by C.L.

A handsome young man stands before me in a dimly lit kitchen. Tall, now strikingly slender with a tamed afro of curly blond hair surrounding a beautiful face speckled with freckles. In the previous years, a splash of inviting charm beamed from his clear, icy blue eyes. Now, he is nervous, embarrassed almost. His two thumbs wrap around each other again and again, not knowing what else to do with them. His eyes jerk back and forth, always looking at the ground. I lean my head down and finally lock my eyes into his. A glossy red haze clouds his vision. What seems like hundreds of tiny, bright red veins zigzag up to his pinpoint pupils. My brother is no longer standing in front of me. I am looking at a stranger with slurred speech and bloody track marks.

A brother is a protector. He is there to put his buddies in line when they start making moves on his little sister. He is there to convince you that the world is fair and always beautiful. He makes all of his little sister’s worries disappear. There are no monsters under the bed when big brother is around. Nothing can ever be wrong. Nothing can ever be scary. Nothing can ever cause pain. A brother is there to tell his little sister that she is beautiful no matter what anyone says. He is there to listen to every story she has to tell, even if the stories are pointless. A brother would never dare lay a hand on his little sister or hurt her in any way. He gives a million hugs and a million kisses. Most importantly, a big brother is there to love his little sister unconditionally. Four years ago, this was the description that fit my brother.

Michael has lived for sixteen years. He bounces around the hallways of his high school, now a big, bad sophomore. Known for his crazy, curly blond hair, his plump self is content, always whistling tunes that echo down the long hallways. His infectious smile radiates warmth and love. Sports were never my brother’s calling. Football and wrestling always haunted his days. Michael wants to perform. With fingers scattering across the frets of a shiny black guitar, a voice with beautiful pitch escapes from his lungs. Michael lives to see his talents make goose bumps rise on the skin of his listeners. My brother has goals. My brother has friends. My brother has happiness. How could anything ever take that away?

My brother has still been living for a mere sixteen years. An older neighbor boy up the street keeps coming around. With dark hair, dark eyes, dark clothes, and a dark soul, Brian has a plan. He has a friend who goes by the name of heroin. As the white powder leaves his pocket, a lump of green paper replaces it. In the deepest part of Brian’s eyes, a dollar sign lays silent, feeding on the young and naive. Brian rapidly pulls Michael into his web, as though the wind blew him straight into the white sticky strands of a spider’s home. Brian himself is a drug to my brother. With every passing day, my brother walks into our house with increasing conceitedness. When seen with Brian, Michael thinks he sees envy in the eyes of those who stare. His guitar remains mute leaning in the corner, collecting dust. His voice stays hidden, never vibrating from his vocal cords. The smell of smoked cigarettes and marijuana burns in my nostrils. I am instantly not cool enough to even be in my brother’s presence.

I am fifteen years old, and my innocent and naive self is starting to open her eyes. The ugly part of the world starts to shine just as bright as the beautiful part. Everywhere I look, I can see corruption. Pollution colors the air black. Litter leaves the ground dirty and dead. Money is constantly in circulation. If one does not have money to contribute to the flow, he or she sits with no possessions, no food, and no shelter. A warm stench of alcohol slurs from my father’s mouth and a disgusting chemical begins to lick my brother’s veins with Brian quietly lurking in the background.

Michael is almost seventeen. For an early birthday gift, he decides to make a date with heroin. Heroin is an opiate that releases dangerous amounts of the hormone dopamine when taken.

In my brother’s words, “A heroin high is like taking your greatest orgasm and multiplying it by a million.” When extremely high levels of dopamine are released, the receptors in the brain become damaged. When sober, a heroin addict cannot feel common happiness. No longer will pleasure stem from eating, sleeping, winning an award, having sex, etc. The only way a heroin addict can ever feel happiness again is by letting the drug play with the flowing bloodstream.

Michael is seventeen now. It seems as though he quit his job of being my brother for what seems like a lifetime. Walking into his dark, blue-striped room, the feeling of a young happy boy escapes from the thick, smudged windows. What remains is a sleeping lump of a monster. Struggling to breathe in and out, my brother’s bed is all he sees when heroin is not coiling around his bones. He is riding a dangerous roller coaster. Michael goes up, up, up, letting the high take over his entire being. After the peak is reached, he goes down, down, down, crashing hard into the deepest pits of hell. He is a walking zombie, sleeping for twenty-six hours at a time. He neglects his job, school work, friends, hobbies, and most importantly, his family.

My brother is eighteen. He never stops hanging out with his girlfriend, heroin. They have a strange relationship. Heroin is taking his life away, but Michael does not seem to care. His friends, family, and sanity are slipping away, but he does not seem to notice. His mind acts like a ticking clock, except he does not hear ticking. “Where is my next hit? Where is my next hit?” plays and replays in his head.

It is now my sophomore year in high school. On a Tuesday after school, I drive down the road listening to John Mayer, creating little tornadoes of orange, red, and brown leaves as my car zooms past. I pull up my driveway and use a nifty gadget attached to my rear-view mirror to open the garage. The driver’s side door angrily swings open, sending little flakes of rust fluttering toward the cement. John Mayer’s voice abruptly stops and is replaced by loud yelling coming from inside my house. I curiously walk through my garage and cautiously open the door. The yelling becomes louder, pounding in my ears. My dad, mom, and brother are standing around our kitchen table, faces red and neck veins bulging. My sudden presence draws no attention. Michael has stolen. Hiding in the cast shadows of the night, he reaches for my parents’ money and snatches every last dollar. While looking nervously over his shoulder, Michael swipes my mother’s bank card out of her black leather purse and withdraws the money she tirelessly works for. I escape to my room and find my belongings disheveled. Where are my nice necklaces? Where are my diamond earrings? Where is my money? Where has my brother gone?

My brother is nineteen years old. He is tired, worn, and broken. The puffy black bags under his eyes seem as though they weigh twenty pounds each. Perched upon the purple sheets of my bed, he looks at me with defeat. A recurring dream has left him suicidal.

“In my dream, I startle awake in my bed and look at my dresser. There is a massive glass vase sitting there. The vase is overflowing with heroin. I can’t even describe to you the happiness I feel when I see it. Right after, I wake up and realize that it’s not there. When that bowl of heroin goes away C—-, so does my desire to live.”

It is a few days after I realize Michael no longer wants to live. A short-sleeved maroon t-shirt is hanging on his shoulders. The contours of his collarbones are visible through the old cotton. Leaning down to shake his dying curls, his spine stretches against his skin, threatening to break through. I look at his thin face and down to the crease of his arm. Huge bruises turn his pale skin purple and black. A tiny red dot stands out in the middle of each massive bruise. With dozens of bleeding track marks, I look up to his eyes with sadness. Realization washes over his face.

With eyes now falling to the floor, he mutters, “I forgot to cover them up.”

I have been alive for eighteen years. The night sweeps sleep over the forest outside my window and most of my house. I tiptoe past my mother’s room with the intention of finding sleep like the rest. A faint whisper of cries escapes through the cracks of my mother’s bedroom door. I gently turn the golden knob of her door and let the light from her bedside lamp wash over my face. She looks up with mascara streaming from her tearing, beautiful blue eyes. Taking a seat next to her, I rub her back and ask her what is making the sadness fall from her lashes.

“I failed as a mother, C—-. I failed your brother. What did I do to make him turn to something so terrible,” she forced out as her cries choked off her next sentence.

“Mom you didn’t fail anyone. Mike is just going down the wrong path right now. He needs help. He can bounce back from this,” I offer with false hope.

My mother is no fool. “Your brother cannot be saved,” she said to me with excruciating pain. With the nod of my head and a kiss on her cheek, I silently leave her room. Her cries scream in my ears for the following nights. My family has ripped at the seams.

Today, Michael is twenty and four years deep into his relationship with a monster. The track marks have disappeared from his inner arm, but I know that does not mean much.

“I haven’t done heroin for three months.” He tells me as if I am supposed to believe him.

“I haven’t talked to Brian for at least four months.” His word erodes away like the bend of a river.

“I haven’t even seen heroin in eight months.” He pleads as a syringe lays silent and dirty in the middle console of his green Buick.

The lies fall from my brother’s month like vomit. His word means as much to me as a chunk of dirt. Heroin has shredded my brother’s life to pieces. Each time the sun rises, a hopeful sensation washes over me. I think to myself, “Maybe today my brother will break up with heroin.” That hope washes away as soon as I see Michael’s guitar, still sitting in the corner, neck deep in dust.

Works Cited

L., Michael. Personal Interview. 1 Oct. 2012.

L., S. Personal Interview. 1 Oct. 2012