Torn Between Two Ways

As soon as I burst through the bathroom door and saw what was inside, I knew what had happened. I started screaming every swear word I could think of.

Shards of the mirror were scattered across the tile floor. Most were covered in a bright red coating that gleamed almost as much as the broken mirror itself. This didn’t hold my attention for very long, though, because John was lying unconscious on the floor.

Maybe he was even dead. His face was streaked with tears. Deep gashes striped his arms, and blood was steadily flowing out of them.

All this thinking and observation only took me a few seconds. Then I heard Anna coming.

“What is wrong with you, Mikey?” she asked, her voice getting closer. “I’ve never heard you talk like that before in your life!”

That’s probably because I never had. But I had learned plenty of words from John – who was now bleeding on the bathroom floor.

I had to think fast. I knew I couldn’t let Anna see this. I slammed the door shut. “Anna!” I yelled urgently after locking the door. “Call 911!”

“Your mom already called the police,” she replied.

I growled in frustration as I snagged a towel from the linen closet. “No! Anna, call for an ambulance. Now! Do it right now.”

“Oh, um, okay,” she said, sounding panicked. Good. Maybe it would make her move faster.

I got to John as quickly as I could, not even thinking twice about walking on the broken mirror. This was no time to be a wimp. I could take care of the stabbing pain in my feet later. I knew I had to try to stop John from bleeding.

I pressed the towel against his arms, but it was soaking up the blood pretty quickly. I started swearing again. I heard Anna talking on the phone outside the door.

“An ambulance is coming, Mikey,” she called to me. “What’s wrong?”

“John’s hurt,” I replied, running out of patience. “Go get my mom and tell her to come here. You go wait outside for the ambulance.” She didn’t answer me, but I heard her leave.

My mom didn’t even make it to the door before I heard the sirens. The paramedics were with her when I had to open the door and let them in. Anna was with her too. So much for not letting her see John like this.

Both Anna and my mom started crying. It wasn’t until then that I felt my eyes stinging, too. This was just too much for me to take in. It didn’t feel real.

We all rode in the ambulance. I left a trail of bloody footprints on the carpet when I walked to it.

As I sat between Anna and my mom, I felt a terrible rage bubbling in me. I didn’t want my brother to die, but how could he do this?

If he lived, I was so going to kill him. I could not believe he would go and try to kill himself. Didn’t he realize what he was doing? Didn’t he see what would happen and how it would hurt all of us?

“It’s all my fault,” Anna whispered quietly, looking mortified.

That did it. I exploded and slammed my fist on my knee. “It is NOT your fault!” I yelled at her. “It is HIS fault! He did this! Because he’s a stupid, overdramatic, SELFISH son of a gun who doesn’t think about the consequences of what he does!”

Tears erupted from her eyes. “No, it’s my fault. If only I had just told him about my dad. He’s not stupid or overdramatic or selfish. He’s just John.”

It broke my heard to see her like this. I couldn’t stand it, and I blamed John. Who else was there to blame? No, it wasn’t Anna’s fault. “You go ahead and let him tell you that,” I retorted. “If he lives, I know he’ll tell you it’s your fault, but it’s not!” I realized my vision was blurring.

She shook her head and sobbed. And it killed me, because I knew I couldn’t make it better. I couldn’t tell her everything was going to be okay because I didn’t know that. I didn’t know anything anymore except that I wanted her to stop crying. I’d do anything to make her stop crying.