I was 10 when I started to become a mean person. I found that the way to make me feel better was to, in small ways tell others they really weren’t all that great. Even my brothers, who had loved me so much. All except one. I shared complex relationships with each, but the strongest was by far my oldest brother, Kaden. He’s 6 years older than me, and we got along very well. He was always there for me when I needed him and he teased me when I needed to be put in my place. Mitchell was next, he always had a softer personality. He was often extremely kind, but was the type of person who let his anger bottle up, so it all exploded at once. It didn’t happen often, but when it did, the house was silent for a couple of days. Tanner and I had the most complicated relationship. In middle school he was very good at  wrestling, and was consequently very arrogant. The only person who could’ve beat me in a competition of bad attitude at the time, was him. He rarely spoke to me, unless I tried to stick up for my brothers when he tried to tear them down. He would snap at me, “Stay out of it, idiot”.  

I knew that he loved me though, because family is always supposed to love each other, right? 

No matter how poorly I believe I was treated by Tanner, it was nothing in comparison to how he treated Mitchell: his own twin. When Tanner was starting to get really good at wrestling, he wanted to practice all the time. No matter how good he was, he always wanted to improve. However, they didn’t have practice 24/7 and he didn’t know who to practice with. So he practiced with Mitchell, and even sometimes unwillingly, Mitchell would help out. I remember very vividly, on a cool fall day Tanner had come home from school showing everyone his project he made in shop class. It was a dark wooden engraved sign reading “The Better Twin” that he hung above his bed. It was ugly really, and filled with so much hate. Mitchell would never show Tanner how badly he had hurt him, but we all knew. 

After a while Tanner lost at state for wrestling and at the time that Mitchell was getting really good at football, soon enough the rivalry ended. However, Tanner’s frustrations seemed to turn to me. Everything I did got under his skin in a way nobody else in the family did. It seemed like my breathing was irritating enough for him to lash out at me. 

It was almost summer, I believe a week before school was out, and the house smelled of fresh cherry turnovers. They are my Father’s favorite and us kids loved them as well. Our grandma made the best and we would often argue tooth and nail for the last one. Argue though, never fight. As soon as the fresh batch of turnovers came out of the oven, you could see the steam rise off of them, our grandma had warned us, “You’ll burn your tongue if you eat them right now!” There were 4 on the pan and three were for her friends, so I got up to retrieve the last one, hoping nobody would see me as I did. I was not that lucky, as I saw Tanner walk down the hallway at the same moment. He snarled at me, “What do you think you’re doing?”. My stomach sank deeper than I had imagined possible and it seemed like time had slowed down. I knew I had a decision to make. I could either take a bite now, claiming it as mine and unfortunately burn my tongue, or I could leave it and let Tanner have it. My pride wasn’t letting either happen. I looked down at the golden flakey pastry and back at Tanner before deciding to pick it up with my hands and run into my room. As soon as I had touched the turnover, I regretted it. I felt the heat scorch my hand and tears pricked my eyes. It was too late to back down now so I made a break for it, bounding down the hall. Tanner wasn’t far behind, he was quicker than me. As I got to my room I tried to slam the door shut, but he was also stronger than me. Soon enough I realized that trying to shut my door was not going to happen and I needed to figure out a better way to protect myself and the turnover in my hand. I had a bright pink swivel chair in the corner of my room between my desk and bookcase and figured if I sat there and turned towards the window, he would most likely leave me alone. In my head I knew that wasn’t true, but it was my only hope. I ran faster than I thought possible to my chair and hastily sat down. My legs whipped me around to face the window, my back to Tanner. He slammed the door all the way open and made a last ditch effort in reasoning with me. 

“Halle just give me the turnover, don’t make it a big deal.” 

I slowly shook my head no and tried to hide myself even more. He inched closer and closer until he finally was standing right behind me. I was terrified as to what was going to happen, but I knew he would absolutely never hurt me. Just as that thought crossed my mind, I was distracted by the heat of the turnover in my hand, it hadn’t cooled down and my hand was in agonizing pain. As I tried to switch the turnover from one hand to the other, he reached over my shoulder and grabbed it briefly before smashing it into the side of my face. I screamed out in pain as I felt the fruit filling scorch my face. He had no idea how hot it really was, and immediately thought I was being over dramatic. The tears that had been welling up, started to fall uncontrollably as I stood up and ran out of the house. I couldn’t stop wailing at the pain, or the fact that my brother had done this to me. I whipped open the door to the garage, which had been open just as my dad and Kaden pulled into the driveway. All my dad saw was his 10 year old daughter with what he thought was a blood covered face and Tanner trailing behind me looking smug. He yelled at the top of his lungs and Tanner immediately wiped the look of his face. Kaden quickly explained to my dad that it wasn’t blood. A look of relief spread on my dad’s face. I thought to myself that it might as well have been, I was still in so much pain. My dad began yelling at Tanner, but I couldn’t remember any of the things he said, all I could seem to grasp was that Kaden had grabbed me and taken me inside. I looked at him and realized from the fact that he was blurry that I hadn’t stopped crying. 

Kaden picked up a wash towel and ran the cold water over it. He handed it to me and instructed me to wipe the remnants of the turnover from my face and I did. Crying harder at the rough texture from the wash cloth against my burnt face. As I finished rubbing it off, we returned to the garage. My tears now stung more, against my red cheeks. It was obvious that my dad and Tanner had been arguing, I shifted uncomfortably knowing it was about me, and I fixed my eyes on the tree that was standing in our yard. Tanner quickly threw a half hearted apology my way before storming inside. 

A few years went by where Tanner and I didn’t talk much. After that day I wondered if we really were family, because family is supposed to love each other, right? 

I was 15 when things started to turn around. Slowly Tanner and I would exchange more words. We’d laugh at each other’s jokes. Still nowhere near normal, but that was ok with the both of us. There was a night when I was at a friends house, planning on staying the night. It was around 1 in the morning and we felt restless as teens normally do. I thought about the events of the night, how we snuck out to go meet boys, got a ride to another friends house, and thought it was hilarious to ding dong ditch. We both collapsed on the bed in unison as we took a deep breath. Soon enough, the events would catch up to us. We’d been seen by many people, even though we believed ourselves to be invincible. Somehow the word of our recent activities had circled back to my friend’s parents. They were furious and told me I needed to go home. I panicked feeling my breath get caught in my throat, almost as if it were inflating a balloon in my chest, ready to explode at any moment. I knew if my dad came to get me, they’d tell him everything and I’d be in so much trouble. So I called Kaden, asking for advice because he was in college, too far to pick me up. He said to call Mitchell, who was fast asleep. The pit in my stomach came back as I dialed Tanner’s number. He answered with a sharp tone, “What do you need?”. I felt my stomach now doing flips as I whispered, “Can you please come get me, if dad does I’ll be in so much trouble”. There was silence for a little bit until he gave in and sighed, “I’ll be there in 5.” I couldn’t believe he had agreed to picking up the pieces of my night out. 

Soon enough he was there and I could tell he was annoyed, so I didn’t waste any time. Scared to make him wait any longer than he had already been, I ran to his car. As the cool night air enveloped me, I yanked the door open and threw myself inside. He didn’t say anything as he drove back to our house. I didn’t dare to ask whether or not he was planning on telling dad, I was just grateful that he was there. Eventually we arrived home and without a word he started walking inside. I was worried he hated me, so I quietly whispered a thank you. He nodded, but didn’t turn around. I reached the door behind him and saw my dad sitting on the couch. It became very apparent to me that Tanner had informed him of my night and he was mad. I felt a pang of nervousness shoot through my chest, before being replaced by red hot fury. I shot Tanner a look, and he turned to go to his room. 

That night was not easy, I got in a lot of trouble. My dad had lost a lot of trust in me, and for a while every small bit of progress that Tanner and I had made in our relationship was gone. Until I started to grow up more. Now I’m 17, and as I found my frame of mind changing I realized that he didn’t tell my dad out of spite. He didn’t get me in trouble because he thought it was funny. He cared about me. He cared that I was doing things I shouldn’t have been and could’ve gotten into a lot more trouble than I had. He wasn’t trying to hurt me, but rather protect me.
Then I knew he was my family, because even though family doesn’t always like each other, they’re always there for each other. Now, I’m happy to say that Tanner isn’t only my brother, but one of my best friends.