Questionable…questionable, questionable! Clarity repeated the word in her head and the more times she thought about it, the more frustrated she became.  “QUESTIONABLE!? Since when have my actions ever been questionable!?”

“I don’t think that was what he meant. At least not the way you’re taking it anyway,” She heard a voice scoff at her reaction to what the boss had said to her that day, could be no one other than her brother. “You’re off, sis. You’re struggling and you know it, which isn’t like you.”

Clarity’s mind had been clouded for a while now. Loyalty? Not the issue, she was loyal to and through the bone. She had begun to question her abilities; she was questioning herself. She felt useless some days. Meanwhile on others, it almost seemed like the heavy weight on her chest was running her life and not her. What had changed in her to trigger these pathetic responses?

“Now you see where the questionable is coming from.” Her brother was reading her like a book and of course he was, he was her twin. Nothing new there in the stories of twins seeming connected to one another. There was no plot twist in this one, he could see right through the guise she tried to put up. “We might be tough ‘gangsters’ out here running things, but eventually it is going to get to you. All the shit you’ve seen, all the shit you’ve done, and even the stuff you have yet to do. Packing it up, shoving it into your mental box isn’t going to magically make it go away. You can ignore the shit for a while, but it is going to seep into your every being slowly and infect your mind. Deal with it before it serves you a cold dish.”

She watched him walk out of the room and still she sat there with her head hung between her knees. How pathetic am I…SHUT UP!!! She screamed at herself in her own head and without even thinking of it she had punched the wall nearest her. The drywall crumbled and her fist burst with streams of blood. Yet, she paid no mind to it. Her mind was the enemy, and it was numbing any of the physical pain she could feel. Get your Goddamn self together! She continued to tell herself as she grabbed a rag and fixed her hand up.

Clarity couldn’t stand that her whole world was being turned upside down by her own hands. “Guess I am my own worst enemy.” She thought if she made herself tougher than everyone else around her, then she would be impenetrable. Her mom didn’t need anyone else, or so she thought. Her brother made her realize that wasn’t the truth, it was far from it. Her mom had tons of help from family before she died. Clarity just never saw it, she had put her mom on such a high pedestal and dreamed of being such a strong woman, she never opened her eyes to see that the entire time her mom had help.

“Everyone needs help once in a while…” Her brother’s words rang loud and true. She never asked anyone in the family for help, she always handled situations alone. One time it almost got her killed when a shop owner had a gun and was tired of having to pay taxes to the local family. She still remembers to this day watching the blood drip down his face from the bullet hole she left in his skull.

Her boss told her that recently her actions had been questionable. At first, she thought he was questioning her loyalty or her skill. Yet, her brother made her realize that wasn’t the case. Everyone around her could tell that her mind wasn’t right, she wasn’t making decisions as clear and confident as she once did. They could see the cloud hanging above her head and the chains dragging her heart down. Eventually, everyone with an ounce of good in them questions some of their actions in this line of work, but that wasn’t the issue. She had forgotten the most important thing of all, family. She pushed everyone away, did everything herself, and forgot that you need others. The lonely road had caught up to her and it was going to be a hard pill to swallow. The image she had created of herself was to protect herself, not to make her into the badass women she had become.

“You can still be a badass and cry at the same time. You don’t have to choose one or the other, sis.” He had come back to grab one more thing, saw her wrapped up hand and the tears in her eyes. The words made her chuckle, and she gave him a soft smile before heading out for the evening, back to the real world.

“Back at it again.” Was the words she left him with.