Dear Brother.

Chapter One: A Trip

My eyes couldn't stay open. They burned as if someone had squeezed lemon juice in them. I blinked rapidly against the sun coming through the windshield on what felt like the hottest day of spring, an unusual range of eighty-seven degrees. The sweat was being uncomfortably wrung from me.

"Fucking, turn on some hardcore music or something dude, I'm dying here." My words were raspy. I hadn't realized how freaking thirsty I was now that I had woken up.

"Mom said not to blast music," my younger brother, Daniel, replied.

I turned to glare at his stupid mop of curly black hair from the passenger seat. It was ridiculous, he was seventeen, and he was such a momma's boy. Sure, he was the younger sibling, and he was doted on regularly, but that doesn't mean he had to follow every damn thing our parents told him when they weren't even around.

"They're like five hundred miles away!" I threw my hands up as if to prove my point with how exasperated I was with him.

I couldn't handle it, I unbuckled my seatbelt and craned myself towards the back seat to get in the cooler.

"Sam put your seatbelt back on!" He chided me, not even taking his eyes off the road. "Mom and Dad have a very strict buckle up law."

I rolled my eyes, grabbing a water bottle from the icy depths. I pushed it against my forehead, hoping to cool down my skin a bit. It was sweltering in the car, the air conditioner was on me, but it only spat warm air on my clammy skin.

"Why do you gotta be such a priss," I sighed, swigging the water.

"I'm not a flipping priss!" he grumbled.

I laughed. My brother was a goody-two-shoes. He never put a toe out of line a day in his life. He studied so hard in and out of school that my head ached just watching him read books upon books of useless extra material for class.

"Oh yeah, prissy Danny fell on his fanny and got a nasty bruise, mommy's here to make it better kiss away the wounds!" I sang in a high pitch voice as he scowled, his forehead wrinkling in anger.

"I was only three years old, and you pushed me!"

I laughed and leaned back in my seat to kick my feet up on the dash. I could see his lips turn down more in apparent displeasure at my treatment to his car. Why we didn't take mine, I'd never understood, but this trip was his idea in the first place.

Our uncle, Aaron, lived in Long Beach, California, which was about a five-hour drive from Laughlin, Nevada. We hadn't visited our Grandma and Grandpa since two Christmas' ago as well, so it was long overdue. Aaron was a freak for Halloween, even going as far as to rent a cabin in the valley for the festivities.

"You think Aaron is going to get hammered stupid again?" I ask Danny, smirking at his huff.

"When doesn't he? I swear, even when you were both underage, you idiots consumed that garbage till you puked your stomachs out of your body."

I laughed, thinking back to the times when Aaron and I would go out to college parties when we were in high school. He was only one grade ahead of me, so we were close growing up. We moved away from California when I was sixteen, to the unforgiving deserts of Nevada.

"Until you told Mom because of one measly scare," I shrugged.

"Sam, you were dry heaving so long you passed out cold and started having a seizure!" He said frantically. "I didn't know what to do; I was freaking thirteen! You scared me. I thought you were going to die..."

He trailed off at the end, his eyes storming over with anxiety. I should have known bringing that up was going too far. I barely remembered that night, all I know is that I woke up in a hospital bed with a tube down my throat and my mother in a chair beside me, crying. It wasn't my proudest moment.

"Where are we?" I asked, trying to make sense of the trees to the side of the highway. When did we get near trees?

"We're about a half-hour away."

I sighed, it felt like the drive was taking an eternity, even the little nap hadn't helped much besides give me a slight headache. I texted our mom, letting her know that we were getting close. She was worried about us driving so far away, even though we've made this trip countless times. The car lurched to the side suddenly, my phone slipping from my fingers before I finished the text.

"Danny, what the fuck?" I yelled but was stunned in silence as he turned back to me.

His eyes, what the fuck, what happened to his eyes!

"Sam?"

His voice sounded hollow, far away. The black depths of nothingness stared back at me. A husk of my brother, mouth slack in confusion.

"Sam!"

The voice came louder, but his lips didn't move. He stared at me, the road ahead of us coming faster now as he sped up, the engine roared beneath screams that I realized were coming from me.

"Fucking shit, Sam, what the hell!"

Danny never cursed. I jolted, blinking in confusion. We were on the side of the road, my throat burning and a trail of tears streaming from my eyes. I gasped, trying to catch my breath.

"Sam, Sam!" My brother shook me, his hand an iron grip on my shoulder as his voice grew more anxious with every second of silence.

I shook his hand off and turned toward the window. I couldn't speak. It felt like something was squeezing my throat, an icy grasp of dread making me break out in cold sweat. The world was closing in on me, any other thought drowning underneath what just happened.

He didn't say another word, though I could feel his worried eyes glancing at me every five minutes as we drew closer to our destination.

I didn't want to talk about it. That would make it real.