Simple Biology
My brother Josh always thought I should do better in school, try harder, spend less time out with girls, blah blah blah . . . I remember this one time, he pulled out his biology book and decided to teach me a couple words from the natural selection chapter.
I know, right. Me and biology? I didn't know what he was trying to pull, and I wasn't really paying attention until he told me that the words reminded him of us, of how we needed each other.
"You and me, Drake. Like, how we've developed over the years."
"Uh . . . what?"
"Here, let's start with adaptation. Adaptation is . . . when you get used to something, like how we got used to being brothers, sharing a room . . ." He looked at me like I was supposed to say something back.
"Okay, so adaptation is like me dealing with you living here."
Josh rolled his eyes and scooted closer on the couch. "Right. So, we also learned to depend on each other, after we adapted. When two things need each other to survive, it's called symbiosis."
"Symba-what?" Like I knew what he was saying. Seriously, Josh always gave me way too much credit.
And he was always too patient, even when I treated him like a joke. "Symbiosis." He showed me the word in the book and made me say it a couple times, till I got it right. "Good."
"So, you're saying we, like, adaptationed until we were friends, and then, symbiosis made us--"
"Brothers." Josh didn't like to talk about us, no matter where we were, because it was personal, and it was ours and no one else's. "See, you can learn biology."
"Yeah, but that's not what this is about." Even though I was pretty dumb when it came to school, I knew people, and I knew when something was up, especially with Josh.
Josh got this embarrassed, nervous look, and I suddenly got that this was about us. About him leaving for college in a couple months. And when he started talking, I almost couldn't hear him. "When two people need each other to survive . . . Drake, I don't know how I'm gonna make it without you."
"Well, it's not like I feel any better about it. Maybe you just shouldn't go." I said this every day, whenever he let me. He never agreed to stay, and I knew he wouldn't now.
"I shouldn't. I really shouldn't. I mean, it's simple biology. If two species need each other, you don't separate them. But . . . I can't stay. I have to go get my degree and . . ."
And what? He could never come up with another good reason to leave.
But he did leave for college, eventually, and he left a huge hole where he should have been; and I felt a zillion times worse than that time he was "done" with me. I couldn't sleep; I could barely eat; and I broke every string on my guitar by day three.
I couldn't even go out with my friends because everywhere in San Diego was somewhere Josh had been--all my favorite clubs, Guitar World, the Premiere. Every person was someone he had known, and most of them asked about him.
Worst of all, Josh's nerds were taking pity--on me! They kept coming around the house and offering to do stuff for me and . . . go places with me. I mean, besides the fact that it was annoying, it really made me feel low, to think that even two losers like Craig and Eric didn't look up to me now that Josh was gone.
But it did make me realize that this . . . situation couldn't last much longer, or I was gonna freak.
It sounds stupid, but I didn't even last a week before I had to drive out to Stanford to see Josh, to vent and just hang out. Because, as usual, he was right; it was just simple biology.
A/N: This didn't turn out at all like I planned. It seemed I forgot the original plotline I had come up with and wrote this instead. Anyway, the other plotline is going to be a one-shot spin-off of this fic, since it still works, though I don't think it'll be in Drake's POV. For me, boys like him are intolerably hard to write. Review if you like.
