My Brother 3

As the elevator doors closed, I caught a glimpse of my own emotionless face reflected on their surface.

My head began to throb again. I touched my forehead and felt my temperature climbing steadily.

In the beginning, my relationship with Charles wasn’t this bad.

When we were children, although he didn’t like me, he never did anything excessive or said anything hurtful.

Compared to our father, who treated me as invisible, Charles was the only person I could consider close.

I thought, even if Charles didn’t like me, we were still family. That’s what blood ties mean.

Then Tiffany came to our home when I was in middle school.

I realized that a brother could treat someone else so well.

He didn’t always have a cold face, didn’t tell her “I’m not your brother,” and didn’t mock her.

That’s how a brother should treat a sister.

But Tiffany was not content with just that.

A week after she transferred to my middle school, I came home from school to a hard slap from Charles.

I held my face, stunned, as he muttered words I didn’t understand.

Ring leader,

Bullying,

Putting bugs in the desk,

Apologize.

But when I saw Tiffany, staring at me with her red eyes, those fragmented words suddenly formed a complete lie in my mind.

I defended myself, but he didn’t believe me.

The argument and the blatant favoritism that erupted that day shattered my naive and foolish belief.

Charles wasn’t stupid or unable to distinguish right from wrong.

He was deliberate.

It wasn’t until that day that I realized my brother genuinely harbored deep-seated hatred for me.

Our relationship deteriorated rapidly. Foolish and childish as I was, I thought that rather than letting him treat me like a stranger, like our father did, it would be better to oppose him.

At least then, Charles could see me.

Our hostile relationship continued until I was eighteen.

At eighteen, I was dragged into hell. After that, our relationship abruptly turned into that of strangers.

It was like a war that had suddenly come to an end.

We no longer argued, no longer screamed at each other, no longer clashed.

We were just cold, as if strangers under the same roof.

By the time I got home after finishing my resignation procedures, it was already dark outside.

The streetlights in the neighborhood hadn’t turned on yet, and my home was shrouded in darkness. No one had ever left a light on for me.

The headache had persisted from the afternoon until now.

Curled up on the sofa, hunger and pain gnawed at my body.

I struggled to my feet and made my way into the kitchen. The nauseating stench of rot hit me. It dawned on me that the last time I had been in the kitchen was over two month ago.

I grabbed a carrot, quickly rinsed it, and placed it on the cutting board.

The sound of the knife chopping was uneven. Bright red drops fell onto the cutting board, blooming into a metallic-scented flower.

I paused, realizing that the knife had cut my hand.

The pain from the wound spread, and I became aware that I had hurt myself.

The impulse to self-harm had risen, and I hadn’t been able to suppress it.

New and old scars intertwined all over my arm.

I sank to the ground, gasping for breath. The knife had fallen, leaving a pool of blood.

It seemed like I was losing control more and more, hurting myself repeatedly.

The doctor had said that when the illness flares up, I must take my medication.

But I hadn’t taken any.

She also said to have family members and friends around.

“Irene, talk more with your family, feel the love. It will help with your condition.”

But…

I looked at the bloody pool.

But I have no.