First Writing Assignment

Silence. Utter, unbreakable silence. Tears. Wringing of hands. I hate crying. Place mat. Table. Dad. Mom. Brother. Lord, did I mention I hate crying. Or that I hate it when other people cry?

I hadn't wanted to hear the news until I got out of auditions. I told my mom not to call me, I didn't want any distraction. When I called her as soon as I walked off the PAC stage, my hands were shaking from the mixture of adrenaline and nerves. I remember the call going something like this.

"Hey."
"Hi honey."
"So?"
"Oh yeah, he's out."

My mother had spoken the last line so matter of factly, like I had asked what color her shoes were. But, if I had asked her about colors she wouldn't have sounded so...broken. You see, there had been a...situation with my brother at boarding school. A situation that involved alcohol and hospitals and throwing up and poisoning and pot and all the negative things you read about in your health textbook. All of these things eventually led to my brother's expulsion from boarding school. All I could think after I hung up the phone was, he couldn't even hold on three months.

Back to the table. I had walked in the door and there they were. My father, sitting at his usual place at the head of the dining room table. My mother to his right. My brother to his left. All of them looking down. My mother looking defeated, my father, with deep deep disappointment. He was slightly shaking his head. I then already knew that I hated my brother. Hate right? That was the feeling I had to be feeling. Hatred for making my father look like that. for making my mother look...empty.

I don't think it was the actual "substance abuse" (The term that our counselor, Bob, uses) that broke everything at once. It was how far my brother had delved into it, without my parents having really any idea. It was the fact that my parents felt like no matter how much they tried to help my brother, it was all in vain. It was how long I had covered for him without even realizing it. It was the fact that it had taken everyone in my family this long to realize how angry we were at each other.

I took my place at the table, to the left of my mom. I remember seeing my brother crying, wanting to punch him. He had no reason to cry, it was his fault that everyone was like this. It was his fault my mother couldn't stop asking where she had gone wrong. I realized that I had never truly been angry before that night. Yes, deep annoyance, all those normal teenage girl feelings...but true, real anger, is different. It feels like the whole world is pushing down on you at once. It's a feeling that starts in your throat and slowly spreads through you, like milk in water, and with every inch it creeps the less control you have. You need to scream and cry and laugh and kick all at once. True anger is looking at someone who you love and has been your best friends for years and wishing that they didn't exist, being sure that they were the cause of every problem in your life, looking at that person and not being able to remember why you ever liked him in the first place. I began making a list in my head of how everything wrong in my life somehow related to my brother and how selfish he was. How self involved, close minded, how weak.

Of course I had been lying for him for years. Once you get into the habit of lying, it doesn't really feel like a lie anymore, I let myself think of as a secret between us, the following of a brother sister code. But with my family, it just couldn't be like that. We couldn't just be normal teenagers who lied to their parents. Everything was taken to new dramatics. Like every lie was a chip from my brothers future, my mother's sanity, my father's pride, my own shelter that I had built around myself.

It was like I had put on a pair of goggles that made me see my brother's selfishness in everything he did. Even when he was apologizing, I was convinced he wasn't sorry. I couldn't even look at him when he was trying to apologize specifically to me. I couldn't just look at him and say that it was okay, I understood, it wasn't his fault that he had a problem. I saw it as completely his fault.

At the end of Thanksgiving Break and we were back at CHS, people would ask what my brother was doing back. Me, being the joker and smoother-over of the family would spin it into a joke. I hated myself for doing it, for belittling the sadness of my house at the moment, for making my brother's mistakes something to laugh over. But I didn't know how else to talk about it. Like I said before, I hated myself for it. And I hated my brother for making me hate myself for making it seem like what he did was okay. I hated the fact that now I felt like I had to be the perfect child, there was no room left for me to make mistakes, because, anymore would make my mother go off the edge.

Weeks passed, and then months. I never stopped being angry. And having that feeling inside of you for that long...gnawing at you, it exhausting. Every time someone brought up my brother I had something to criticize. At one of our counseling sessions my brother said that he felt like I always thought I was better then him. I denied it consistently, but, really, I did. When I put us on two pedestals in my head, it seemed obvious. I got good grades, I never got into trouble, I kept my parents happy, I did chores without asking, I smiled, I kept everyone in the family laughing when there would ordinarily be awkward silence.

In truth, I realize now that I am not better then my brother at all. If anything he is better then me. Despite all of the mistakes and grief he has caused my family, I do believe he really is truly a good person. I believe he very likely has a greater capacity to love then I do, or at least is braver about it. He is able to actually show his emotions to the family, whereas I always cover everything up with a joke. He isn't nearly as quick to judge as me. And as much as I would have denied it months ago, he is sincere in almost everything he does.

I'm not going to say that I not still angry with him. I often still jump to blame him when things go wrong. But I don't hate him, and I never really did. My brother is simply more then human, with more reactive emotions, yearnings, insecurities. And though I may never forgive him for the way he made my parents look that night, and I would give anything to get our relationship from before he went away back, I realize the worth of the fact that he is still the first person I would think to call when I needed help or advice. And I am trying harder and harder every day not to take that for granted.