Rumor has it I was a screamer. I guess not rumor since my parents were actually there when I was born and have stood by this story for as long as I can remember, but who knows. The umbilical cord got wrapped around my neck and the doctors were worried I wouldn't be able to breathe, if I was even still alive. But no. I screamed, despite my mother trying to silence me. The beginning of a long road.
I was cleaned off and my father went out into the hall to bring my brother, Alex, in to meet me. My mother was holding me when I first met my brother. I was barely a minute old and wouldn't be able to remember seeing Alex even if I could see, but I swear I remember. His blue eyes locked into mine and we understood we were all we would have in life. In that instant, we were connected, by something deeper than blood.
"Do you have a name for the birth certificate?" one of the nurses asked.
"Yes," my mother responded. "Rachel Marie Mercer."
I screamed immediately, hating the name the moment it came from my mother's lips. (Honestly, I was a way smarter 10-minute-old than anyone gives me credit for.) Much to my chagrin, I had not yet learned to protest with words, and that became my name.
He never told me so because he would never take credit for it, but I know Alex raised me. My parents were too wrapped up in their lives to care much about us. To be fair, I was fed, I had a roof over my head, and got a good education, but that's the bare minimum. Everything else I had in life, Alex gave me. So when he died, it was impossible to believe I would survive.
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Sunset to Sunrise (A Julie and the Phantoms Fanfiction)
FanfictionRachel Mercer thought she would go through life with her brother, Alex. Until he died. 25 years later, Rae has learned to cope with her brothers death. Stories she tells her children keeps him alive and a single photograph in her hallway is the only...
