Broken Pieces (Jai Brooks)

Chapter 18

"Luke, Beau?" Jai called out to his brothers a couple hours later. He eventually found them in Luke's room. "I made a decision."

"What-what was it?" Luke asked anxiously.

"I decided that even though I still want to die, I want to try to get past that and get better." Jai explained.

"I'm happy for you, Jai. If you need me, I'll be downstairs. I think you two need a little time to talk." Beau gushed out before walking out of the room. Jai stood there awkwardly for a minute before sitting next to Luke on his bed.

"I'm sorry, Luke." He breathed out.

"Don't be." Luke sighed. "I haven't been exactly patient with you lately. I'm sorry, too."

"How do I get better, Luke?" Jai asked, looking at his older twin. "I've been like this for so long that I don't know what else to do."

"Well..." Luke thought it over. "We could take baby steps. How about you stop lying to me and you could also work on not cutting."

"The thought of not cutting terrifies me." Jai admitted after a moment. "I need it Luke. Sometimes, it's like cutting is the only thing that does stop me from killing myself."

"Ok." Luke flinched at Jai's words, but them recomposed himself. "We could try to find an alternative."

"Luke. No." Jai closed his eyes. "One step at a time. I'll just work on talking to you about things from now on."

"Can I see your arms?" Luke asked out of nowhere. Jai was hesitant about it, but he agreed for Luke to look at his scars. Jai sat up and pulled his hoodie off so he was only left in a thin T-Shirt. Luke carefully grasped both of Jai's arms and turned them over. Jai couldn't bare to watch it happen, so he turned his head away as a tear slipped out of his eye. "It's okay Jai."

"I know."

Luke carefully traced the deep scars from Jai's first attempt with his index finger. They were from a time Jai needed him, but he just wasn't there from him. He ran his finger tips along Jai's arms and inspected the other scars.

"I thought you had more scars last time I saw them." Luke was genuinely confused.

"I did." Jai nodded. "I just never really cut that deep so the scars faded faster than the big ones will."

"Oh." Luke nodded back in understanding.

"I hate this. We've never been this awkward around each other." Jai groaned.

"Me too." Luke agreed. "I think we'll be okay, though. We'll just take it one step at a time. You'll get better and everything is going to be okay again."

-

That's exactly what happened. Jai and Luke were okay again, but they still had their setbacks. Jai eventually was able to stop cutting, the more he opened up to Luke. However, Luke still felt like Jai was hiding something from him. He just didn't know what that something was.

Luke didn't want to push Jai anymore, considering how well that went last time. Still, he knew there was something that just wasn't adding up.

"Beau?" Luke asked his older brother one day. "Do you think there's something off about Jai?"

"No. He seems happy, which I haven't seen in a long time." Beau answered, confused by Luke's question.

"No. He is happier than he has been. It's just there's still something that seems kind of off about him." Luke was desperate for answers.

"I'm sure you're just over-thinking things, Luke." Beau sighed. "Jai's not going to ever be the same person he was. He's been depressed for who knows how long. At least several years. Just keep supporting him and get to know this new Jai."

"I guess that makes sense."

What neither brother understood though, was that Jai was still broken. He wasn't even close to being whole again. He was still broken, but he was slowly starting to heal. Of course, the flashbacks still haunted him but nobody knew about those. So it's safe to say that when Jai stopped sleeping, nobody noticed.

The nightmares were just too intense for him, and he slowly stopped functioning again. Unfortunately, he didn't seem depressed anymore so nobody thought anything of it until he started getting short and snippy with everyone around him.

"What's your problem, Jai." Luke asked frustrated one day. "You've been such a jerk lately and everyone is sick of your drama."

"I'm being a jerk?!" Jai just wanted to sleep. That's all he really wanted. "Go look in a mirror."

"No need to! Your ugly face is good enough!" Luke yelled back, outraged. He also managed to catch the attention of Beau and Daniel.

"What exactly is going on?" Beau demanded as Daniel tried to contain his laughter.

"He started it." The twins yelled in sync. "Tell him to quit being such a dirty pig."

"Oh my god." Beau moaned and Daniel was full on laughing now. "You do realize you're just insulting yourselves, right?"

"No we aren't!" Luke yelled.

"In case you haven't realized, calling your identical twin ugly kind of back-fires on you, Luke." Beau stated.

"This is stupid." Jai growled before leaving the room.

"What's his deal?" Beau asked Luke as he watched Jai's retreating figure.

"No idea. He just been a huge jerk lately."