Suicidal

Big brother

When I was little my dad always used to tell me, "you can't pick your family, but you can pick your friends," whenever I was mad at my little brother. I don't know why he thought telling me I was stuck with him was going to make me any less angry. If anything it just made me want to pick friends completely unlike him just because my dad said that. 

Avery doesn't quite irritate me like he once did, but I'll admit the kid does have a knack for sticking his nose where it shouldn't be. Half of the time I was so pissed because I catch him going through my stuff, not even looking for anything specific, just "taking inventory" he'd say. Like he literally has to know everything that everyone owns, and why. 

"Is there a particular reason you need to know all of this?" I ask him one day, setting my spoon down in my cereal to pick up my glass of OJ, after I'd caught him the night before rummaging through my sock drawer. I know not to hide my things in my room now. He's worse than a nark, because he'll make me share what I'm hiding. No matter what it is. It's supposed to be some sort of big brother test: don't do anything you're not comfortable with Avery doing. Granted he's only two years younger than I am, it still feels weird guiltily handing over my pot to share. He's like a bloodhound, he can smell it from a mile away. 

After Martie disappeared he started to stop coming into my room so much. It's not often that I catch him now, it's like he's allergic to me or something. 

Everyone has become allergic to me since she's gone. They look at me as if my puppy just died, only worse. I wasn't even her boyfriend, Brody was, and nobody treats him as gently as they treat me. Of course they'll nod in silence around him or give him a pat on the back, but when she went missing I received hugs. People were coming to me to talk about their grief, not Brody. I think people understood that if he were to get too upset they could  seriously ruin anything and everything they have with him. He doesn't ever forget the things people have done to him, and he's never walked away from a fight. 

When we were ten I took his baseball without asking once to play with some of our other friends, and it ending up going over a fence. We eventually got it back, but with his help, and that meant I had to tell him I'd taken his ball. I didn't think it was such a big deal, I was going to return it anyway. Friends should let other friends borrow things, and we were practically brothers. He took my things without asking all of the time. He seemed like he understood my reasoning pretty well. 

That is until the next day at school when he told the entire student population that I still wet the bed. It happened once, and I wouldn't have told him if he hadn't caught me changing my sheets the next morning. He'd spent the night and was sleeping on the floor. It took me a while to forgive him for that one, but it was then that I realized it's a lot harder to pick your friends than I thought. Because despite how much I wanted to rip his head off, I still loved that motherfucker. 

There was a knock on my door. Strange, people don't usually knock. 

"Yeah?" I say, not really sure how to react. 

"Honey, phone for you, it's Jack." My Mom comes in and points in her direction to signal that Jack was on the phone. 

"Why did you knock?" I ask as I step in front of her to get the phone. 

"I just, I don't know I thought maybe you enjoy your privacy, and-" 

"She walked in on me," Avery goes by and pushes himself through the screen door,  his cheeks were bright red, and he's noticeably in a hurry. Laughing, I look back over at my mom, who's cheeks were even brighter. She waves her hand dismissively at the subject and walks away, rubbing her temples.