My Brother

I’m sixteen years old, and for the first eight years of my life, it was perfect. Just me and my mom and dad. The three of us. They did everything for me, gave me everything. They loved me so much. They would take me places and buy me things. They would read me stories before bedtime and every night before bed, they would tell me just how much they loved me. I was their world - for eight years. 

During my eighth birthday, my parents had a special surprise for me - my mother was pregnant. At first, because I was only eight, I didn’t understand what that meant. But then I learned that soon, I was going to have a little brother or sister. It was still too early to tell the gender of the baby, but I was excited. Yes, my parents had been my best friends, and I loved them. But they were my parents. The thought that I would soon have a younger sibling closer to my age excited me. That I would have a real best friend. A younger sibling to be able to teach everything I knew to them, for me to pass on what my parents had taught me. 

I waited patiently - or rather, impatiently - for the next nine months, waiting for the baby. Eventually we learned that it was a boy. I would have a younger brother! At first I was disappointed that it wouldn’t be a girl like me. I wanted to be able to do girl things with my sibling, like playing dress up and playing with dolls. But I soon realized that boy or girl, I would have still finally have someone. I could still have plenty of fun with my brother, and I was still excited. 

Finally, it was time for the baby to come. My parents had told me that babies were delivered by storks that delivered babies to awaiting couples. Of course, I was young and didn’t understand the way things worked. I was only eight. So I waited in the hospital with this kind young nurse. She gave me apple juice and graham crackers and coloring books and crayons. But I could barely focus, because only one thing was on my mind - my baby brother. Was he almost here? 

I waited for a long time in the hospital waiting room with the nurse. But eventually, the door to the hospital opened and out came the doctor, with the big cheery grin on his face, beckoning for me to come inside, to have a look. He was here. I remember running as fast as my eight year old legs allowed me to, leaving behind the kind nurse who had stayed with me. I had pushed past the doctor into the room. 

I remember the first thing I saw was my mother in the hospital bed, looking wary and tired, circles under her eyes. But she still managed to have a smile on her face. Next was my father, standing right beside her, with a bundle of blankets in his arms. 

At first I couldn’t see the baby, so I was looking around, trying to find him. But then my father bent down towards me, shifting wide some of the blankets and I saw him. He was so small and pink, his face all wrinkled and eyes squeezed shut. I remember softly running my fingers down his cheek, marveling at how soft the skin felt. He was so cute and small that it made me feel so protective. 

My father had asked me if I wanted to hold him, and of course I agreed. I remember him carefully placing the baby in my arms, and I remember holding him and looking down at him and thinking about how I would protect him. He was my baby brother. I was his older sister. I remember the feeling surging through me, running through my veins as I held my brother. I would protect him. I would never let anything happen to him. 

I wasn’t able to keep that promise. 

——

At first I was so happy about my baby brother. I didn’t even leave his side for anything. I even insisted in sleeping in the same room as him so that I could keep an eye on him all night, which was ridiculous; I always ended up falling asleep. My parents had had to drag the crib into my bedroom, putting it right next to my bed, so that we could be together. And I remember each night before I went to bed how I watched him as he slept, making sure that I could see the rise and fall of his chest to make sure that he was still breathing. And every night before I fell asleep, my last thought would be about how I would protect him nor matter what. 

The days of a new life turned into weeks, which turned into months, and eventually years. And I had begun to notice a change in the house. A difference, that only grew and grew and grew. With my baby brother, my parents had begun to pay less attention to me, more to my brother. I remember one time I asked my parents for a bedtime story, just like they’d used to do. But they declined, saying that they were tired with the baby. And then they left, without even saying goodnight to me. At first they forgot maybe two or three times a week. After a while, they began to forget every night. I tried to understand at first. I knew he was a baby, that he needed more than me. I tried to understand and I tried not to let it affect me. It worked for a while. 

But as me and my brother got older, the attention my parents gave me only decreased. I had used to think that it was just because he was a baby, younger than me. But as I began o get older and started to understand more, I realized that it wasn’t just that my brother was younger. It was simply the fact that my parents liked him more. I didn’t get how they ouldve changed all their attention from me to him, leaving me with nothing. Soon, I began to feel as if I were a neighbor,  a bystander who wasn’t part of the family, rather than their own daughter. 

Soon I began to have thoughts about my brother. Thoughts that scared me, thoughts that I wished I didn’t have. What would happen if he choked on that lego? What would happen if he tripped and fell all the way down the stairs? What would happen if one day, while he was sleeping, his heart just stopped beating? I knew that those thoughts were wrong, yet they never stopped. I had hoped that it was just a phase. He was my brother after all, and I didn’t really want anything to happen to him. So I waited, hoping that they would eventually stop. But they didn’t. They only got stronger, more dangerous. More murderous. What would happen if I ran him through with a knife? Would would happen if I wrapped my fingers around his throat and squeezed? The thoughts sickened and scared me. But after a while, my thoughts and feelings began to change, with one thing becoming sickeningly clear - I hated my brother. 

I needed a way out. I needed a way to make n parents love me again, the way they used to, before my brother came into the picture and ruined everything. And there was only one way that that could happen - I needed my brother gone. With him out, only I would be left with my parents, and they would give me the love I had craved for seven years. My thoughts no longer scared me - I embraced them. I began to devise plans. And eventually, I came up with one that I liked. 

I’d waited until night, after my parents had tucked in my brother, completely ignoring me. I waited until the middle of the night, when I was sure that everyone was asleep. I’d sat up in bed, squinting across the room at my brother’s bed to make sure that he was asleep. He was. 

I remember pulling out the knife I had stealthily stashed earlier in the day under my pillow. It was thick in my hand with a long sharp blade; the kind of knife used to cut tough meat. Now it would be used to cut my brother’s flesh. I never hesitated during my plan; everything was justified. He had done nothing but ruin my life, and I had been too naive to notice at first. But I’d noticed for a while. And I was going to do something about it. 

I remember quietly crossing the room to his bed, where he slept peacefully, innocently, with no clue about what he’d done to me. How oblivious he was to how he’d kept me trapped for seven years, depressed and lonely. I wouldn’t be lonely or depressed anymore. 

I remember cocking my head as I watched him sleep for a few seconds, remembering him. After he was gone, I would be free. I wouldn’t miss him. 

I remember raising the knife over my head and bringing it down hard, listening to the satisfying sound as it stabbed through his flesh, the satisfying sound as he screamed loudly at the top of his lungs, aroused from his slumber, his life coming to an end. I remember the way the blood pooled out of his wound, dark and red and sticky, running over me. I remember raising and plunging the knife over and over again, unable to stop, needing to be free. I remember how he stopped moving, his hot sticky blood covering me. 

And I remember my parents, the way they’d run into the room, unaware of what they would be running into. Their expressions, how shocked and horrified they’d been to see the scene in front of them. I remember looking up at my parents with a big smile on my face, leaving the knife stuck in my brother’s chest, ignoring how his blood stuck to my face and skin and clothes. They would love me now. 

They didn’t smile back. 

—

I am at the asylum now, have been for a little over a year now. And my parents never ending up loving me the way I had hoped they would. They were the ones who sent me here, and have never visited me. That night when I’d killed my brother was the last time I’d seen them. 

It hurt me that they didn’t love me. But one thing’s for sure - I do not regret killing my brother. Because, even though I do not have my parents, I am still free. 

I am lonely, but I am free.