Broken Pieces (Jai Brooks)

Chapter 15

"Luke, I want to go home." Jai cried to his older twin later that night. Luke was stunned, Jai had been the one to insist on going to Australia to start with.

"You know we can't do that, Jai. We only just got here. What would mum think if we just suddenly left. She already blames herself for Michael?"

"She could have been happy with him, couldn't she?" Jai asked, ignoring Luke's logic.

"Maybe. You would've never felt safe coming home ever again, though." Luke tried reasoning with Jai.

"Yeah, but I'm not worried about my happiness. You should have never said anything to her about it." Jai cried out angrily.

"Jai, he hurt you for years. That isn't exactly easy for the rest of us to take in. I know Beau and I always looked up to him as a father. Mum was in love with him. Just, I don't know, go to sleep. Maybe it will be better in the morning." Luke snapped, overtired and annoyed that his Twin was bothering his sleep.

Jai sighed. He knew that he couldn't really trust Luke. He needed to cut, but he didn't exactly have easy access to anything sharp at the moment.

Jai stood up and retrieved a rubber band out of his suitcase and then slipped quietly out of the room. He slowly made his way past his mother's room, but stopped short when he heard muffled sobs coming from within.

Jai pressed his ear to the door and what he thought was happening really was. His mother was crying and it was all his fault. If only he had just went along with everything and let his mother get married without putting up a fight. He could have dealt with it. He had shattered his mother's happiness and now he didn't know what to do.

He quickly left the house to sit on the front porch. Once he was there he started snapping the rubber band as hard as he could on his wrist without breaking it. After the a while a welt started to form on his wrist from where he was snapping it so much, but he couldn't stop there. The skin eventually started to discolor and form a bruise under the rubber band.
-,
Luke woke up the next morning to find himself alone in his room. That was weird. Jai never woke up before him. Luke left the room in search of his twin. He had to be somewhere. He just had to find him.

Luke didn't have to search long. He eventually found Jai on the porch swing outside. Jai was obviously zoned out, lost deeply in his thoughts. He was just swinging back and forth and rubbing his wrist occasionally.

Wait....

Rubbing his wrist?
.
Luke hurriedly rushed towards him and yanked his twin's wrist into view causing Jai to cry out in protest. Luke heaved a sigh of relief but was still worried. Jai hadn't cut like he had assumed, but there was some pretty deep welts and discoloration on his wrist. It was obvious that Jai had been snapping a rubber band on his wrist which meant he wanted to cut.

"Jai?" Luke questioned, "Are you okay?"

"Yeah." Jai nodded after a moment of hesitation. "I'm perfectly fine, Luke." Luke narrowed his eyes at his twin. He obviously was not okay. His wrist only proved it further.

"Jai. If you're not okay you need to let me know. I'm here for you. Let Me In so we don't have a repeat of last time." Luke begged.

"Well, have you ever thought that maybe I want a repeat of last time. Maybe one that actually worked!" Jai snapped. Luke's eyes went wide and Jai regretted it instantly. Luke had it coming though, he was always hovering and it became too much for Jai, so he just snapped.

"Jai..." Luke swallowed thickly. "You don't really mean that do you?" He felt like his heart had just shattered at Jai's words. He never wanted to hear those words.

"I don't know." Jai glanced away from Luke. "Maybe. It is kind of hard to forget about it when someone is throwing it in my face constantly."

"You want to forget?" Luke didn't know why that made his so angry but it did. "Do it then. Go ahead. Go and off yourself because who cares how we feel. You know your family? Mum doesn't matter anyway, she just made so many sacrifices growing up to make sure we had a good life."

"Luke..." Jai whispered but he didn't stop.

"Let's not forget Beau. He was only a perfect older brother. Sure he was a total jerk, but he made sure nothing bad ever happened to us."

"I-" Jai started but Luke only cut him off.

"What about me, you know your twin brother? What about how I feel? You basically force me to deal with all of your crap on a regular basis, but then you're so selfish that you don't even bother to care about my feelings when your actions do affect me!" Luke was breathing heavily by the time he was done yelling. Jai had tears running down his face, but Luke was too angry to even care.

"Luke, I...." Jai started but couldn't force any words out of his throat. Luke, still being angry, took over for him.

"You're pathetic, Jai." Luke spat out, tears streaming out of his own eyes. He quickly left the room before the argument could escalate any further, but the damage had already been done.

If Jai wasn't broken before, he definitely was now.