Brothers
The fall in which this story begins was a fall like any other, unremarkable and forgettable in all ways but for the events that took place. The leaves turned brilliant shades of red, orange, and yellow like fire, and the temperature grew colder and jackets and sweaters were pulled out of hibernation and put back to good use, for that is what autumn in the Midwest is. As October wore on, jack-o-lanterns and pumpkins appeared on doorsteps, their carved faces bringing comfort and warmth to all at the reminder of holidays and tradition, and scarecrows along with large piles of dead leaves could be seen in yards. School had begun a mere two months prior, but already children and teens alike were begging for a break, my brother and I no exception.
My brother, William Milo Richardson, had just turned seventeen and was itching to get out of high school, and I, his younger brother David Andrew Richardson, was twelve and a half and was itching to gain the label of "teenager". I was, and always had been, called by Will (and only Will!), Davy. As my father once told me, Will had never called me anything else and had never allowed anyone but himself, our father, and our mother to use the pet name. Will had been my best friend and protector for so long I could hardly remember it ever being any other way, but our father died when Will was ten and I was just six, so I suspected that he had felt it his responsibility to look after me since, based on the fact that he had practically raised me himself. Our mother, Maria, loved us very much, that we never doubted, but since our father's death she had changed, and didn't seem to know how to take care of us. She worked a lot and was consequentially exhausted when she was home, and would often forget simple motherly things such as giving us dinner or making sure we were ready for school the next day, so my brother took it upon himself at an early age to do these things for her. I loved them both with all my heart, but I had always felt closer to Will, and I knew he felt the same way.
However, ever since Will had turned sixteen and he and all his friends started getting their driver's licenses and had been more independent, he had seemed so... distant. It seemed like he was always thinking about something else or wanted to be somewhere different. It worried me because Will had only ever been like this when he was really anxious about something, and he didn't get nervous about much. Then he started forgetting things every now and then. It wasn't anything important, just things like helping me with a small homework assignment or making my lunch in the morning, and anyone else would have said that it was just because Will was a kid, and that he shouldn't even have to do all those things for me. However, I knew that it wasn't normal for him, and added it to my ever-growing mental list of weird things that Will had been doing lately.
One day that October, I exited my middle school to find that Will was not there, which was a very odd thing. Everyday since he got his driver's license he had come to pick me up from school and drive me home unless he had soccer practice right after, which usually didn't happen because it normally started about an hour after school let out. I figured that maybe his coach had called an impromptu practice or he had had to stay after school to talk to a teacher, or something of the sorts, so I proceeded to walk home myself. When I reached our house, though, I found that Will was already there, sitting on the couch and watching TV, eating what appeared to be last night's left over Chinese food. I decided not to ask why he hadn't come because he had been very agitated lately, so I went to our room to start my homework and pushed the incident to the back of my mind, forgetting about it for the time being.
I was forced to remember it, nevertheless, about a month later when Will completely forgot to pick me up again, and I was left waiting outside in the freezing November air for about forty five minutes before I realized that he probably wasn't coming. After I so dumbly came to that conclusion, I set off for home on foot. However, when I arrived home Will wasn't there, so I went inside and started on my homework, but found that it was an unfeasible task because my mind didn't seem to want to concentrate on anything but my brother. I couldn't help but think that Will and I were starting to grow apart, a thought that had entered my mind many times since the whole debacle had started, but that I had pushed away whenever it did.
I was deeply engrossed in these thoughts when I heard the familiar rumble of Will's car in the driveway, and tried to make myself look busy when he came in the door.
"Hey! Where were you today?" I inquired immediately and angrily, and with a great sense of déjà vu from the month before. I hadn't realized how angry I was until this exact moment, and suspected that maybe I had just been too shocked before now.
"I didn't feel like it! What's the big deal?" he replied. That reply was enough to leave me speechless, for not only was it completely out of character for Will to not pick me up because he "didn't feel like it", but his response had been unwarrantedly rough and defensive, along with some other emotion that I could not quite place. Was it annoyance? No, it couldn't be. Will practically never got annoyed with me, especially when he had no fair reason to be, but that was what it had sounded like.
I just sat and stared at him for a moment, as he went into the kitchen, walked over to the refrigerator, took out my sandwich, and started eating it. He then proceeded to amble into the living room like nothing was wrong and sit next to me on the couch.
"What's your problem today? You always pick me up from school! And you're eating MY sandwich!" I practically yelled at him, having recovered from my shock enough to be angry.
"Well excuse me! I didn't realize you owned the sandwich. Here. You can have it if you want it so badly!" He yelled, jumping up from the couch and throwing the half-eaten article of food in my face. I, however, didn't react fast enough, and the result was a giant mustard and mayonnaise stain on my shirt, and lunch meet and cheese down my front and in my lap.
"Grrrr!" I growled to myself, trying in vain to clean the offending items off my shirt. I didn't understand what was going on at all, and I didn't know what to do. Will had never acted like this before, and I had never dealt with a mustard stain!
I decided to go to the room my brother and I shared (where he was undoubtedly hiding), so I bounded down the hall and knocked on the door in an attempt of civility.
"Uh, Will?" I asked timidly, not wanting another fight with my brother.
But when no answer came, aggravation started to plague my emotions. My brother never ignored me unless I was being unfathomably irritating, and at the moment I was being very pleasant, all things considered, so I opened the door myself, not particularly caring if he was angry. To my surprise, however, Will wasn't even there to be angry. He had left! I noticed now that his window was open (I knew there was a reason I hated first-story bedrooms!) and deduced that he had climbed out of it and into the alley that was next to our house.
"Well this is just great," I said to myself, still angry at him, but now also worried. Will had never run away before; it just wasn't in his nature. Something had to be really wrong for him to take off like that, out a window without telling anyone, without telling me! We told each other everything; that's just how it was, that's how it had always been, and that's how I expected it to be forever, but now I felt like that might not always be the case.
Consequently, because I had so much on my mind, I forgot the fact that I had the contents of an extremely messy sandwich all over my clothes and that I had a mountain of homework waiting for me, and sat down on the couch and didn't move for two hours. That's when Will walked through the front door with a look on his face that I can only describe as completely and thoroughly ashamed and hurt. I hadn't even realized I had been sitting there for so long, but when I looked up at my brother I noticed that it had grown dark outside, and that prompted me to take a peek at a clock.
"Hey Will," I said politely, flashing him the look that he had so creatively dubbed the "I-can-get-you-to-do-whatever-I-want-you-to" look that did just that, got people to do whatever I wanted them to.
"Davy..." Will started, but immediately looked down.
"Will, are you okay? What's going on?" I inquired, forgetting that I was angrier at my brother than I had ever been in my entire life.
"I'm sorry that I yelled at you today, Davy," Will replied, but he still seemed annoyed and bored.
"Yeah and...?" I asked, prompting him to keep going.
Will sighed loudly, expressing his annoyance before he continued.
"Davy, I'm almost five years older than you. No offense, but I don't always want to hang around with my little brother. I'm not trying to make you mad or anything, but I just want to do things with my friends more often than I want to do things with a twelve year old, which, in my opinion, is pretty normal," Will said, raising his voice more the longer he talked until he was yelling at me.
After this spontaneous rant, he stalked off into our room and I didn't talk to him again until after school the next day. At that point, I didn't even expect him to speak to me much when he picked me up, which is exactly what happened. I was beginning to feel like I didn't even know my brother anymore, and therefore didn't talk to him nearly as much as I always had.
Those few months had changed my life so significantly that I felt like there was a large, gaping hole in my chest, like I had physically lost the brother that I cherished more than most people would think possible, especially for a boy of a mere twelve years. Will would always be my big brother, and I would always love him more than anything, but I felt that we could no longer be as we always had, and that it was no longer possible for us to share the strongest bond possible. I found myself hoping and praying that he was at least happier now. Will still picked me up from school (most of the time) and took care of me more than most brothers knew how to, but it felt impossible to consider him my best friend or the person that I was closest to any longer, and this realization ripped the hole in my heart even wider. I knew that Will still loved me and that I would always be able to count on him for anything, but that fall I (quite painfully) discovered that sometimes people, especially brothers, grew apart, no matter how close they had once been.