A quick intake of breath, and I'm awake again. I can't help but groan with pain. My arm's missing. It was lying on the ground below, probably just to spite me. I have a new arm now. It's robotic...when I was a kid, that would've been awesome. Now, it's just massively painful and less than awesome...I'm surprised I can still think. The throbbing in my head has been going on since I crashed, and when they cut off my arm, it worsened.
I didn't realize that a cut off limb would affect a head ache. 'Course I never did give it much thought. Who does think about that? But, as I hang here gasping for breath, trying to survive this pain, there is something I have been giving some thought to: my relationship with my brother.
It hasn't been the best. And that's if your an optimist. I kinda hated him. Notice the past tense. Hey! See, Mr. Steinbeck! I did pay attention in English! I know the tenses!
I chuckle, I'm talking to myself, in my thoughts. 'Monologuing,' if you will. My chuckle turns into another groan. Kurt....
Yeah, now that I'm trying to endure excruciating pain, after crashing while trying to better him, do I realize that I didn't really hate him. And I needed him. Right now. Hot tears are starting to course down my face. I'm crying. I can't even remember the last time I cried. I can't stop them, either. I'm not sobbing...but, I'm still crying. And it feels really good.
Where is Kurt? Why can't he come and get me? Does he even want to? I wouldn't blame him if he didn't. But, he had always taken care of me when I needed him most! C'mon! I'm with the Drones, who would want to risk their lives to save my lame excuse of a living body? They probably think I'm dead, anyway.
I choke on a sob. They can't think that! I need them to come get me! I need Kurt to come get me! I take back all of the hateful, bitter, and resentful thoughts I had for him. So he didn't know that CLYP was actually the bad side all those years ago! How long ago was it, anyway? My head drops a little lower as I force my exhausted brain to think. It feels like ten years ago. But it wasn't, was it? More like three years.
My tears keep on coming. I practically told him I hated him that day in the Ice Realm. Right after he saved my life. And right before. He was so worried, and I was so scared. I was so confused, too. What was I supposed to think? I used to be a pretty trusting kid. Well, sorta.
My mind starts drifting through the years. Ever since I can remember, I was a tag-along. I was the kid who wanted to follow my brother and his friends everywhere. When they went to the park to play some ball, or just sit in on their conversations when they talked. I never had a real reason to do that. They were all six to eight years older than me. All I know though, is that I wanted to know what made them cool.
Yeah, I know it was annoying to them. At least, I found out when Kurt decided to tell me to stop following them. Man, that practically broke my heart. Is that weird for a guy like me to say that? That when told 'no' he didn't know what to do with himself? That seems ridiculous right now...and, at the same time, not.
So, now I'm officially labeled 'annoying little brother'. Or, how about, 'annoying little tag-a-long'? No one actually called me that, and, eventually, Kurt didn't seem to mind me hanging out with them again. But, somewhere, immediately after that, my mind subconsciously decided that I couldn't be friends with Kurt's friends, and Kurt couldn't be friends with my friends. How does that reasoning sound? Well, well, well...it looks like my bitterness toward Kurt started at a young age.
Now, later in life, things weren't quite so 'unfriendly' between me, Kurt, and his friends. But, I still couldn't-still can't-become very good friends with them. He had told me, from time to time, that they thought I was an awesome kid. But, that never really did help things. I still viewed myself as the tag-a-long.
And as such, I was suddenly finding that I had a hard time having my own, individual, identity. Especially when Kurt started racing professionally. Then, though it was probably paranoid thinking, it felt like everyone was my friend because I was Kurt's brother. That was a new title. "Oh, you're Kurt's brother," yup. Sure am. I was proud of him. Really. But, it seemed that I was an individual only to my family. To everyone else, Kurt's little brother. Yeah. Great.
Even with that in mind, and with a seemingly unquenchable thirst for someone to recognize, and think of me as a unique individual, someone with no other title but my name, I still followed him. I still played the role of the tag-a-long, the little brother who wanted to know what made his big brother and friends so cool.
It was a breath of fresh air, though, when, after being yelled at by Kurt, Vert Wheeler came up to me and approached me for a spot on the Wave Rippers. It was a moment of individuality for me. And then, Vert, a guy a few months younger than me, became a hero to me. Because then, I was acknowledged as Mark Wylde. Not 'Kurt's little brother.'
Things started to be a little better after that. But, I still had those other titles hanging over me. And then that day in the Ice Realm, it came out more than it ever had. More than my passive aggressive ways I had ever used before.
Another chuckle escapes me. I had always been my way to yell and openly act out my anger. But then there were those few times when something bugged me, but it had bugged me for so long, I couldn't react loudly. But quietly. Almost with more potent anger.
That day, I was too in love with my new found uniqueness. I guess I figured, if I forgive him, I'd lose that.
Even when I did come around to forgiving him, I still was doing my best to hold on to that.
There was one other time I let all of that former resentment come out. When I went to jail. With that old man talkin' to me, and my own bitterness toward it, it just came out. I guess that's when my 'hate' really developed.
But, right now, I realize that I focused too much on being an individual. And if I didn't focus so much on that, and wasn't so self-centered, and arrogant, I probably wouldn't be in this mess.
That's it. That's my breaking point. I can't hold them back now. Sobs wrack my body, causing more pain to my arm, making my sobs some times turn into pained screams. I want it all to end. I want to get away from this. This darkness that seems to be matching all of that bitterness and anger that's melting away. The only difference, when I'm done crying, the darkness will still be there, and I'll still be hanging here.
And I'll have plenty more time to think. To figure out why I did what I did, all my life. How I acted. And how that affects the reason no one will even think of trying to come for me. Not even Kurt. I hated him too deeply for him to even still care for me. I guess even a brother's care can only last for so long. All because of my stupid resentment.