had the ability to be a wizard, or they stopped using magic willingly. It was like Ian’s body just shut down, or his magic couldn’t tell what was going on anymore and stopped working. Kirk had forced him to perform spells and was going to go further into dangerous, dark magic territory. Maybe Ian’s magic, or his body or mind, couldn’t handle it, so it stopped. He wasn’t even sure if that was what was happening, but it made the most sense. It was a working theory.
“How bad was the breakdown?” his mom asked. Barley had trouble looking her in her eyes lately because of the exhaustion clearly in them. Another thing he couldn’t fix.
“I was able to calm him down, but if he can’t access his magic, I don’t see this getting better.”
“Maybe we try the therapist again?”
“He hasn’t shown any signs of improvement with the therapist, Mom. Maybe we need to find a different one?”
“I’ll look around,” she responded. “I do have to go to the store to get things for dinner. Can you keep an eye on him?”
“Yeah, yeah, I will. I’m about to go up there now,” Barley assured her. She gave him a hug and kiss before leaving and Barley mentally prepared himself for the pep talk. Everything would be fine. His book surely couldn’t contain all the answers, but that didn’t mean the answers weren’t out there, all they had to do was find them. It would be okay. Barley would find out what was going on.
He made his way up the stairs and noticed Blazey scratching at Ian’s door. A sudden panic washed over Barley and he started running up the stairs and towards Ian’s room. He busted the door open without knocking only to find his little brother with a kitchen knife to his wrists.
“Ian! What the hell are you doing?” he shouted as he ran over and snatched the knife out of Ian’s hand with one hand and then wrapped Ian up in on arm. Ian looked up at him with tears pouring down his eyes as he examined the room.
“I wasn’t here.”
“What?”
“I was back in the attic. With Kirk. He gave me the pocketknife.”
“No, that was a kitchen knife and what was it doing in your room? Ian, look at me,” Barley said. “What was a knife doing in your room?”
“Let me do it, Barley.”
“What?”
“Let me go. I never should have made it out of that attic. Let me finish it,” Ian pleaded. He tried to break from his brother’s grasp, but Barley held on to him while Ian kicked, screamed, struggled, cried, every part of a meltdown he had no idea how to treat. He held on until Ian eventually cried himself to sleep in his brother’s arms, begging him to let him kill himself. Barley didn’t speak once during it. He had no idea what to say. He just held on.
Their mom found them on the floor of Ian’s room, both tear-stained faced and Barley found himself unable to stop shaking no matter how hard he tried. He also found himself unable to let go of Ian or explain to their mother what just happened because he didn’t even understand it himself.











