I flipped up my laptop screen and began typing.
A Killer’s End
I know how this has to end. It won’t be fun, but living between sanity and insanity ain’t no picnic. I’ve done things I never thought I was capable of doing, and I’m hurting more people. I hurt my mom, the one person who’s off-limits. I hurt her. Worse, I scared her. She must be losing her mind right now. I have no choice but to end things. The longer I let David be part of me, the more hurt I’ll inflict.
I. Am. Done.
I stared at the journal entry.
“I don’t hurt you.”
“Yeah, sure, and Santa Claus is real.”
“We’re both as real as you need us to be.”
The sooner I got him out of my head, the better.
I continued to write.
There’s no pill big enough to choke him. David’s been with me since I was five, or at least that’s my earliest recollection of him. He was there with me in the dark, locked closet when Branson wet himself and I had to be the big brother, the protector. David was mine. But he’s not protecting me anymore. I’m a ticking time bomb here.
A part of me is afraid that I have the same shit Branson has. It’s terrifying.
David broke through. “What’s terrifying about it?”
“Everything. I mean, seeing Branson have his moments, his breaks. Not fun.”
The only way to ignore David was to write.
I’ve tried so hard not to be like Branson. Seeing my brother in that hospital and the lack of control he had over his life was fucked up. His inability to have control over his thoughts was scary. Then the hospital cut him off from the real world. He didn’t have access to basic shit, like a cell phone. I think that scared the shit outta me more than anything. It was like they kept him hostage. The hospital decides who’s freed and who remains locked up. Fuck that.
I can’t be like him. It’s why I don’t do street drugs. I don’t want something to trigger a psychotic break. That’s what they called it when it happened to Branson, a psychotic break.
All the people who stayed in the hospital were a mess. One day this one girl died like right after I got there. I walked past her room and she was pearl white. It wasn’t like anything I’d ever seen. She was like one of those glass China dolls that Carson used to collect. It was freaky as fuck. I wasn’t even thinking about death or that Branson could die from this. I went into his room and we just bawled our eyes out.
My cell rang with an incoming call. Branson. I let it go straight into voice mail.
“Your mom isn’t coming for you. She sent Branson.”
“Fuck you.” I shook my head. “You don’t know that. It could be one of those twin things, like when we were in high school and I knew something was wrong, so I called him and his girlfriend told me he had fallen off his moped and skinned up his side real badly. It’s a twin thing. That’s all it is.”
His laughter mocked me.
“Your mom will never come for you. You may be the firstborn twin, but you’re not her first priority.”
I hate you.
My phone chimed with a text from the seller I’d contacted. He had the gun I needed, and since it was a private sale, there was no background check required. There were so many loopholes in gun laws that my little brother, Jack, could walk into a pawn shop, and if they weren’t a licensed dealer, he could walk away with a gun. Okay, maybe not a gun. But if he was twenty-one he could.
The thought of my little brother put a lump in my throat.
He’ll be better off. It’s better to feel pain than to have others endure it.
I refocused my attention to the text and responded that our meeting in two hours was still on. This time I wouldn’t draw attention to myself. I grabbed my backpack and left my apartment like it was any other school day.