Dear Scott,

I know you think therapy is bullshit, so as a caveat before I get started, I think it might just be that therapy is bullshit for YOU.

I can't remember if you said that, actually. So I don't know if that's actually true or not, but I could see how you would think so. You, specifically. Therapy really doesn't seem like your deal. All talk/no action. But it's been pretty good for me. I'm starting to think it would be pretty good for everybody else in this stupid family, because in the absence of real, actual therapists, it seems like people always come to ME. Turns out I'm not always good for it.

Anyway, my therapist says that sometimes when things are really shitty and for whatever reason I can't actually talk to the person I want to talk to, I should just talk to them anyway. Just write a letter. Don't send it or anything, just write it. Actually, I get the idea that it's kind of important NOT to send it. She says I should burn it, if I think that would be cathartic. Or just seal it up and not look at it for like a year or something and come back to it later on. I've burned a few letters to Mom. I wrote one to Dad that I actually wound up sending, for Father's Day. There's a couple for you that I've got sealed up and stuck in the back of my calculus textbook. I guess you're never gonna know about those, because you're never gonna know about this one, either.

So, Spring Break.

I don't need to tell you how it all shook out, because you're never going to actually read this, so long story short: John's a drug addict.

I mean like a real actual legitimate DRUG ADDICT, with a drug addiction, which is an addiction to drugs.

I can't seem to write that out in a way that makes it make sense.

Maybe that's the problem? Because I still can't even believe that. He said it's been a year and a half. He's been like this for a year and a half and no one ever noticed. I thought I was keeping an eye on everybody, but this just came out of nowhere. I had no idea there was anything going on with him.

I guess you were right. I guess that's something I should put down in black and white, here and now, because you were right. This is not a fun spring break, it's a really shitty spring break. I've ruined three spring breaks for three separate people, but the scarier thought is what could have happened if I hadn't come out here. Or if I'd come out here without Gordon. You were wrong about that part, thank fuck I brought Gordon. Gordon's the one who figured out what's going on, which is that John is a drug addict with a drug addiction.

I don't want to talk about the details, I just want to talk about how it all feels. It feels awful and surreal and terrifying and like it shouldn't be happening and like we're doing all the wrong things to try and deal with it. He nearly overdosed on Friday night. I don't know how that works. I don't know if there's a hard line there, if you can have an ALMOST-overdose. It seems to me like you either go over that line or you don't. I don't know. We should've gone to the hospital, but he didn't want to and I didn't know what to do and Gordon seemed to think we could just keep an eye on things and ride it out. So I guess that's what we did but it still feels wrong that we did it. I should have called an ambulance but I called Gordon instead. I just didn't know what it was. I didn't think it was drugs.

I don't know anything about drugs.

Gordon knows a lot about drugs. I guess John probably does too. John always knows a lot about everything. John sure acts like he's an expert about fucking around with Adderall. I guess one and a half years of fucking around with Adderall is enough to make an expert.

We threw out like a hundred pills and he still had more!

We got all the way out of Boston and John brought more fucking drugs!

And then he TOOK MORE FUCKING DRUGS!

And now he's all wired up again, and it's like I can't unsee it. Now that I know the reasons, it changes everything I thought I liked about him. I hate the way it makes him act. I can't believe he did this.

We are two miles from the car and the car is six miles from a hospital and I don't even know how an ambulance could get out here if we needed one and I still don't know that we won't need one, because he took more of his stupid fucking drugs.

I don't know. I hate how much I don't know about any of this. I want Dad. He'd be furious, but he'd know what to do. He'd just fix everything and we wouldn't be stuck out here in the middle of fucking nowhere, watching John fucking crash again.

I wish YOU were here. You'd be better than Dad, even. I don't know what you know about drugs and I don't know what you know about John, but maybe you'd know what we should do. I really just want to call and tell you what happened, but mostly I just wish this wasn't my problem.

It shouldn't be my problem.

It's not fucking fair. I don't really HAVE any major problems. I keep on top of all my shit. Sometimes it seems like the only problems I ever have in my life are other people's fucking problems.

He's supposed to be my brother, he's not supposed to be my problem.

The pen blots ink on the page as Virgil writes the last word, a smudge of black that happens because his hand has frozen, in the act of the same realization that came with the writing.

He's not a problem, he's my brother.

He's written his way through all the fear and frustration, poured his heart out into Scott's absence, and gotten down to the bedrock of a hard, immutable truth. This is his brother, drugs or not. Actively tweaking or in withdrawal, either way, it's still John. Whether Virgil had been able to tell, and even now that he can, that doesn't change the fact that Virgil keeps shying away from actually helping him; from actually treating him like a person who deserves his help. There's no excuse for that, and it's time he put a stop to it. Time he started to try harder.

He closes his sketchbook, but leaves it on the top of the bed. He texts his father to let him know they've arrived safely at their destination, and as an afterthought, texts Scott to say the same. He doesn't tell either of them anything else; it's not his right, and it's not time yet. He leaves his phone on top of his sketchbook, and picks up the little aspirin bottle.

It feels light and small in his hand, and the rattle of pills within it is hollow against all the empty space. It's far from full. It would be a fairly simple matter to take it to the bathroom and flush its contents down the toilet. Or to go outside and throw it into the sea. But he doesn't. John had asked him not to, and it's time he started actually listening to his brother. Instead he drops it back into his pocket, and goes to join his brothers in the kitchen.

He probably owes each of them an apology.