The Name I Call Myself Read Online Free PDF

mother’s death. At six, I had been more sheltered from the horrors of what had come before, and the night that ended it all. It was only as I grew older that I began to grasp what both my mother and Sam had shielded me from. This being, primarily, the monster we called Kane.
    Upon moving to Grandma’s house Sam continued his role as protector – coming to hold me when the nightmares came, brightening my days with silly stories and surprise presents like a flower, or a piece of paper twisted into the shape of a mouse, coaxing me out of my hiding place in the wardrobe. He walked me to school every morning, before sprinting to reach his secondary school on time. He helped me with my homework, took me to the park or the library when Grandma needed a rest, and every single day made sure I felt safe, loved, and that I was not alone.
    But the previous years had taken their toll – done deep damage that refused to heal long after Sam’s physical scars faded. Grandma tried, but she was hopelessly ill-equipped to deal with the anger and hurt of a boy with Sam’s level of trauma. When I remember that time, I still feel my growing distress as my hero began to disappear – frequently staying out well into the night, retreating into his bedroom the rare times he remained in the house, and meeting Grandma’s worried questions with silence.
    It was only when I got the unexpected invitation to a classmate’s party, held in a pub, that I realized the smell accompanying my brother was alcohol.
    By fifteen his attempts to drown out the pain had progressed to cannabis, pills and, soon after, cocaine. He scraped through school for my sake, still surfacing enough to be a surrogate daddy as best he knew how. But the stealing and the lies, the fights and the increasingly bad reputation were more than Grandma could cope with. The week after his seventeenth birthday, when a man showed up at the door with a baseball bat looking for money, she finally cracked. Sam came home the next day to find his meagre possessions waiting in a suitcase in the hallway.
    For the next three years my big brother was a fleeting shadow in my life. Without him, I felt as though I had lost a lung – every breath a challenge, I clambered through the days exhausted, faint-hearted, a whimper of a girl. The days I would exit the school gates to find him slouched against the wall across the street were like brief bursts of oxygen.
    We would hug, for a long, long time, before setting off to walk around the village, or find a seat in the café if it was too cold or wet.
    â€œHow are you?” he would ask, eyes hungry as he searched my face.
    â€œI’m fine. I got an A in English.”
    He smiled. “Good for you. You look taller. Have you grown again?”
    â€œI’m taller than Grandma now.”
    â€œIs she being okay? Managing to take care of you? Does she give you enough money for clothes and things?”
    I felt too anxious to tell Sam that for weeks now I had been the one doing all the shopping and paying the bills.
    â€œYes. We’re fine.”
    â€œGood.” He sighed, and I caught a whiff of the toxins on his breath.
    Look closer, Sam. Look at me. I’m not fine! I need you. Grandmakeeps forgetting things and getting tired all the time and I’m trying to keep everything tidy and make her pension last till the end of the week, but it’s so hard. I need you. Come home. Come back to me.
    We would chat a little longer, but soon his hands would start to twitch and eyes wander beyond me to the café door. Sometimes before going he asked if I could lend him money. Other times he would offer out a fat roll of notes. I didn’t take them. Those notes scared me. They were tainted with the unmentionable things he must have done to get them. Instead I would lie about how Grandma had doubled my pocket money that month (which could have been true – zero doubled is still zero), or how I’d