Sticks and Stones

  Our mother used to call me and my older brother Sean her “two water buffalos" simply because we were obsessed with swimming. Everything he did I quickly became enamored with, and it was the same way with swimming. I looked up to Sean. He always teased me, but in a very older brother way, and he was always there for me. Some people said that me and Sean were each other’s leeches, if you saw Sean, I would most always be around him.
      One humid and sticky summer night in the summer of 2004, we were all downing fork loads of mom’s famous family dinner dish: her spaghetti. The special thing about mother’s spaghetti was that she put loads of succulent zucchini into the red sauce. I, per usual, had too much shake can parmesan cheese on top of my spaghetti compared to everybody else at the dinner table, but I quite enjoyed it that way. A little bit after Sean chuckling at me and telling me,
"You look stupid Aubrey, wipe your face off. You have parmesan cheese and sauce all over your lips” I had started to wipe off my face with the nearest paper towel to me at the dinner table. Mom propped her dainty small hands on top of the dinner table like she always did when she was about to announce anything. It didn’t necessarily have to be something important.
  “Me and your dad have something to announce…” She paused, and there was a certain aspect of giddy excitement creeping throughout her voice, her eyes wide in the way they would be if she were a child in a candy store. Both me and Sean were shoving another forkload of her spaghetti into our mouths, waiting for her to continue. “We are moving.”
  “What do you mean that we are moving, Mom?” Sean asked, finally looking up from his plate of spaghetti.
  “We are moving into another house..” As she spoke, her acrylic ruby red nails slightly clicked against the surface of the dinner table.
  “Out of town?” Sean asked, slight concern creeping into his voice. Dad finally inserted himself into the conversation since Mom couldn't answer Sean’s question at that moment, she was currently slurping noodles into her mouth yet still trying to be “dainty” about doing so. Our father cleared his voice before speaking gruffly,
  “No. Not out of town. We found a house that was selling in town, but the catch is,” he clasps his hands together and wiggles his eyebrows mischievously, “there’s a creek in the backyard.”
  A few months after that dinner conversation, we quickly moved into the new house. The house was a decent size for our family of four. It was on the edge of the town that we were living in at the time and it indeed did have a creek in the backyard, Dad didn’t lie about that. To get down to the creek was quite a journey. To get down to the creek you had to walk down this towering hill that eventually flattened into a two acre long field that its’ grass would brush up against your ankles and at the edge of the field that grass would slowly fade into the wet banks of the creek and then the creek itself with its’ water that would rush rapidly if it had rained too much the night before. There were trees on either side of the creek, shading the water which was ideal for swimming on a hot and sticky summer day.
  After some time of living in the new house, me and Sean quickly became accustomed to living there. What made it so easy to transition from our old house to this new house was that we had neighbors living to the left of us where the creek started. These neighbors consisted of a couple and a son. Me and Sean over time became acquainted with their son and we learned three things about him very quickly: he was as obsessed with swimming as Sean and me, he was closer in age to me than Sean, (I was nine while Luc was eight at the time), and he had this slight quirkiness that little nine year old me adored. Over time, me obsessing over the oddities of Luc is what made me develop a crush on Luc. A little bit after I had developed a crush on Luc, he returned the feelings. Sean picked up on this and would tease us constantly about our little crushes on each other.
  Since we were all obsessed with swimming, we quickly adapted a routine of immediately running down to the creek after school. Sean was always able to get to the creek before me and Sean, he was so much taller than me and Luc possibly by a whole two feet at the time.                                        One particular day, we were all following our after school ritual. Mom and Dad were both out in town working, and there wasn’t a single adult down at the creek to supervise our shenanigans. Both me and Luc were “trying” our best to run after Sean down the hill to the creek with us not succeeding; sweat was already dripping down our foreheads as we huffed and puffed as we kept running. Sean arrived a little bit before us at the creek and was already sitting on one of the creek’s banks once we arrived at the creek at the same time. Once we arrived at the creek, me and Luc were doubling over trying to catch our breath when Sean stated in a slightly mocking tone, “Aw, it’s so cute that almost every time we come down here after school you two arrive at the creek at the same time.” This caused both me and Luc to immediately glance away from each other, slight blush coming to both of our faces.
  This comment towards us made neither one of us say anything once we caught our breaths. Sean’s little teasing comments always made Luc and me extra nervous around each other and Sean knew this. He always fueled off of teasing us so he never stopped making the comments, he would only ever stop when he noticed it made us too uncomfortable.
  After us blushing had mostly subsided, I decided that I was going to swing in our tire swing, a tire swing that Dad had just put up a few weeks ago. I started to walk across the side of the creek that we were hanging out on, each new footstep my feet sinking a little bit into the wet silt of the creek banks. Once I approached the tree that held the tire swing and got into the swing's tire, I looked below and outwards from the advantage of the tree towards where Luc and Sean were. Sean was obviously trying to speak with Luc about something, but Luc wasn’t conversing back. In fact, once I started to swing back and forth in the swing, Luc was starting to walk in the direction of the swing. After three swings backwards, I splash into the water effortlessly. Once I emerged from the water, I started to walk out of the water to see that Luc was standing in the same spot that he was in when I had started to swing in the swing. It was like he waited for something to happen and it didn’t happen. I walked towards Luc, “Um..Luc…are you doing okay?” With a simple wipe of his face, then blinking his eyes once he spoke in a slight monotone tone, “Yeah, yeah I am Aubrey.” Luc always had little odd moments like this where you would expect him to speak more about how he was feeling, but he just simply didn’t.                                       After me and Luc’s mini conversation, Sean propped himself completely up from the creek bank that he was laying on and he started to quickly strut himself to the tire swing. Sean was completely obsessed with swinging in the swing, he had always been a little bit of an adrenaline junkie. He loved the thrill you got once you landed in the water after gaining enough momentum.                          In a quick moment, he hoisted himself into the tire swing exactly how I did moments before: swinging your right leg over the tire then your left leg then placing your butt in the tire lastly. Though, the second Sean started to swing in the swing, Luc's reaction was completely different from how his reaction was when I had swung in the tire swing. I didn’t at first understand why he immediately started sprinting in the direction of Sean until I saw what was causing Luc’s body to react in alarm: around the third swing backwards in the swing, the part of the rope that was directly under the part of the rope that was tied to the tree’s branch started to fray thread by thread crackle, snap, crackle, snap…                     My whole body completely froze in a single instant, every inch from my head all of the way down to my toes. My feet began to sink deep into the mud of one of the creek banks as my heart was beating so fast that it was thundering in my ears like a drum. Bump, bump, bump. I wanted to move, to sprint, to scream, to do anything to convince Sean to get out of the swing before anything were to happen. I felt like Medusa had stared into my soul and turned my whole entire body into stone. I simply couldn’t move though, I just kept watching the scene before me unravel as my body was frozen with shock, everything around me seemed to happen as slow as a sloth moved.
  Only after mere seconds that felt like an eternity with another swing back in the swing, Sean suddenly flew dramatically out of the swing and onto one of the creek’s banks, his whole body going limp once he landed. With Sean landing, the tire swing itself and its’ now in two rope flew and landed inches away from my feet.
  Luc somehow didn’t become frozen with shock and fear like me and quickly ran over to where Sean was now laying. He began to poke and prod Sean’s body, to assess how extremely wounded Sean was and to see if he was still conscious. After only a few minutes of this, Sean finally came to his senses. He opened his hazy eyes for a few seconds, removing his hand from his head. When he removed his hand from his head, we all saw that his brown shaggy hair was now matted with blood that was pouring out of his head that wouldn’t stop. His hand was dripping with his blood.
  As soon as I registered that Sean’s lips were moving but no words were escaping him, my body started to move on its own towards Sean. Once I had arrived close enough to where I was able to get a better close up look at Sean, I began to actually look at his wounds for myself. Sean was laying in such a way that the non injured part of his head was angled up towards the sky while the injured part of his head was sunken lightly into the bank of the creek while his blood started to mix with the silt of the creek’s bank.
  Sean opened his eyes fully then blinked before looking at me, well at least staring in the direction that I was standing, trying to focus his eyes on me before speaking, “Aub, I don’t feel very good.” I shook my head slightly up and down as he stated this to me, I didn’t quite know what to say in this situation. Sean had never been injured like this before. In fact, I thought he was invincible and couldn’t be harmed in the creek simply because he was my older brother and he was always able to protect me.
  After taking one more quick glance at Sean in his injured state and not another glance in my direction, Luc began to sprint away from the scene, up the hill towards his house while screaming on the top of his lungs, “MOM! DAD! SEAN IS HURT! SEAN IS HURT! COME HELP HIM!” After some time of me standing ever so still, still examining Sean in his damaged state still on the creek bank, a screeching siren started to quickly pierce the air surrounding me and Sean.
  “Sean. An ambulance is coming.” I stated, with hope filling my whole being for my older brother in that moment. A blank expression spread across his face as he stared up into the sky, his hazy eyes barely staying open, his wound on his head still bleeding from the impact he had endured.
  It seemed like the ambulance was at the creek in the blink of an eye, and the emergency medical technicians worked so fast to rescue my brother. They entered the slightly mucky water of the creek with so much more ease than I did while Sean was sustaining his wounds, their black cargo pants rolled up to their knees, and their yellow work boots barely sinking into the silky mud of the banks of the creeks. The squad of EMTS hoisted my brother carefully up from the bank and onto their ambulance’s stretcher, and as they were walking Sean to the ambulance, one of the EMTS noticed that I was just standing next to the ambulance with pure fear in my eyes and spoke to me to calm my nerves,
  “Your mother is on her way to pick you up. Both of your parents immediately clocked out of work as soon as they heard the news. Your father in fact is already on the way to the hospital to be there for Sean before he arrives at the hospital.”
  “Will Sean be okay?”
  He took a quick glance towards Sean on the stretcher, his eyes now closed. ¨He should be fine, don’t worry,” he stated as he helped his team of EMTS place Sean while on the stretcher into the back of the ambulance, then closing the huge back double doors of the ambulance with some force. The EMT smiled a soft smile at me to reassure me, to solidify his statement before getting into the ambulance with the three other EMTS. The inside lights of the ambulance turned on and it slowly rolled up the hill and past our house and Luc’s house before veering off onto the highway and driving away.
  The EMT didn’t lie to me. After the ambulance had driven away, I was sitting in our house’s front porch swing swinging softly back and forth in it, trying my best to gather myself to the best of my ability. Even though I was trying my hardest to barely think about Sean in his injured state that’s all my mind was playing over and over like a scratched cd that wouldn’t continue playing: the memory of Sean looking helplessly up at the sky during moments when his eyes were open, that expression of blankness spread across his face as his head free bled into the ground below his body. Almost as if to keep my thoughts from spiraling even further out of control, Mom started to pull into our gravel driveway with the sight of the headlights of her car easing my conscious for a moment, the headlights of her car symbolizing the sense that Mom was a source of familiarity in this horrendous evening.    Oh how my anxious mind that evening was wrong about Mom being a source of familiarity right then and there. The second Mom stepped out of her car and started to approach the front porch, I recognized the expression that was splayed across her face: slightly softened and dampened skin under her eyes accompanied with red tinted puffied bags around her eyes. She had been crying but she was trying her hardest to hide that she had been. I can imagine Mom blotting her face with a single tissue as the tears just rolled down her face on the drive back home from clocking out of work early. This is what she always did if she wanted to hide the fact that she had been crying. One look at her in this state would pull at your heartstrings which is exactly what happened to me.
  Mom embraced me in a hug at the start of our driveway in such a way that she lifted my small body off of the ground for a few seconds, almost sucking all of the air out of me. After our hug, she looked down at me with that overwelming sorrowful appearance on her face and started to speak to me gingerly. “Are you okay Aubrey?” As she asked this, she grabbed a hold of my arms softly and started to examine for any cuts or bruises. “Yeah, I am Mom. The only one that became harmed was Sean.”
  “What exactly happened?”
  I started to recall what happened during the creek accident, at least all I could from my point of view. “After I had used the tire swing down at the creek, Sean got into the swing to use it. At first, nothing actually happened when he was positioning himself in the swing to use it. But then, when he started to swing, the rope of the swing started to unthread itself.” I had to pause because my voice was slightly shaky from me crying, tears slowly rolling down my face one after the other. “Once the rope snapped, he flew onto the ground, becoming hurt and limp on one of the creek banks.”
  Once I had fully recalled what had happened to Sean, Mom cupped her hands around my face to help me ground my emotions, to bring me back to my ground level feelings. “Would you like to go see Sean now? He’s currently at the hospital and Dad is there already with him. He says that Sean is doing okay.” I nodded my head up and down with a slight gulp, already imagining Sean’s altered state in the hospital. Once our conversation ended at the start of our gravel driveway, Mom took hold of one of my hands and walked with me to her car. We got into her car then started driving in the direction of our town’s hospital.
  Our town’s hospital was in the middle of town which made it an easy drive to get to no matter where you lived in our town. Once we arrived at the hospital, we were escorted by a nurse with a firm, too hair sprayed, short black bob to Sean’s room. Once the nurse opened the door to Sean’s hospital room and walked into the room with us, my whole body was overwhelmed by the sight of the hospital room. Sean was laying in a hospital bed with stark white sheets tightly wrapped around his body, he looked like a mummy. There was a heart monitor hooked up to his body with various cords slightly tangled; the machine itself was beeping over and over bEep, bEep, bEep. Meanwhile, Sean was asleep, his chest rising and falling. Gauze was wrapped around his head, hiding his wound that nobody wanted to see. Dad was sitting next to Sean on a slightly rusted metal stool, observing the rise and fall of his chest every once in a while. Dad wore an expression of solemness and stoicism across his face.
  “Sean is concussed. Surprisingly he didn’t endure more wounds from his fall out of the tire swing,¨ the nurse stated to us three as she scribbled down some notes about Sean’s current condition on a piece of paper on a clipboard. “When should he be back to his usual state?” Mom asked as she approached Sean closer with me as she held my hand, she always held my hand in situations where she thought I needed comforting and reassurance. In this situation, she was clearly right about the fact that I needed comforting and reassurance. As me, Dad, and Mom waited for the nurse’s reply about when Sean would be back to normal, I stared at Sean. Little nine year old me in that instant didn’t recognize Sean at all. Him being wrapped tightly with the white hospital blankets ontop of the gauze wrapped around his head and all of the wires from the heart monitor tangled up in each other was such a startling sight. After looking at the notes that she had just written for a few seconds, the nurse looked back at us, “At most around one to three months from what I am gathering from my notes.”
  During the time that we were taking visits to see Sean while he was in the hospital, my parents quickly noticed a change that had established itself in me: I had become petrified of the creek. My fear of the creek became so severe that I wouldn’t even dip one of my big toes into the water. The cycle of my fear of the creek would repeat itself over and over as my parents would try to slowly expose me to the creek time and time again while Sean stayed in the hospital. They would drag me down to the creek every once in a while and try to encourage me kindly to go into the creek, but each time, like clockwork, I wouldn’t get a single centimeter into the water, and instead I would sit on one of the creek’s banks and shake slightly and cry. I would cry like someone I loved had died recently. Until someone actually died: Sean.
  One evening we were visiting Sean at the hospital. Me, Dad, and Mom were all clustered closely around his hospital bed being there to comfort him and just to provide company for him. Despite the fact that we had just had dinner from the hospital’s cafeteria, I was still hungry. I approached Dad who was the closest to me in that small and cramped hospital room.
  “Dad, I know we just had dinner but I am still hungry. Can I have two dollars for something from the vending machine?” He started to dig out two dollars from his worn down leather wallet. “Yeah, but be back quick. We are going to leave soon and I want you to be able to see Sean as much as you can during this visit with him.”
  I retrieved the two dollars from him and headed out of the hospital room. I started to walk towards the nearest vending machine as my stomach growled. Once I arrived at the vending machine, I got a king size chocolate bar from it. As I was walking back to the hospital room, I was minding my own business as I was already chomping at the start of the chocolate bar. But as I started to walk down the hallway that Sean’s room was in, I started to become overwhelmed by the eerie silence of the hallway. When I had left the room, the TV was blasting very loudly playing a rerun of Family Feud. Once I approached the doorway of the room though, I immediately recognized that something was wrong. Mom and Dad were standing outside of the door as they embraced each other very tightly as many tears rolled down their faces.
  “What’s wrong?” My voice crackled a little from seeing how distraught my parents had become when I was retrieving my chocolate bar from the vending machine. Both of my parents unembraced each other as they walked closer to me. They didn’t say anything from how shocked they were. Instead of speaking, Dad just simply pointed with his shaky pointer finger into Sean’s room. Go inside and see. He implied with this simple point of his finger. I hesitated at first but after a few minutes of waiting outside of the doorway of Sean’s room, I slowly went inside of his room. I only needed to go inside of his room for a few feet to see what had happened. His heart beat on the heart monitor was flat…
  Sean is dead. He’s…dead. I thought to myself as I instantly dropped to my knees on the cold tile floor of the hospital room dropping my chocolate bar in the process of doing so, one of the corners of the chocolate bar snapping apart on the floor.
  A week before Sean’s funeral, my parents told me every detail regarding Sean’s death. Sean’s wound on his head had become so infected despite the doctors and nurses aid for him that it looked like maggots were crawling in the wound, yet it only looked like that from the wound’s skin trying to heal but utterly failing. A few weeks later after receiving the news, Sean’s funeral happened. I don’t remember a lot about Sean's funeral to be honest. I was not mentally there, but I do remember that all of my immediate family attended: both of my grandmas, both of my grandpas, and my uncle and my two aunts. A few days after Sean's funeral we received dozens upon dozens of hand written letters and sweet smelling bouquets; close friends and family sent their condolences.
  Nine years after Sean's funeral, I had just got a job working at our town's grocery store: Ben's Grocery Mart. I was driving myself to work and to school and back home. One of my grandmas, (Dad's mom) had gifted me a cute little silver car for my 18th birthday, but since I was constantly driving around town and barely coming home at this time, both of my parents committed me into therapy, with a local therapist whose office was in a town just outside our town. Once I started therapy, Mom had told me that I would be attending the therapy sessions with the therapist until, as she emphasized "I stopped trying to escape the grief of Sean's death by driving around town as well as I started acting like myself again. Going outside as much as I used to as well as just my bubbly and happy personality returns."
  When I was first starting my sessions with my therapist, who had a very curled mustache which he would twist between two of his fingers while listening to me, I didn't think at all that my actions or my personality had changed regarding the death of Sean, but it indeed had. Slowly, after time, after getting accustomed and comfortable with Dr. Lukewill, one therapy session we made significant progress: I brought up the issue of realizing that Luc had always disturbed me growing up, even though we did have “little” crushes on each other.
  "Now looking back…" I paused, looking down at my lap as I sat in the brown leather chair across from Dr. Lukewill. My fingers were fiddling and fidgeting to the point that I'm pretty sure that he could hear my fingernails clicking and clunking together. I continued slowly,
  "Luc, the neighbor boy that me and Sean hung out with a lot around the creek had always irked me, deep down inside, yet I don't know why." Dr. Lukewill looked at me before he scribbled down some notes in his slightly worn down spiral notebook. “There were moments while growing up while playing with him that his actions seemed to be off. Sometimes he would take ten seconds or so to reply back to you while having a conversation. But, the main thing that bothered me about him..” I paused as Dr. Lukewill took notes in his notebook then looked back up at me. “During the evening of Sean’s creek accident, before Sean got harmed I swung in the tire swing. As I was getting into the swing, Luc started to walk in the direction of the swing like he knew that something was going to happen to the swing. Then when Sean used the swing, he ran to aid him and didn’t care a single thing about me. I always thought that was odd, how did he know something was going to happen to the swing? Like that doesn’t make any sense to me. Also, regarding Sean getting injured, I have an immense feeling of guiltiness. If I didn’t just stand there like a fool when the swing started to break, I could have warned Sean to get out of the swing. If I would have been able to warn him, he wouldn’t be dead now.” My eyes started to water.
  “Here’s the thing about trauma, you and everybody else can’t control how they react to trauma that happens to them when experiencing that said trauma.” As he was speaking to me, his hands were folded in his lap. “So, try to not feel guilty regarding the fact that you couldn’t warn Sean. You couldn’t control how your body reacted in that moment.”
  I nod my head softly. “Then that solidifies my idea.”
  “What’s your idea?”
  "I have thought about this for some time, and I have decided to start to stay away from Luc as much as I can manage. For my own well being."
He nodded, "I agree as well that your plan will be good for your own mental health and just overall well being."
  To be honest, I was completely succeeding in my mission of staying away from Luc after that specific therapy session with Dr. Luckwill until one crucial day: Sean's three year death anniversary. On Sean's three year death anniversary, I was working an usual shift at Ben's Grocery Mart after school that day, stocking shelves toward the back of the grocery store. I was aimlessly going through the mundane routine of stacking a row of canned green beans when I heard footsteps approaching me. Then, those footsteps stopped before speaking to me before beginning to aid me in stocking the shelf of goods that I was currently working on at that moment, "Hello Aubrey."
  That voice had such familiarity to it. I looked up to find: Luc, standing directly next to me with one of his hands firmly grasped around a can of peaches. He wore one of Ben's Grocery Mart's classic burnt beige clip on vests over a black t-shirt. My heart started to pulsate as I looked at the vest that was clipped over Luc's black t-shirt.
  Since when does he work here? Also….I promised Dr. Lukewill that I would stay away from him as much as possible. What am I supposed to do? I thought to myself before Luc started to speak to me, since he noticed me looking at the Ben's Grocery Mart vest that was plastered over his torso.
  "I started working here last week, I'm sorry that I forgot to tell you Aubrey." I shook my head slightly,
  "Oh you're fine Luc. Don't worry about it."
The second Luc started to talk to me, my brain internally started to scream at me as if talking to Luc was me committing a crime.
  STOP TALKING TO HIM. YOU PROMISED TO STAY AWAY FROM HIM.
  But, for some reason at that moment, I completely ignored the instincts from my own mind and continued to talk to Luc as we continued to stock shelves throughout Ben's Grocery Mart. Eventually, we reached to stocking the middle shelves of the grocery store. At this point, I just wanted to be done with my shift and go home. After all, it was Sean's three year death anniversary. After placing a can of corn onto a new shelf, Luc's face slowly molded into an expression of solemnness and sadness like he remembered something tragic, which he did.
  "Hey, Aubrey?"
  "Yeah?"
  "Isn't it Sean's death anniversary?"
  I gulped slightly as my throat tightened slightly, hopefully not noticeable to Luc.
  "Mm, hmm."
  He looked around the store before his eyes blankly landed on my face, a certain amount of fierceness in his eyes. "I'm sorry to hear that. I still can't believe he died." He leaned a little close to me as he said this, then continued. "Would you like to…." He paused, running his fingers through his hair, "go to the creek after our shift to commemorate Sean?"
  I blindly agreed right then and there to do so without much thought, ignorantly.
After some time, we both clocked out as our shifts at Ben's Grocery Mart ended. I was the one who drove us to the creek, though on the way to the creek Luc was strangely mute the whole drive, which should have been my first red flag.
  Once we arrived at the creek and were sitting on one of the bank's of the creek, our conversation naturally drifted towards that fateful day of Sean's creek accident. As I spoke to Luc, he had his hands firmly in his lap as he faced me, looking me directly in my eyes.
  "I feel guilty. I have always felt guilty surrounding Sean becoming injured. " My body automatically took a pause for me as I was crying so much that I was shaking. Every inch of me was vibrating and I was violently choking on my own words.
  "I-if I w-would h-have n-not h-have b-become f-frozen I w-would h-have b-been t-there f-for Sean. I c-could h-have ran to p-prevent h-him-from f-falling out of the swing.” Almost as if on cue, Luc scooted closer to me and reached out one of his hands and held my face as he started to wipe away my tears, trying to comfort me.
  "Hey Aubrey.."
  "Yeah?"
  My heart was back to its' racing mode, exactly like how it had been when me and Luc were stocking shelves together back on our shift just moments ago.
  "You want to hear something?"
  I nodded my head.
  "Nothing you could have done would have been able to prevent Sean's injuries and then later on his eventual death." As he started to speak to me, he moved closer and closer, a hint of menace in his voice.
  "What do you-" He quickly cut my sentence off by placing one of his pointer fingers over my lips, which were slightly dampened from my tears.
"Just. Listen. To. Me. You said that you wanted to hear something so listen up." He looked at the flowing water of the creek beside us.
  "I caused Sean's death. And you might be thinking '"No, I don't believe you at all. There's no way that someone like you Luc could do such a heinous crime.'" Well, I have never been the "Luc" that you always thought I was. I was always putting on a front my dear." When the word dear escaped his mouth, a shiver ran through my spine.                       "You know how we used to have "little" crushes on each other when we were younger?" I shook my head up and down slowly, not knowing what he was getting at in this moment.
  "Well, my little crush caused me to become …..very infatuated with you. I craved to spend as much time with you that I could humanly muster up. But, guess who was always in the way of my dreams? Sean. So, one night all alone, I crept down to the creek with my father's switchblade and cut the rope of the tire swing and retied the rope of the swing all by myself to where if someone were to use the tire swing again, they would get hurt. I did this hoping that if Sean were to use the tire swing, he would become so injured that all of your attention would quickly be directed at me. That's what I always craved above everything else in this world.” He paused shortly before continuing. “When I was younger, even though I did just want all of your attention directed towards me, that wasn’t the only reason why I wanted Sean to become injured. I also wanted Sean to become injured because I had always wanted Sean to tease you less about us and also he always seemed to be very controling of you. To me the teasing of us having crushes on each other was extremely annoying and he always gave you suggestions on what to do in certain situations which to me seemed like he was bossing you around and controlling you. It never seemed like sometimes that you got to do actually what you wanted to do, whatever you did was always up to Sean whenever no adults were around. During the evening of Sean’s creek accident, you looked rather stunning in your faded one piece rainbow dotted swimsuit.” He took another pause as he thought about me in that swimsuit, a faint blush coming to his face. “But, my attention was quickly directed to Sean as he fell as planned out of the tire swing and onto the ground. As he made impact with the ground, his head quickly started to bleed uncontrollably. My plan had succeeded.”
  The microsecond that Luc had finished confessing his truth to me, I instinctively started to shove Luc away from me with all of my strength. Sitting there with him on the mucky and gritty bank of the creek, I needed to get as much distance away from him as I could, which seemed like an impossible task at first since he was trying to get a grip on my wrists. Somehow though, a miracle occurred. While trying to grab at my wrists Luc hadn't managed to get ahold of them. That one failed attempt from Luc gave me a head start and I quickly gathered myself up from the bank, and started to sprint up the hill. Halfway up the hill though, I looked behind me and saw that Luc was chasing after me, almost in the manner that a lion would chase their prey. That sight made adrenaline course through every vein in my body.
  By the time that I got into my car and was starting it, I was fumbling from pure adrenaline and anxiety so much that I almost forgot to lock my car until I heard the jagged footsteps of Luc running up my gravel driveway, the crunching of the rocks often underneath his feet.
  As soon as I locked my car, I booked it. I sped out of my driveway so quickly that I almost crashed into a tree but I was able to escape. As soon as I was out of my driveway and in the street, I looked behind me to see Luc standing in the middle of the street, a crazed smile spread across his face from ear to ear.
  I now live in a larger town than this all occurred in, in a completely different state as well. I decided to move into another town and state altogether just to get a new start in life. Despite me moving to somewhere new, I did decide after some time to report Luc to my new town’s police department. The new town’s police department told the old town’s police department about what I had reported regarding Luc: that him sabotaging the tire swing led to my older brother Sean’s melancholy death. After investigating Luc, Luc was found guilty of third degree murder. He was charged with twenty years in prison and is still serving that time as I am writing this. Looking back now on this situation, I should have kept my promise to Dr. Luckwill.