Reaper

It’s been six months since the need for an ink cartridge had killed my brother. And I like to think that I’ve accepted my brother’s passing and is moving on with my life. I could think that, but it would be classed as lying. It was little actions like resenting myself every day since it happened, yelling at anyone who tried to carry on a conversation with me and receiving a multitude of detentions for “acting out” that gave the impression that I was having trouble letting go.

And if hating myself isn’t enough punishment, my parents have silently resented me for losing their genius child. They may not say it outright, but the cold stares I receive when I fail a Math’s test or get suspended for punching some punk-ass bitch in the face say enough. A month after Jarred died, I tried to improve my marks at school, and I studied relentlessly in an attempt to fill the void I had caused. But it wasn’t good enough. Nothing I did ever was.

After a while, when I realized I would never live up to Jarred’s reputation, I stopped trying. I stopped trying to replace him; I stopped trying to please people; I stopped caring altogether. If I couldn’t be what they wanted, why should I have bothered trying? My grades began to slowly decline into the bottomless pit of crap that was my potential. Notes came home, interviews were requested and my future on this “self-destructive path” was discussed. According to my teachers, the councilor and my parents if I continued like this, I would never amount to anything in this world.

My first suspension was quite the milestone of my growing apathy for the world. Some guy in my class had found it so hilarious to insult Jarred, saying he was an idiot for “hooning” down the streets at night in the first place, and that his death was his own fault, clearly ignorant to the fact that I was sitting right behind him. Hearing Jarred being mocked made me see red. My blood boiled and I couldn’t hold the rage back. I’d tapped the guy on the shoulder and when he turned to look, my fist connected with his disgustingly long nose. I kept punching him, not stopping when the teacher was screaming at the top of his lungs, not even stopping when the kid cried in pain and fear.

But it was the argument with my parents that pushed me further downhill. I’d just stormed through the front door, with Dad following me the whole way, harping at me as if I was listening in the first place. “Don’t even think we’re done here, Charlie!” he was shouting, “I don’t know what could have possessed you to punch that boy in the first place.”

“He was saying that Jarred deserved to die,” I said, much calmer than I felt. “He was saying that he got what he deserved for hooning down the street in the first place.”

Dad’s face was blank. He had nothing to come back with. Then Mum stepped in. “That still doesn’t give you the right to break his nose.”

“Trust me, whatever I did was probably an improvement,” I muttered cynically.

“This is not something to joke about. The principal was considering expelling you,” Mum said, her voice getting shriller and shriller. “Jarred would have handled the situation with more tact.”

“Well I’m not Jarred, am I?” I shouted, “No, Jarred was perfect, he could do no wrong. And then there’s me, the screw-up who’s a disgrace to the family and could never be as good as Jarred. Jarred could do anything, he could do no wrong, but not me; I could never do anything as well as him.”

Mum and Dad were both aghast. They’d never known I’d felt like this about him, even though it was all true and they’d known it forever. “You don’t really think that, do you?”

“I don’t think it, I know it,” I answered, rage truly pumping through my veins. “And I would really hate to be you two right now. You must be just devastated that I emerged from the wreckage instead of the Golden Boy. You had high hopes for him, but he’s gone and now you’re stuck with me. It must be ironic that the only thing he couldn’t do was survive a car accident.”

I was up the stairs and in my room before they could even process what I’d said. I was fuming with anger, sorrow and grief for what I had just said, but I didn’t cry; not a single tear escaped me. I hadn’t cried for my dead brother in six months. And that made me feel even worse about what had happened.

I remember when the police interviewed me about the accident on the night it happened. They’d asked me if Jarred had purposely ignored the red light. I told them that he was distracted by something I’d said; that he took his eyes off the road for a moment and that was all it took to kill him. They finished the questioning by reassuring me that it wasn’t my fault. But I didn’t believe them. If I hadn’t have said what I was thinking, he would have seen the light turn red, he would have seen the oncoming truck. But I’d distracted him and now he was gone.

I’d killed him.

It was my fault.

And I still couldn’t shed one single fucking tear.

I found myself thinking about on movies when the hero and the villain have a massive face-off and you have to wait for the dust to settle to find out who was the winner. Well the dust had settled from the accident, and this was the life that was left for me.