Life goes by in a blur now; everything numb to my senses and feelings. I guess this is what being lost feels like. Of course I’m lost. What are you supposed to do when your big brother is murdered by one of your classmates? It’s been three weeks since I stood in that mall with my best friend Laura and all 20 days since have been torturous. I walk down the hallway of my house, passing his closed door. Some days I stand there with my hand on the doorknob tempting myself to twist the knife in my heart. Allowing myself to open the door would cause an amount of pain that I don’t know if I could withstand. The truth is I miss my big brother more than I can put into words or even make sense of. Reality has yet to set in. I haven’t accepted the fact that he’s never going to be across the hall from my bedroom again. Or that I will never get to hear his laugh. I will never have him by my side to run to when I need a savior. He’s gone and there’s nothing I can do about it. Not now at least. I could’ve prevented this. I could have stopped my brother from leaving this world when he wasn’t ready. He didn’t deserve this, he was a saint. This is my fault. My brother died because of me. I was the one there that night, not him. He lied for me and ended up taking the fall because of me. If I had just been thinking straight none of this would have ever happened. One bullet. That’s all it took to end my brother’s precious life. Something so small did so much damage.
I step away from my brother’s closed bedroom door, not feeling stupid enough to inflict that kind of pain onto myself. I turn around and walk back to my room, quietly closing and locking the door behind me. I sink down to my knees in front of my door with my head in my hands. I feel the too familiar rolling of tears down my cheeks. They fall down, absorbing into my jeans and staining them temporarily. I sit like that for what seems like days, letting all the tears fall until there aren’t any left. I feel numb. Not because of the cold air blowing in from the snow falling softly outside but because of the pain encompassing my chest like a vice. That pain has been there since I came home that day after the mall and saw my mom sitting on my brother’s bedroom floor. I stood in his doorway, watching in horror as sobs escaped my mother’s lips while her shoulders shook from the tears falling. I watched as my fears were confirmed to be truthful. I walked over to my mom and put my arms around her. We sat on his floor and held each other crying for what seemed like forever. The only thing that can ease the pain is time; at least that’s what I hope.
It is just me and mom now. We have to take care of each other. If one of us loses the other, I’m afraid we wouldn’t be able to go on with life. Who would? I realized this the first time my mom attempted taking her life. Wouldn’t it be easier to join your family instead of living in this world alone, without them? No matter how unbearable the pain gets, I could never leave my mom to do it all by herself. She doesn’t deserve that. She didn’t deserve any of this. She did everything right in life. She did everything she was supposed to do and it all got taken away from her. I wish I could fix everything for her and give her the life she should have had. But I can’t take back the past. So I’m not going to give up on her or me. She needs me just like I need her. We need each other because that’s all we have left. I’m willing to fight this for her so I can be there for her. I just hope she’s willing to do the same for me.