Broken Pieces (Jai Brooks)

Chapter 16

Jai was broken.

What Luke had has said had really gotten to him. After all, Luke was right. He only thought about himself. He was so focused on numbing his own feelings that he lost sight of everything else. Jai didn't know what to do anymore. It was almost like he was drowning and couldn't get out. To make it worse he had made Luke angry with him. His biggest ally. He didn't even know why he had actually started to try to get better at this point. It was pointless. He was never going to get better especially now that his own twin hated him.

Jai was falling and this time Luke wasn't there to catch him. He didn't know where Luke had gone, but at this point he didn't really care. He just wanted to go. He hurriedly made his way into his mother's bathroom and opened the cabinet inside. She had different pills that had been prescribed in the past, but she no longer needed them. He didn't know what was what, so he just grabbed a random bottle.

"Jai?" He heard a voice and a knock sound from outside the door so he quickly pocketed the pills. He had to wait for a moment when he couldn't be found. He couldn't waste his chance again.

"Yes?" He said back, opening the door. Jai was met with the face of his concerned mother. Her eyes were swollen from all of the crying she had done, and it caused Jai's heart to wrench. It was his fault this had happened.

"Are you okay, baby?" His mother asked him. He looked down. He knew that he needed to throw her off some way.

"Yeah. I just had a fight with Luke. Don't worry, it's an everyday thing."

"Are you sure?" Gina questioned her youngest son.

"Yeah. You know how bad Luke's temper can be." Jai gave her a grim smile.

"Well, if you say so." Gina gave in. Jai smiled at his mother but it didn't reach his eyes. He rushed out of the bathroom and into the room he shared with Luke before she could say anything else.

Jai was immediately met with Luke sitting on his bed and playing on his phone. The bottle of pills in his pocket suddenly felt heavy, but his heart felt even heavier when he remembered the things that Luke had said to him. Luke glanced up at him and bit his lip, but didn't say anything. It was official, Luke absolutely hated him and Jai couldn't blame him. Jai tugged on his hair stressfully. He was going crazy and he didn't know what to do.

"What are you even doing?" Luke asked skeptically. He was just watching what looked like Jai attempting to yank his own hair out.

"Like you even care." Jai shot back with venom. He didn't want to push Luke away, but he needed to and Luke already hated him anyways.

"Calm down, dude. I was just asking you don't-"

"Just shut up, Luke!" Jai cut his twin off. Jai flopped down on his bed not realizing that doing so would cause the pills in his pocket to rattle. Luke flinched at the sound, immediately realizing what it was.

"Jai, what's in your pocket?" Luke asked slowly, trying to suppress his anger.

"Nothing." Jai stared at him with a straight face.

"Sure." Luke nodded before tackling Jai and knocking the pills out of his pocket. He picked the bottle up and examined it while tears started to slowly fall from Jai's eyes. "What exactly were you planning to do with these?"

"Probably off myself like every one wants." Jai said without hesitation. He was just so tired of everything and he just wanted to get it over with.

"Jai. We don't want you dead. Don't you even care about how we feel?" Luke started to go into a mini-rant.

"Well, don't you care about how I feel?" Jai countered. "I don't want to be alive, Luke. I don't care if it is selfish, but I just want to be dead right now. Why won't you let me? I'm miserable and I feel like a piece of me has already died, so why can't I just kill the rest of me? Please, Luke!"

"You can't mean that." Luke stared at his twin in disbelief. "You can't leave me Jai. It's supposed to be Luke and Jai forever. Whatever happened to that? You only ever shut me out anymore and I don't know what to do anymore."

"Then don't just give the bottle back and leave the room." Jai encouraged his twin.

"Don't do this Jai!" Luke screamed, surprising Jai. "You can't do this to me. You can't."

"Luke-"

"No!" Luke started crying. "I will not let you do this. I don't care if I have to be with you 24/7, but you are not going to kill yourself on my watch."

"But!" Jai started to protest before being cut off again by Luke.

"No, Jai. It's not happening. If you felt smothered before, then get ready to learn what smothering really is."