text: Me and my older brother have had an interesting relationship. We were best friends when we were kids, but ever since my parent's split and I moved in with him, we haven't spoken once. It's not like I didn't try, I used to strike up a conversation with him, but he would just sit in his lazy-boy chair and stare at me with his stupid eyes. I think he blames me for my parents divorce, which I understood. I got into some legal troubles when I was 16, I won't go into details but there was a long and stressful trial and I think it pushed them over the edge. My parents didn't want me living with either of them, so they left me with no choice, I had to live with my brother. My brother never verbally expressed his anger towards me about the incident. He knew it was something I deeply regretted but he still couldn't get past it. I've never brought any friends over to my brothers' apartment, the place is kind of a mess and my brother does virtually nothing to help clean up, he mostly just sits there in his lazy-boy and watches TV until it was time to go to bed. So one day I decided to clean the place up and invite my friend Austin over to hangout and have some drinks. Immediately when Austin walked in he complained about the smell. "I know it smells man I think there's some leaking in the walls and its turned into mold, I got a guy coming next week to take a look at it." I assure him. "It's all good man I know how that stuff gets, where's your brother? I thought you lived with him?" He asks me. "He's in his room doing something, probably sleeping honestly, he always gets up super early." I reply The night goes on as normal, We had some drinks, smoked a bowl and played some video games. My brother didn't make an appearance at all throughout the night, which i'm kinda glad, he's a buzzkill. "Has your other brother always been this way?" Austin asks me "Like a complete mess?" I ask him jokingly "Well I didn't want to say it like that, but yeah I guess" Austin laughs back. "He wasn't like this growing up, we would always hangout and do shit together, he was the talkative one in the family and he kind of kept us all together, well until my parents split up." "Oh shit, i'm sorry man." Austin offers his lifeless condolence to me "A lot of tough shit happened in our lives and it drove my parents apart, he felt like he failed this family and couldn't keep us together anymore. He blamed himself for it, but mostly I think he blames me for it." I confess to him. "Why would he blame you for it?" "I got into some trouble back in high school, It costed my parents a lot of money in legal fees and it caused so much stress between them that they just couldn't handle it anymore. I understand why he blames me for it, if it wasn't for me we'd still be a family." "What did you do that made all of that happen?" Austin's very curious at this point. "I really don't like to bring that part of my life back up, I've repressed it for so long and i'm just a totally different person than I was back then." "Well damn man, i'm sorry to hear all that, have you ever tried to talk to him about it?" He asks, as if i haven't tried. "I used to try all the time to get him to talk to me, I stopped trying because nothing I do will get him to talk to me. I understand he's angry with me but we're both adults now, If he doesn't want to talk to me then that's his decision." Austin can hear the anger in my voice. "I know it must be tough man, but there's gotta be a way to get him to come around, he's your only sibling and you don't want to burn that bridge yet. You have to appreciate them while you can." Austin says to me as if he has gone through something similar. His words resonate with me, even though my brother has refused to talk to me for all these years, I have to still try, for the sake of our family. Me and Austin have another beer until he heads out for the night. It's pretty late now and I doubt my brother's awake, but I figured I'd go see if I can talk to him for a bit. I open his bedroom door and he's laying in bed with the TV on, I can't tell if he's asleep or not but I decide to try to talk to him anyways. "Listen man, I don't want us to keep going on like this. I know i've done some shit in the past, but I think we just need to learn to get past it, we're all that's left of our family and I don't want to lose that." at this point i'm practically begging him to say something to me. He remained silent. "Just fucking talk to me." at this point i'm practically shouting so he must hear me. "I didn't mean for any of this to happen, It was an accident!" My brother's lifeless corpse lays silent on his bed. "I didn't mean to kill you.