The Runaways

Chapter Fifty-Seven - My Brother Barron

Warren

It was a good thing Corban was taking charge today because it was just not my day. I was tired— like always but over the past week I've had a million different things to digest and think about. I think it was safe to say everyone was pushing down their feelings about the baby. It's just easier to forget and simply say to yourself he's with his mother in the after life and there's nothing you can do about it. Yet I still feel guilty. Like I could've done more. I know I physically couldn't with what tools I had, but just knowing if I had the technology twelve years ago that baby would still be alive.

And then there was the whole thing with Barron. How the fuck did he end up as a Syndicate? It was no secret he had some serious issues when he became an adult. I still remember every year the older I got and once I was well into my career as a surgeon (at least for the short time it lasted) every time I would visit back home the more and more fights we would get into. My younger brother lived with our parents all up until right after my accident, when he was still well into his twenties. I can remember how every time I'd come home he'd start a fight or he would refuse to talk to me and make my parents feel bad and then boom me and my brother are screaming at each other, my dad is trying to break us up to just try to have a nice family night for once and my mom would end up crying and then of course I would have to be the one to reassure her she wasn't a bad mom and that Barron is just selfish.

My brother used to be actually quiet tolerable and wasn't such a horrible person when we were kids— or well before I went off to college. But even in my last few months of high school he just grew so bitter. Ever since I left for college all he talks about is how much I fucked up his life. He used to yell at me all the time saying that because of my accomplishments all he's known as is 'That child prodigy's idiot brother' as he decided to call it. Like what was I supposed to do put my life on the side lines so he can be special too? I don't think Barron ever realized that being as successful as me took hard work and sacrifices. You don't just wake up one day and are suddenly great at something. I threw away my entire childhood to expand on and develop my gift of being smarter than the average person. I could bet any sum of money if my brother had the exact same I.Q as me and the exact same learning speed he'd still be where he was twelve years ago, an adult man living with his parents expecting everything to be handed to him.

Actually, I change my mind.

Why should I be shocked he became a Syndicate? He constantly sees himself as a victim in any given situation. He thinks just because he was born with and older brother who was gifted means the entire world was against him. That's Barrons problem. Because he saw all the praise I got from an early age because I achieved amazing feats as a child he never learned how hard someone actually has to work to get that. He never learned how quickly I had matured to understand how to work hard. He just thought I had everything delivered to me on a silver platter. Barron used to start new sport after new sport and when he wasn't immediately good at it he would quit. He saw me and thought you could just naturally be perfect at something. Sure I had a gift that gave me an advantage but in the end it was my parents who recognized that gift when I was just a toddler and started to put it to use and teach me how to work hard to make my gift matter. They tried to teach Barron how to work hard just like me but because he was constantly seeing me succeed seemingly effortlessly it never clicked for him. Barron was never up as late as I was, he never had to experience crying over not understanding advanced algebra at age nine, he never experienced going to high school with kids literally twice your size with full beards when you hadn't even graced the first stages of puberty, Barron never experienced the intense stress of picking a college at the age of thirteen and deciding what to do for the rest of your life as a thirteen year old. A child.

To a certain point I can understand where he's coming from. I can understand how he feels overshadowed by my accomplishments and constantly being the afterthought. But what he will never be able to consider is the hard work it took for me to be that successful at such a young age. Barron will never be able to understand not only the hard work I put in but the hard work our parents put in to help both of us strive. Our parents sat through both of our meltdowns weather it was me breaking down about picking a college at thirteen or weather it was my brother breaking down about how he felt unloved. Our parents were incredibly understanding and supportive of both of us. They sure pushed me to be a hard worker but never forced me to skip a grade that I thought would be too hard, and they sure as hell didn't force my brother to get straight A's, hell they didn't even care if he ended up with a C or two. Our parents did so much for both of us and yet he still treated them like shit.

Barron was a grown adult half the time without a job living at our parents house constantly asking them for money, constantly guilting then, constantly making them feel like shit. The amount of times I would walk out of the operating room after a surgery that took hours only to have to call my mom back and listen to her cry over the phone or having to FaceTime my dad and having him ask me to help him fix something with the house that my brother either caused to break or refused to help fix or both.

As much as I want to sympathize with him that yes, it must've been very hard growing up normal with a sibling who's a prodigy, but I cannot excuse how he treated me, and I especially cannot excuse how he treated our parents. My parents were good people and I miss them everyday. They didn't deserve to be mistreated so poorly by their own son.

I honestly hope my brother was manipulated into becoming a Syndicate. I hope he's terrified every day of his commanding officer, or whatever system they have, seeing him slip up and having to chew him out. I hope he's getting what he deserves for acting like a man child for half of his life.