Note: Defined by psychologists, high emotional intelligence (EQ) is the capacity to perceive emotions accurately, use them to guide thinking, and manage them effectively.
…
[Place: A Small Town on Earth, POV: Adult Auren]
[Time: 17 year old Auren]
The house was too quiet for a Monday morning. The silence didn't feel like peace—it felt like the breath before a scream. Auren stood by the kitchen sink, staring into a cup of untouched tea that had already gone cold. The sun hadn't risen high enough to burn off the mist outside, and yet he could already feel the tension simmering in the walls, in the air, in his skin.
He'd felt it last night, too. That strange undercurrent in the way his father's voice had dragged a little longer than necessary at the dinner table. In the way his sister, Lyra, hadn't touched her food but had kept pretending to chew. In the way their mother's smile didn't reach her eyes anymore—like a wax mask slowly melting.
Most people would call that intuition. Auren knew better. He didn't just feel tension—he absorbed it. It was like heat in a room. He always knew before anyone else when the temperature shifted. He knew when a storm was brewing in their house before the clouds even gathered.
He took a breath, bracing himself.
The first door slammed upstairs. A second later, the yelling began.
"Stay out of my room, you psychotic bitch!" Lyra's voice tore down the hallway. "You don't get to go through my stuff just because you screwed up your life!"
A louder, colder voice followed. Their older brother, Zane. "You owe me money, Lyra. What else am I supposed to do? Wait for your next coke-fueled boyfriend to rob us again?"
"Stop it," Auren said quietly, though no one could hear. He wasn't sure if he meant it for them, or himself.
His legs moved before he could think, already used to the choreography of their dysfunction. Up the stairs, soft knock, step inside before they could say no.
He found them nose to nose, red-faced and shaking, in the hallway outside Zane's room. Lyra's mascara had already started to smudge. Zane's jaw was clenched so hard his neck was pulsing.
"Hey," Auren said gently. "C'mon. Can we take a breath?"
They both looked at him like they wanted to spit. That was part of the routine too. They hated being interrupted, hated being told to calm down—until five minutes later, when the sobbing started and they needed someone to hold their broken pieces together.
"Auren, stay out of this," Zane snapped.
"I'm just saying," he offered, palms up. "We've done this fight before. Remember? The one about her boyfriend stealing the rent cash last April?"
"You mean when you covered for her?" Zane barked. "You think I don't remember how you pulled money out of your savings and lied about it?"
Lyra turned away. "You always do this."
Auren tried to smile. "Do what?"
"Act like you're better than us because you don't scream," she muttered. "Because you play the hero. Like you don't enjoy it."
Something in Auren's chest tightened. "I never said I was better—"
"But you think it," she hissed, eyes glinting. "You need us to be broken so you can be the fucking glue."
He didn't respond. There was nothing to say.
They stormed off in opposite directions.
He stood alone in the hallway, the soft whir of the fan in the bathroom the only sound left.
This was how it always was.
Always.
…
He had become a second parent before he could even vote. He'd long since learned how to predict a fight by the shift of footsteps, how to talk his mother out of her crying fits when she missed her "real life" before the kids ruined it, how to make his father laugh just enough to stop the rage from turning into fists.
He took the blame for broken vases, failed grades, the time Zane got into a fight with a loan shark and Auren had to quietly sell his gaming console and his laptop to make up the cash.
Because Auren was "the smart one." "The mature one." The one who could "handle it."
His mother called him her little angel. But only when he did what she needed. The rest of the time, she ignored him like wallpaper.
By nineteen, he had turned down a scholarship to stay home and help with Lyra's downward spiral. At twenty-one, he was working two part-time jobs to help pay Zane's rehab bills. By twenty-four, he hadn't written a single song in years—despite having once dreamed of studying music and traveling the world.
Now, at twenty-seven, Auren couldn't remember the last time he'd done something just because he wanted to. He couldn't even remember what that felt like.
…
[Time: 31 year old Auren]
He sat in his car that evening after a long shift, keys in the ignition, headlights cutting through the dusk. A dozen unread messages blinked on his phone screen. Zane asking for a favor. Lyra complaining about a breakup. His mother sending a voice note sobbing about a lost earring as if it were a funeral.
He didn't reply.
He didn't even feel anything anymore.
That scared him more than the anger, more than the guilt. He was always the one who felt too much. Who stayed up at night sobbing for other people's pain. Who learned to smile so wide no one could see the cracks.
Now, nothing. Just a flat, grey silence inside.
He started driving. Not home. Not to work. Just away.
He kept going until the beach came, he liked to sit here sometimes, alone with a beer in hand - it numbed the surroundings for him. Just the ocean, blue - endless blue. It reminded him of the kind of life he had once imagined for himself. Peaceful. Gentle. Real.
He realized, vaguely, that he hadn't cried in years.
He had been the rope binding the family raft together. But no one asked what happened when the rope frayed.
He had sacrificed dreams, lovers, joy, identity.
And now, he was hollow.
It got dark too quickly. The beer bottle had ended so early. Auren tossed it, it looked so good drowning Auren tossed his phone too. He was out of beer, but there was a shop on the other side of the road.
Auren left his shoes and car. Who needed those?
…
[Time: Seconds Before Death]
The truck came. The world went white.
Auren's last thought was not of his family, nor his childhood, nor even himself.
It was of silence. Real, final, quiet.
And somewhere inside that silence—
A flicker of freedom.