Prologue

If anyone had ever told me I’d end up living with a veteran of war because my parents had been murdered by my brother I never would have believed them. And if they had told me the veteran would be one of the best, most accepting people I’d ever met in my life…well…I wouldn’t believe that much either. Nevertheless, it is the truth. Jacob fought in a war; barely surviving it seems from the scars telling a story all over his face. I don’t know what war it was, or why he would have volunteered for it but he did and it changed him.

I know, it doesn’t seem like I should be the one to be able to say that, not having known him before. At times though, it seems like I can see small slivers of the man he was before he saw all the violence and bloodshed. Maybe that’s the reason he agreed to adopt a seventeen year old with a “troublesome condition”. Maybe he had always wanted kids, maybe he’d had kids, and due to the effect the war had on his life he lost them to his former wife or something. Although I’ve never seen any sign that Jacob has ever been anything but alone until I arrived, his house baron and nearly empty of furniture, something we both prefer.

He intrigues me in a way that no one else ever has, other than my brother. They’ve both killed people. They both made choices that would change the course of their lives and the lives of others forever. I guess you could say in the end I’m kind of in love with Jacob, and I always wanted to be the kind of man that him or my brother were…My brother didn’t end up being the man I thought he was though, not at all.

I wish I could explain why Crane felt the need to kill my parents, why he felt the need to try to kill me but I truly can’t think of a reason. Up until that moment, I had thought my life was perfect, that everything was going to be great forever.

I was evidently sorely mistaken about that. In fact, I can safely say I had never been more wrong about anything in my life.

It wasn’t that there weren’t signs that my brother was a raging psychopath, now that I’ve had time to think about it. I’ve had time to process the events of that morning, the way he acted up until those final moments of my parents lives and I don’t know why I was at all surprised.

Crane was your standard, every day, average psycho. He was the type of person you hear about on the news, who all of a sudden flies into a rage and kills everyone. You constantly hear the same thing over and over again, and believe me I heard it. “He was so quiet.” “He kind of kept to himself.” “He had lots of friends though; we never knew he would do something like this.”

I remember, he just kept screaming repeatedly, the same words again and again. “How could you?!” “How could you?!” I don’t know what they could have done to him, as far as I know they treated him just as well as they did me. Hell, they treated him better than they did me. After all, he was the straight son.

Jacob always tells me that I might not know the whole story, that there might be things I don’t know. All I can remember though is that look, its there when I close my eyes, those words so filled with pain ringing in my ears. He killed them, I found him in their room waving a gun around so erratically I knew then that we were all going to die. I of course tried to stop him and he slammed me against the wall, so hard that it knocked the air right out of my lungs.

Crane told me not to interfere, before the gun struck me across the face and I don’t remember anything else.

I woke up and they were dead, police were everywhere and my older brother was being dragged away in hand cuffs.

None of it made sense, absolutely none of it.

I barely had time to process anything that happened in the weeks that followed, I was shipped away to my aunt, but she didn’t know how to deal with me. I’m a hard person to deal with; I tend to talk to myself. I tend to slam my head off hard surfaces when things don’t make sense, and I really don’t like messes.

Jacob took me in soon after that and I’ve had nothing but bliss, despite the trial that followed. His apartment as I mentioned before is almost completely free of furniture, and he is compulsive about cleaning just like me. I’m sure it has something to do with him having been in the military, that sort of efficiency along with having been to war and in his words “never feeling clean again”.

If you asked me how he even found me I wouldn’t be able to tell you, he was named in my parents will as the person who would be my caretaker but I don’t know how they knew him. My father was never in the military, and he’s just the slightest bit too old to be one of Crane’s friends although he did tell me that he’d known mum and dad since he was five.

Sometimes I wish I had the courage to ask him questions about my life, about what’s going to happen to me in the end when the trial is over and the will has been finalized. I was told it would last the length of the trial but there’s no telling what would happen to me after.

I still remember how happy he was to see me when I was first brought to his house. He had wrapped his arms around me, and I had been so shocked I had done nothing. I hated being touched but there was something about him, which made me feel so alive. It had shaken me out of my stupor and revitalized a part of me I don’t think existed after my childhood ended.

I remember being scared of his smile at first because it was so grisly set in a mask of scars that ran parallel to his lips, cutting across his upper lip and again across the bridge of his nose, looping up onto one eyelid causing it to droop. I remember noticing soon after that despite the worn jeans, and even more worn army green fatigue jacket that he had perfect teeth. It was comforting to me, dental hygiene after all is very important.

Jacob gets me. He gets why for some reason I feel the need to hum incessantly, or move constantly. He doesn’t mind when I get upset and have to lock myself in my closet to be able to calm down again. Sometimes he even comes in and sits beside the door so I can hear him singing softly through it.

I often feel myself wanting to ask him if he’ll let me stay after the trial, if he’ll let me stay after I’ve turned eighteen.

I really don’t know what he would do if he knew that I’m trying to find out what has truly happened within my family, or that I’m trying to find out how the hell he knows anyone I know because we’re definitely not from the same class system or background.

The only theory I can come up with is something bad was going to happen, whether Crane reacted badly to any situation with my parents or not. For some reason my father trusted Jacob enough to let his youngest son live with him, and I won’t stop until I find my answers.

It’s terrible I know, that I’m willing to possibly tear someone else’s life apart to get the answers I need, to get to the truth.

Jacob will grow to understand though, and if he doesn’t there’s really nothing I can do about that. I wish I could tell him before I begin my search but for some reason the words just won’t leave my lips.

Oh, before I forget, my name is Aidan and if you’re reading this perhaps I’ve found the answers I am looking for. It’s an interesting eventuality; I might even be dead for all I truly know.

If this is Jacob reading this, I’m sorry. I know what I’m about to do will hurt you more than I could ever begin to bear, and I only hope you’ll find it in your heart to somehow forgive me for my transgressions. Even though you don’t have family I know you see me as some bizarre family member who you can’t quite shake, who exasperates you and is at times annoying but brings something more.

I’m sorry for being one of the reasons for the lines which appear daily around your eyes. I’m sorry that you’ve been through something terrible and that it might only get worse from her and please understand that it was never my intention to do this to you. It was never my intention to wreck the small sliver of happiness we manage to find when we share the same space, whether it be something as large as the house we live in or when we share the couch together.

I need to find out what drove Crane to that point, need to know what happened when I was knocked unconscious and why whenever I leave the house someone follows me around. I know it’s not my typical paranoia either, because you’ve noticed them too haven’t you Jacob? There’s a reason you now follow me to whatever store I go to, no matter where I’m going and you’ve started to drive me to school.

My question is, why won’t you tell me what is happening? Or, if something has happened to me, why wouldn’t you tell me the truth before?

~Aidan Glorane