After the Party

Chapter Four

...in which I tell you my secret.

Today is a hard day. Maybe writing it down will make it a little less suffocating. I've been lying... I was not an only child. I had a brother. The kind of brother that doesn't hit you and doesn't make fun of you. The kind that loves you and wants you to be a good person. The kind that you never know how good he is till he is gone. On June 19, 2011 at around 2:30 pm, my brother Tony killed himself.

I don't talk about it much because it hurts. No one has ever really known about him at school because most don't know he's dead. My family made the decision to not tell anyone about his death. We simply just said that when he turned 16 he wanted to go to a privet school in the UK. I don't know a 100% why they decided to do this, maybe it was just unbearable to say that he was gone. Somehow this worked and people believe it, I sometimes do myself.

Tony had just turned 16 when he committed suicide. He went to the forest, made a noose and swung it over a huge oak tree. He climbed up, secured the noose then took a knife to each wrist. The police told me after hours of pleading that he sat on the branch till he passed out from blood loss and the noose is what ended his life. He said he sat, bleeding for at most 5 minutes. 5 minutes...He was alone, blood flowing from each beautiful wrist for 5 minutes. What was I doing in those 5 minutes? I was 11 so whatever it was, it wasn't what I should've been doing which was saving my best friend. I can see him sitting on this flaky, old branch with the knife in one hand, noose round his neck, and his mind crushed with sadness. Hopelessness. Or maybe absolutely nothing. I will never get to know why he felt so damn alone.

Like there was nothing else in the world that could make whatever he was going through stop. I have felt low before. So low that it felt like gravity was so much for my small body that it was going to crush me flat. I have felt dark and empty that no light could pierce through, it filled my insides. My mind has been so detached from my body that it took days, months, to fish it back, strap it back on my body. But I have never felt there was only one way out. Even before Tony died I felt those feelings but I never wanted to die. I never wanted to take myself out of the world. No light. No sound. No body to love or to laugh with. Even if there is a heaven that's still an if, we have no idea what will happen when we die and I can't even fathom that idea. I don't know how he could feel that dying would answer his problems, I don't know why he couldn't tell me. How could I not see it. Why?

Why?

Why?

Tony was this bright light. He hurt your eyes at first but once you settle on him, he was so beautiful. He was so bubbly. I always felt that he was...on. Everyday he was there. present, in the moment. When he did have an off day it was just that, a day. He would get pissy but it would be over as soon as it started. He was smart and attractive. He had lots of friends. He was the guy that's nice to everyone no matter what "group" they belonged to he would be there friend. When he would come home after school he would see me and it was like for the split second, life stopped. He would hug me and tickle me then ask if I wanted to watch tv or go for a swim. Swimming, that was his favorite. Even if it was raining or cold as hell he would swim. The pool in the backyard was more his room then his actual bed room. He spent hours in there. My mom would have to yell at him to come in so he wouldn't get sick. I still don't know why he liked the water so much. Whether it was pools, oceans, the shower, it didn't matter he felt at home in water. I still have no idea what was so special about water. I wanna know the feeling he got when he was in it, swimming and floating. Its forever a secret he holds with him.

He was so full of knowledge, he knew things. Life things. Maybe like street smarts. He would spit out facts, sometimes stupid. Some very unbelievable. Either way there was always something new to learn form Tony. He was above average but not yet extraordinary. He was going to be though. Someday we all knew he would be better then all of us. He would be better then everyone. Not in a bad, rude way but in away where he would've always known what to do, where to go, how to fix it. He would never have thought of himself like that let alone said it out loud.