Brother's Keeper

"They are taking him away from here, did you know that?" she said. I pretended as if I didn't
care, and I leaned hard on the call button for the elevator. "You are his younger brother I am
guessing," she said. "If I were you, I would be feeling pretty upset, confused, possibly angry,
and maybe even a little scared," she said......a lump was forming in my throat; I closed my eyes
to thwart the tears that were forming. I exhaled long and hard. "I am betting your parents are a
little confused too, and they probably haven't told you much about what is actually happening
with your brother," she said.

Richard's journey from adolescents to adulthood went horribly off track the year his older brother was diagnosed with Schizophrenia. Richard was only in the eighth grade. Brother's Keeper tells the story of young Richard's inability to deal with losing his older brother to a mental illness, while at the same time struggling to handle the other obstacles in his own life.

With his parents focused on his older brother's mental illness, Richard is forced to grow up fast and deal with the issues in his life all on his own. Making the transition from middle school to high school, learning about girls, coping with childhood obesity, dealing with racism, feelings of alienation, and strict parents are just some of the problems Richard must overcome alone; that is until a surrogate older brother steps in.

***Brother's Keeper is my first attempt at writing a novel. Previously all of my works have been short stories or poems. After some modest success in the #EWA2017 General Fiction category, I've decided to make some minor edits and repost the original chapters along with some of the later chapters . Newer chapters will be released as I make revisions.

I encourage your questions and feedback, and I thank you for reading!
-R.L.Brown