Before I Met You

Diego could only stare at his sibling in astonishment. It had, after all, been years since Craig had set foot anywhere near any member of his family after running away. Leaving them all behind had seemed to be Craig’s only goal at the time, and he accomplished it well.
“No greeting?” Craig smirked now, his arrogance shining through his overly calm demeanor. At least that part of him hadn’t died in the time he’d been away, Diego thought bitterly.
“You’re back, are you?” Diego replied, no hint of anger in his voice. This was a feat of control even he had never known he possessed. “Come back to tear us apart again?”
Craig’s smirk slowly faded into a grim smile, as if he had forgotten he had ever dumped all his loved ones to be distant memories in the rear view mirror of his car. Diego shook his head in blatant disbelief, impatience tingeing his delicate features once he realized his brother felt no amount of guilt for what he had done. Leaving their godforsaken town in search of a new one was something everyone seemed to dream of, but Craig had gone about it all wrong. Leaving a starving brother who barely got by on his minimum wage job, mother and father struggling to make ends meet with their equally financially unsatisfying occupations, and a loving girlfriend pregnant with his child for dead angered Diego to the point where he couldn’t believe he had ever been related to this sad excuse of a man before him.
“No. Diego, listen-“ Craig started, for Diego had begun to walk away. “I did it for me. I did it for all of us.”
“Did what, Craig?” Diego spoke, not turning from where he had stopped, his voice deadly. “You left all of us, me, our parents, Reagan. Reagan, who was stupid enough to keep your spawn. You left us and never looked back.”
“Reagan kept it?” Craig asked, his voice cracking. “Reagan kept the kid?”
Diego glanced behind his shoulder at him. “Yes, she did. She kept your daughter. Her name is Katalina, and I’m her godfather. She’s beautiful and too good for you, just like Reagan is.”
Craig fell apart at that. His handsome face crumbled and shoulders slumped with the weight of a thousand sins and time and reasons for why he had left, and why he had returned. Diego, never one for grudges, turned in defeat to comfort his brother. Gathering Craig’s broken soul in his skinny frame, he embraced his useless brother in the ultimate act of forgiveness.
“Hurt us again, Craig,” Diego spoke lowly. “Hurt us again and I’ll kill you.”
Craig could only nod through his tears in agreement, as if he could think of no other punishment worthy of what he had done.

Reagan, needless to say, was not so forgiving.
Diego took his brother to her house immediately after their moment in the store, not seeing how he could make the poor woman wait any more for his stupid brother. Reagan was too beautiful for Craig, her white blond hair and soulful grey eyes blessing her with the appearance of a goddess. A goddess that had been cursed with a handsome but useless fool like Craig to fall irrevocably in love with.
Craig had been nervous upon arriving to Reagan’s small but cozy house. Of course she had lived there when they were together two years ago, back before he had abandoned everyone. The very sight of the house had almost made Craig fight the urge to run away again, but Diego had foreseen such actions from his brother and prepared himself to drag Craig into the house.
“D-Diego,” Craig’s voice shivered with anxiety. “W-What will I do?”
“Figure it out,” Diego replied without hesitation. “Both she and Katalina need you, as much as they try to avoid speaking of you.”
Diego began to walk away, knowing that he could not enter with Craig, that his brother needed to solve all his own woes on his own. Reagan was the most essential; his parents would be overjoyed to take back their son. Family was family, after all.
“Wait!” Craig called after Diego’s retreating form. “They don’t need me, they’ve moved on.”
Diego turned his body for the second time that day to Craig and said, “Of course they do.”
Once in his car, Diego rolled down his car’s window and spoke to Craig once more, a sentence with the air of utmost finality, “She never got over you, you know.”
With that, the younger brother of the useless boy drove away, and the useless boy rang the doorbell to his goddess’ home, ready to battle his past armed with the knowledge of that last sentence.