Life Is A Nightmare

Chapter Four: This Isn't Going To Hurt Me

(Jayden)

There was a want, a need, the day Gavin was here to visit. He has this yearning to hear the truth out of me but what more he wants to discover is a mystery to me. I can't serve much of a purpose by telling him what he already knows. I can only hope me speaking to him in person is the closure he needs. I want to believe it will be but then again can he have the ugly chapter of our family life I started end?

I was skeptical at first of who and what pushed Gavin here in the first place. I was curious and still am to how he can think visiting me is going to make it better. I can understand he's eighteen now and this is what he feels he needs. He wants to understand what took place before he was born and why wouldn't he turn to me?

I am his older brother after all. I'm supposed to be the person who he should be able to look up to. A role model in his life but I was never there from the start. I wasn't the good overprotective brother Vivian needed back then.

No. No, I was the opposite and I have to repeat to myself every day, "That wasn't my fault. None of what happened was in my control. I needed help. I did something horrible I can never take back and that's why I belong here. I had a bad childhood with my dad lost in his head like he continues to be. I also have another dad I don't like acknowledging for what he did.

Jared did things. He deserves to be a monster in everyone's eyes and maybe had the past had been changed in a slight way I wouldn't be here. Vivian wouldn't have died because of me and then nothing would be like it is.

Every what if there is I dreamt about as a teenager growing up. I wished I wasn't born from a young age as I noticed my dad's life upside down because of what happened to him. He was scared to look at me. He feared I would become Jared and sadly his fear came true.

I don't care how many letters my dad sends me claiming he's okay. He's not. He's not fine when he's lost everything as he fell into a vortex of Jared's lies. He still talks to him and thinks it's okay. He believes he's helping me and one day he will prove I'm innocent. He's taking away from the time Gavin should be receiving not me.

I keep going back to the what ifs again about my dad's choices earlier in life. What if my dad didn't meet Jared online? What if he didn't go to his house? What if he wasn't trapped there? Would everything be different had I not existed for the best? Would there be no depression lingering inside him? No pain? No nightmare playing out for years? Would life be different for him but worse for someone else?

I guess I will never know because this is my life, our life, and it isn't going to change anytime soon. I told Gavin the truth when I spoke to him and I do hope it helps him. He can forget about me and realize our dad can't be saved. I know this first hand and I'm sorry his life has revolved around me without me there.

"I had a visitor last week," I tell Jordan after a long silence as we lay in a bed.

We're alone again and without the watchful eye of others who would question his closeness more than they already have questioned his reason to come back and work here. I can't help but wonder what made the institution decide to release him and then allow him to come back. Then again maybe his wrongdoing was forgivable, unlike mine. He learned from his mistake and was released back into society only to want to return for me and I'm glad he did.

"Who?" he asks with skepticism himself.

I didn't bother to mention it earlier to him. I don't know why I even am now except to talk a little longer. Be close to him and unveil the only secret I have from him. "My brother."

"What do you mean your brother?" he sits up with a look I can't decipher is irritation or a complete surprise.

"Gavin. He was born after everything...after what happened." I clear my throat, the image of the night I ended up in the dark house where it happened becomes crystal clear. A flood of thoughts and feelings I tried to work through brought back up. I know I can't forget but I don't want to go down the path I took in the beginning. Life was hell at sixteen until I came here and was able to find someone to talk to. I was able to deal with this and be somewhat okay.

"Why would he visit you?" he questions and now I am sure he's ticked off for some underlining reason I don't understand.

"It shouldn't be a surprise. I would have done the same thing at eighteen." I did want the same as him with a few differences. I wanted to talk to Jared one last time. Get everything out face to face and clarify what stood in my way to being okay. I thought I needed it more than a letter written down at eighteen I never sent him and my dad. Gavin, on the other hand, had the opportunity to do just that.

"Yeah, but how does this help you? You don't need to reminded of it Jayden and isn't that what he's doing? He's stirring up the past to the front again

"I know what I did Jordan and there is no running from it. Do you think I can forget where I am and why?" Sometimes I wonder why he loves me, how he can when he knows I'm never leaving here.

"No," he shakes his head, "I care about you Jayden and I don't want someone like a brother you don't know to affect you now."

"This isn't going to hurt me after one visit." Is it?