Title;Amber’s sky
Rating: M for language and suicide (possibly sexual situations in future chapters)

Summary; It was that Wednesday that changed everything. Suddenly the security blanket of being no one was pulled away when he was gone. My brother was dead.

Notes; I have wanted to write this story for a year now, but haven't felt mature enough to do the story justice. It has as much to do with personal growth, growing up, as it has with grieving. So don't let it scare you off! Also remember; this is a story written in first person, so don't rely on everything this person tells you! ;) Hope you read and enjoy, and if you like it- tell me, if not- tell me why? )

“Can you dream of a place you’ve never visited?” That was what he asked me as soon as he stepped into the room that Wednesday morning before I had to go to school. He barely looked at me through his thick glasses, just headed straight for the coffee pot with cold coffee.

“I don’t know, ” I stared at his back as he reached for his pink cup in the sink and poured coffee into it, “why do you ask?” He drummed his fingers against the surface of the working bench, looking at the wooden cupboards.

“I had a dream,” he explained with a smile as he turned around. When he wore his glasses his eyes always looked bigger than they were, but it was only when he took them off that I could see that his eyes were a light soft brown. Silently he sat down next to me by the table and smacked his lips loudly a few times and then stretched his arm to get the newspaper.

His name was James, and he was four years older than me, always has, always will. It was a law in this house that he would always be the smartest, the nicest and the best child a parent could have. He lived up to these expectations by wearing glasses too big for his small nose, too short pants and too big shirts, he constantly looked up facts on wikipedia, correcting those he knew was wrong. Ever since he got the genius stamp at the age of five he’s been living up to everyone’s expectations until he became them.

But when he was with me, the dynamics changed, he wasn’t the geek anymore, he wasn’t a genius, he was only my brother James. For years we had shared our dreams while sitting by the kitchen table in the mornings while waiting for the school bus to arrive. His dreams were so vivid and full of actions that we had once missed the bus because we were so into his dream. But during the last year those days had faded, and he would sit all day at the kitche table reading the newspaper.

Ever since he found out that we couldn’t afford college because of mortages he had studied even harder in hope that he would get a scolairship, but when the time came he couldn’t show them exactly why he should be given the scolairship, so it was given to someone else. College after college let him down untill it was only the community college left, and he had all his life promised that he would never go there, ever, and he kept his promise.

Our neighbour, Jeanie, had packed all of her things and left for college right in front of his eyes, and there was not a thing that could be done to make him hurt less.

“What was the dream about?” I asked him as he took a sip of the cold coffee, but he didn’t spit it out like he always used to do, pulling his chair back and shaking his head in disgust. This time he swallowed it without even tasting it.

“A lot of things,” he said coldly before putting his pink cup down and looking at me straight through thick glasses that hid the colour of his eyes. I sighed and leaned back in my chair as I watched him. It had changed him, the last year. Mom blaimed it on growing up, dad blaimed it on him still acting like a kid. It was hard not knowing who to believe or if to believe.

“Can you pass me the butter?” I asked him when he had resumed to reading the newspaper, he grunted before quickly giving me the butter.

“Don’t you have school?” James asked sighing as he turned the page.

“Yeah, but I need to eat breakfast first,” I answered, rolling my eyes as I took a bite of my sandwhich. We had never been close, the two of us. There had always been something between us, but what really separated us was our age. It would always be four years between us that I would never get caught up with, four years of experience I’ve never taken a part of. It had always been four years to many, a distance love could not even make shorter. I wasn’t even sure if he loved me, maybe he cared for me like a brother did, but I never thought he really loved me.

We were so different from one another, only our genes and intellegence brought us together every morning and night by the kitchen table. But besides those times we might as well have been strangers in two different countries. For as long as I’d been alive I had been living in my older brother’s shadow, constantly waiting for the sun to shift so I could take a part of the light. Everything I did he had already done. The jokes had been told, the stories had been written, the drawing had been drawn. I wasn’t new, I was just like James, the only difference was me being a girl. My parents didn’t like repeats, they thrived on new things, so imagine the boredom my mother went through to raise me.

Maybe I should say that I wasn’t exactly planned, I was created by a hole in a condom. Thank god for condoms that break, should be my line, since that was the only reason I excisted. But I knew better than to say that, it was easier to say that it was something cheesy like destiny. And then I can tell you that my brother was planned. Long before mom was even pregnant they had started planning his arrival, picking out cribs, buying books... everything. And then she got pregnant and for nine whole months they waited excitedly for him to arrive. It was exactly like that they told people when they wanted to show how much they loved their children. Then they would ask about me, was I planned too? And then they would shake their smiley faces and say; “no, she was just a pleasant surprise,” and then they would laugh. Pleasant or not, fifteen years after my birth they were trying to think of ways to get rid of me as soon as I graduated.

When I was five and he was nine we both sat outside on the curb, he was dressed in a suit and I in a pink itchy dress. It was the first time someone had told me that he was smart and I was dumb, and it came from his mouth. There was no denying that my brother was smarter than me, he could read much better than me, and he knew what five times five was, but I didn’t. He had flaunted it in my face until mom came out and kissed him on the cheek and then asked if we wanted ice cream.

Sometimes I wondered if life would’ve turned out different if the condom hadn’t broken and I would never have been born. It was obvious that it would’ve, and maybe it would’ve even saved my brother’s life.

Sometimes I doubted I even existed. Conversations were kept over my head on the bus, the contsant shouting and laughing was not something I was a part of. Outside the window houses passed quickly, the people on the bus laughed. A paper ball flew over my head and landed two seats in front of me in a boy’s lap. The boy continued to stare down in his lap, seeminly unfased by what had just happened. The boy’s name was Timmy, and he had done nothing wrong, ever. He was bullied because he existed. He was quite good at sports, doing extraordinary good in school, he was friendly, he did not look bad. But still there was something that caused most people in school to hate him. Maybe I had missed something, but I could no see a reason for it all.

The girl sitting next to me was talking loudly to her friends sitting on the other side of the isle. She, I thought her name was Angela, was one of the “lucky ones” in our school. Her parents were in love, she was rich, she had two older sisters that loved her, she was pretty, she was smart, had a boyfriend who loved her and was liked by everyone. Well, except me. Somewhere in life I had started to hate these overly cheery people that could not understand sadness or disappointment.

My locker was brown. Brown like all the rest of the lockers, the rotten leaf kind of brown. The floor was green, the walls were lockers did not occupy were a musky yellow. I was not new there anymore, and my feet took me automatically to my locker. When I was new here I was lucky to get a locker right there just inside the doors. But when winter came I realized the disadvantadges of having it there. But now when it was spring it was once again comfortable to not have to walk so far to get to my locker.

Two lockers away from mine was Joey Masters’ locker. He was the star of the school’s football team, leading us to victory after victory. It wasn’t so strange that his locker was where the popular crowd hung out before school. They waited for him to arrive, to tell him the latsest news, no matter how big or ridiculously small they were. It was like this I was able to keep track of what was going on in my school. I knew from the first day that the school lunch should be kept in brown bags and not lunchboxes, that wearing ponytails meant that you did not care about your appearances and that freshmens were not people they would talk to. Not that I cared, I liked having my hair in a ponytail, it was comfortable and did not take too long. They obviously did not have a bus to catch every morning at 7 .30 am.

Joey was a big guy, 6’2” and weighing over 200 lbs, towering over everyone else. He was a good looking guy, big blue eyes that were impossible not to miss, plump lips and a very charming smile. But for him there was only one girl; Clair. A beautiful cheerleader that was head-over heals in love with him too. Together they made a perfect couple that made even me jealous – and I didn’t even want a boyfriend. But every time I saw them together something in my heart hurt, like someone was pulling at it rougly, forcing it out of my chest. They had the time of their lives here, and even though everyone watched their every move, it was only them.

But when I thought of their future, the pain in my heart stopped. I felt glad knowing that in a few years time their happiness weren’t going to come this easily, that then there would be sacrafices. It was bad, thinking like that, but it made ite easier for me, knowing that while I was having my battle now would, they would have it later. Battles were healthy, it made you less naive.

That day they were standing around his locker, Joey’s arms were around Clair’s waist, and they were so wrapped up in each other it made me sick. Affection and me did not go hand in hand. Michelle, a short dark haired girl was talking about a girl in Junior year that had appearantly gotten pregnant. That was old news, everyone knew that just by looking at that girl. And just as predicted; Michelle got ignored because of her yesterday’s news.

I slammed my locker shut and walked to class.

Teachers were... what was the word? Boring. They stood in front of the class in the same clothes, or at least very identical clothes. They each had their class, and it seemed that after years and years of teaching them left them unaware of anything outside their class. Algebra, science, they all thought that their class meant the world, not noticing the other doors in the hallways that lead to other classes, and other demanding teachers. And that was also why we got so much homework, or that was at least what I thought.

I had one teacher, Mrs Gravy, no her name wasn’t actually that, but she smelled of gravy all the time and her real name was too strange to be pronnounced. So Gravy it was. She was my English teacher and was contsantly pestering me because ‘she knew I could do better’. I did worse just to spite her, but that did not get me off her case. She had seen great potential in me, like all the teachers, but noticed that I’m slacking. It was easier that way, keeping mediocre grades while living in my brother’s last rays of sunshine. I could not do better than him, I knew that. Because he hadn’t gotten into college I couldn’t either. It was an unspoken rule. It did not bother me really, it gave me reason to slack most of the time. But Gravy took it to a whole new level, constantly calling my house trying to get my parents involved, resulting in a very unispiring pep-talk from my parents. Once she even gave me detention for a minor thing she usually let slip past her attention, but not that day. It was like she was trying to play my mother and discipline me. Hello? I already have a mother Gravy.

I had her in my fourth period, and that day was no different from other days, and why would it be. This time she was talking indirectly to me by talking about comittment in class. It was getting tiresome. In stead of taking notes that day I dres in my notebook, and she held it up so that everyone could see it, showing it off as a reason to why she was talking about comittment. It was a drawing of a girl on a catwalk, it was pretty anatomically correct, but I could do it better. It was the worst she had done ever, she had drawn attention to me who didn’t really exist, who wasn’t supposed to exist. Then she slammed it down in front of me and told me to speak with her after class. I did not get detention, but I would get it if I kept up with what I was doing. I was very close to ‘whatever’, but stepped quietly out of the classroom and back into none-existance.

It was only teachers that saw me, everyone else saw right past me. No friends, no social life. I ran, that was what I did, but I was not on the track team. I liked running, but it was a lonesome sport, you didn’t need company to run. I liked it just because of that. My parents blamed me for not having any friends, just like James didn’t have any. It was ok with James, because he was a genius, but me, I had to have some sort of skill. Social skills was not one of them anyway, and I refused to let my intelligence shine. My brother might not love me, but I loved him enough to know that being the most intelligent in the family meant a lot to him, and I would not take that spot. But sometimes I dreamt of showing up those A+ I knew I could get, sometimes I dreamt of living up to my parents’ expectations and going out to a party and going away from it with ten friends and a popular guy as a boyfriend. But the key word was dreams.

It was quiet in the house when I got home. It was probably because James was sleeping, it was not strange any more that he went to sleep at two ‘o clock on the afternoon, it would scare me more if he hadn’t. But usually the tv was on, or the radio, blasting music or religious crap it was hard to think anyone believed. Not that day anyway. The door slammed shut behind me and I was left alone with my breathing.

The bag falling down on the floor interupted the silence for only a moment, the books spread out of the bag, spilling onto the wooden floor while silence took over again.

I went into the kitchen to make a sanwhich, but when I opened the refridgerator the only thing that stood in there was yougurt. That ass had eaten all the food, I thought angrily, and wanted to shout at him to go shopping, but the thought better of it. He would be so cranky, and I was too cranky myself to deal with him at the moment.

After I’d poured myslef some strawberry yougurt I went into the livingroom and put on the tv that was shut off today. I curled up in a recliner and watched the same show I watched every day after school. My homework could lay in that pile for as long as it wanted, I didn’t care today.

Mom and dad wouldn’t be home until after six, and since James was so good by eating all the food we would have to order in food from one of those stinky restaurants down town. Great, just great. And it would probably be chinese, ‘cause James loved chinese food, but I hated it above everything. Thank you, James, I thought sarcastically and put my now empty bowl on the coffee table.

The show ended an another began. I glanced over into the hallway and caught a glimpse of the green textbook that contained my science homework. Of course I knew that nothing good would come out of pushing it up, but still I couldn’t stand up and walk over there, giving my undivided attention towards my homework. But since I had done most of my homework at school today, there really wasn’t much to do, but still it felt like too much at that time.

I went into the kitchen and filled a glass with water. Outside in the garden the trees were still leave-less, looking dead against the grey background. I slammed with the cupboards, when I took out a glass, hoping to disturb James’ sleep, to wake him and make him angry so that he would get down there. But the cupboard slamming did nothing, neither did the loud stream of water. As I opened my mouth to sing loudly I knew that if this did not do the trick, he was ignoring me for some reason.

“Hit me baby one more time,” I sang as loudly as I could, my voice cracking at getting out of tune very quickly. It was when I was four that I learned that I could not sing, of course I had been devasted then, but then learned that it was the easiest way to annoy my family. Whenever I got mad I did not shout, I started to sing as loudly as I could for as long as I could. It was fun seeing my brother holding his ears just hoping that soon I would run out of steam. But when I stopped fifteen minutes later it was only me and the tv that made a sound, not even him groaning upstairs in relief that I had stopped. He was mad, I concluded, and sat down in the recliner again.

After I while I heavily walked up the stairs, trying not to look at the photos hanging on the wall. In one out of eight photos was of me, the rest were of James, and two were of our whole family. It made me angry every time I walked passed it. It reminded me of how little I was really wanted in this family.

Sometimes in the future I thought that if I had not taken that glass of water I would’ve been spared this sight, the shock. I opened the door to the bathroom, walking up to the toilet without even looking around in the bathroom. It was a big bathroom, fitting a bathtub and a toilet that very easily could house four people at the same time. Quickly I pushed down my pants and underwear. It amazed me for my whole life how I could not have seen it at first, seen the profile behind the shower curtain, seen him. But when I sat there I could see the still profile of a man behind the grey curtain I had always hated, and something was still inside me. It was not realization, because I could not imagine what had actually happened, a part of me though there was a rapist sleeping behind that curtain, and that he had James looked up in his room knocked out. My imagination went crazy there in the few seconds that I sat still on the toilet before I reached out and pulled the shower curtain away.

My brother. My big brother. There he was, staring up at the cracked ceiling, the back of his head against the bathtub. His eyes were stiff, vomit dried on the side of his mouth. It was then I smelt it, the vomit. I looked around the room and saw the vomit under the sink. He was clothed. My brother was in the bathtub, eyes stiff, vomit dried around his mouth and he was clothed. Why was he lying there like that in the bathtub clothed? Why where there pill bottles scattered on the counter surface around the sink? Too many questions circled around my head. Then I saw the knife. It was a knife and there was blood. A lot of blood in the bathtub, staining his jeans and his white shirt. There was no water there was only blood. His hands were bloodly, his arms were bloody, his shirt and jeans were bloody. Why where they bloody?

Someone had killed my brother, a voice in my head shouted. Someone had broke into our house and killed my brother. Who dared to kill my brother? Why my brother?

I felt sick. His eyes were too still, staring at the same spot of nothing in the ceiling, his blood surrounding him like water. I had showered there that morning, I had showered there every morning, and now he was dead. Dead in the place where I lived every day. Gone was the sent of shampoo and clean surfaces, and replaced was the smell of vomit, so strong.

With my pants and underwear still around my ankles I shoved myself off of the toilet and threw up on the floor. He was there, I was there. Like always there was a difference between us, but never had it been so big, so significant. Dead, living. Dead, living.

I was shaking, I felt that now. My whole body was shaking against the cool floor while I was half naked. Who could’ve done this, who could be this cruel? Why did he take my brother? My brother! It was my brother lying there, not some nameless corpse in a movie. He was actually dead. No he could not be dead. Forcing myself off of the floor, I leaned over the bathtub and over him, shaking his shoulders.

“James, James, wake up James,“ I was sure people could sleep with their eyes open in that moment. I shook him harder, his head banged loudly against the bathtub. His eyes were still as before, not moving an inch. “Wake up!” My screaming was so loud that someone must have heard. “Wake up you fucking bastard,” I muttered to him, shaking his body harder and harder, the blood underneeth him splashed, my hands staining with his blood. “God, no, god, no, god, no,” I muttered over and over again, hiding my head in my hands shaking violently. “No!” In my mind everything was jumbled together, nothing made sense anymore.

Where were his glasses? He needed his glasses to see, I thought suddenly, looking around myself. They were in the sink. I stood up and walked over to them, my pants around my ankles. Once his glasses everything would be ok, he would be able to see it was only me and he would wake up again, I thought. Tears were running down my face and I wiped them away, staining my cheeks with blood. He was going to be ok, I thought to myself as I sat down and put on his glasses. But he still stared at the ceiling. What was with the fucking ceiling, I thought, why was the fucking ceiling better than me?

“Please, James,” I begged him, his silence deafening to my ears. “Wake up, James!” I scream again, shoving his body as hard as I could. Tears streamed down my face. He was dreaming, I remembered that morning, he had been dreaming. Where was the place he had dreamed of, I needed to know that so I could go there looking for him. Was it Yale, I knew he wanted to go to Yale more than anything. I could go there, I thought, I would find him there. I would find him and take him home so that he could be mom’s and dad’s little boy again. My big brother, never did I need him more than in than moment.

Someone put their arms around me, pulling me away from James, but I grabbed a hold of the bathtub and tried to fight off the hands, but the person was strong, but I was stronger.

“Fuck James, wake the fucking up!” I screamed louder than before, but I didn’t know if anyone could understand me, I could not make sense of the words coming out of my mouth. I knew what I wanted to say, but I didn’t know if that was what I was syaing.

“James!” I screamed again as someone pried my fingers away from the tub and pulled me out of the room. The fresh air was not a relief, it made me even more sick. It was cold out there. The front door was open. I needed to puke. I threw up on someone’s shirt. My brother was dead. Someone killed my brother.