The Last To Leave

20250925

Prompt from DailyPrompt.com

Agatha had always sworn she’d never do this. That she wouldn’t be the one to steal away the last scrap of family her brother had. Yet, here she was. Her possessions crammed into a battered backpack and her final goodbye left on the mat in an envelope recycled from the last utility bill.
How depressing, that after so many years resenting her parents she took after them.
No, that wasn’t fair to mother. And probably not to father. If he’d known he’d die at war, would he have jumped to sign on? Nobody knew then how bad it would be. How few would return.
And mother had certainly expected to come back from market, or she wouldn’t have made that deal with her children - “I’ll do everything I can to get some gilly fish, and you do everything you can to have the kitchen clean and firewood ready, and if we all manage it we’ll have fresh gilly grill for supper”.
Agatha still remembered sitting in that spotless kitchen, feeding the stove while her little brother dozed on her shoulder. Waiting up for their mother. Until a neighbour, who’d heard about the bombing, came to check on them.
So father had been foolish, and mother had been unlucky. Leaving Agatha the only one deliberately abandoning her brother. A painful thing to realise. And yet… in some ways, it was nice to be the one leaving, instead of the one being left.
Before she’d always felt helpless. The world took and took and took and all she did, all she could do, was futily grasp her little fingers around what was left.
War took father. Insurgents lashing out took mother. The racking cough took grandma. Losing her took grandpa’s mind, and the rest of him followed soon after.
And now… drugs were taking Chris.
Agatha locked the door behind her and tucked the key, no longer hers, behind the plant pot.
Perhaps she was giving up too soon. But trying to talk kept turning into screaming matches. Her last attempt ended with Chris throwing a mug at her head. At that point she decided she had two choices; either she accepted life was taking away the last of her family… or she left herself.
Being the one choosing was… terrifying, but in a heady, jittery sort of way. Far better than the dull helpless fear of previous losses. The same fear she’d been feeling since Chris stopped treating the drugs as just a way to make money and started ‘dabbling’.
She’d manage to hoard enough pennies for a bus ticket to the city. That was the extent of her plan. To get out of this town, away from Chris, and… see what happened.
Maybe life would take what little she had left. She accepted that. But, from now on, she was determined to try and make the tragedy happen on her terms.
Agatha turned her face into the drizzling rain, the weight of life heavy on her back, and walked away.

Prompt was “In some ways, it was nice to be the one leaving, instead of the one being left.”