the day i discovered my little brother had succumbed to my worst nightmare,
i didn't know what to think.
i sat, and i sat, and i reminisced to the age of five, when my little brother lay surrounded with his toy cars and he would lift up his favorite, and he would yell it out loud, so everyone should know, as if it were the most important thing in the universe.
but he would stutter. a stammer he used to get pitied for, sympathized with, and bullied for.
and yet, he still carried an aura so bright and so iridescent, you could see it in his eyes as he lifted the red car into the air, announcing his contentment.
i never dreamed this could happen.
when i pictured my little brother a bit older, i would picture him as a kind soul, the sort that would carry an old woman's shopping as she crossed the street, or the kind that would console me when i cried.
but that was just a projection of my thoughts.
i wanted it so badly.
but my little brother was tainted.
and it was my fault.
he grew not in good spirit, but in the image of myself.
a spiteful, vengeful, harsh, manipulative, and dirty image.
one so polar from the picture i had in my head.
it was my actions, the way i treated our parents, the way i treated him.
because as i grew spiteful, worn by the tragedies of our lives, my little brother, who i hoped would be the opposite of myself, grew with me.
gone was the little boy with the red car.
gone was the boy with the stammer who used to get bullied, but would still smile when he fell.
gone was my little brother.
because as i sat in the adjacent room, listening to my mother on the phone with the principle of the school,
she spoke of an incident.
at first i thought he was the victim,
but i was naive. i hadn't realized the truth.
and that was, that my brother had not been a victim.
he'd been the bully.
