Hi! My name is Peter. I would like to tell you the story about me
and my brother Sam. It's a story about our awkward relationship. I think it's important to tell you and I hope
you will understand why. "Sam is nine years older than me. And you know… we are different. And it’s not just because of our age. My older brother always had zillions of friends
and I am not a recluse but I've only ever had a few friends and I don't need any more. But there is one thing in common that unites
Sam and I. We were both never that close with our parents. This situation somehow just developed that
way and we never thought that there was something wrong with it." "I bet a hundred to one that some of you will
say that we grew up in a toxic atmosphere, but I don’t think so. I can’t say that my parents are wonderful
people but I wouldn’t call them bad either. You see, the thing is that all of us: my father,
my mother, my brother and I are pretty closed off people, not used to sharing their problems
with the rest of the world. Once my father had serious problems at work
and we were left with no money, not even to live on. But he overcame these problems without even
saying a word. My mother finally found out and there was
a huge fight… Oh, nobody can match my mother in the art
of the argument! But not because she is evil, oh, no! She just has a very hot temper. And she was always very strict with my father. I think she wanted more from him than he was
able to offer her. However, these types of arguments between
our parents rarely happened and it was always clean and cozy in our house and we had all
of our meals together at one table. But there was never much small talk during
these dinners..." "Maybe it was because seeing conflict between
our parents was unbearable. One argument happened because of Sam’s education. He decided not to enroll in college after
high school. He saw his future in the service sector and
wanted to start getting real job experience as soon as possible. Our father approved of his idea - he liked
the concept of moving toward success through labor, especially considering that college
tuition would have seriously affected the family budget, but my mother… Oh you can’t even imagine how my mother
reacted. She refused to speak to Sam, dwelling on the
thought that he had just fallen under the influence of his father - “a hopeless loser”
as she said, “who wanted to also ruin his children’s lives.”" That more or less was the way every conflict
started, and as a result they did a lot of bad-mouthing each other. My mother would yell that he destroyed her
life, my father would reply that she had eaten him alive. Sometimes they went as far as accusing each
other of cheating. I preferred not to take any of this seriously. I tried to sort of switch them off, though
it was pretty hard – to NOT hear your parents screaming about how they hate each other. Sam, I think, took these incidents a bit lighter. Especially when he grew up, started to earn
his own money, and could have left the house if he wanted to. I was envious of his maturity and freedom. Well, I would be forced to grow up soon enough. "I was fourteen when it happened. The evening was pretty ordinary except for
the news that our grandmother from Paris would be visiting us. And you ought to know that she is a very eccentric
person and even a family visit comes as quite a surprise. First of all Granny hates Parisian taxi drivers,
considering them shameless crooks. Taxis in America were also blacklisted for
some unknown reason, so she insisted that my father pick her up from the airport. Second, she tells us she's visiting once she
has literally already boarded the plane. At that day my father was particularly upset
about the odds of having to go to the airport to pick his mother-in-law up – he had had
a really exhausting day at work." "Sam could have saved the day, but he had
been drinking at a bar so he could not drive. Which meant my father had to go. He was very, very annoyed and he was being
super open with my mother about the fact that he had to spend his scarce time off to deal
with her mother’s quirks. My mother started to boil, a new argument
was brewing. Sam gave up and went to his room. I went upstairs to my bedroom. I saw from the window that my mother and father
were walking to the car together – it seemed like they had arrived at a compromise, but
both were still really angry and were arguing as they walked. I did not want to hear it, so I closed the
window and went to bed." "At about three AM I was awoken by the sound
of a phone call in the next room, Sam's room. When I entered, I saw him sitting on his bed,
burying his face in his hands. It was a loss of control. You know, it happens, if a driver is tired,
like our father was, or if something distracts a driver from the road, like for example,
an argument with somebody in the passenger seat. Ahem… If you are watching my story, just remember:
these things can end up badly. My mother and father did not survive the accident." "It is hard to describe the feeling when you
find out that your parents are gone. Yesterday everything was…. well, far from ideal but, you know, it WAS. And now it's all ruined and nothing will be
like it used to be. And also the feeling of loneliness, which
comes after the shock and grief are gone. Now I am sixteen and I've been an orphan for
two years already. And I'm just now able to share my emotions
with those who are luckier than me." It was good that Grandma was with us at that
moment. She helped us to figure out all the formalities,
she organized the funeral and paid all the expenses, she even helped us get insurance
money, which allowed Sam and I some money to live on for a while. "But then Granny said that her help to her
beloved grandchildren was over. She could not take us back to her tiny apartment
in Paris and she did not want to move to the United States. So she said, “Au revoir” and flew back
to France and I thought that I’d gotten seriously stuck. The last thing I expected was for Sam to go
through the motions and arrange for guardianship of me. But that was exactly what he did. He had a job and earned a small, but steady,
income and I was grown up enough to live with my older brother by that time. All the formalities were settled… but this
was only the beginning of our problems." "The first problem we encountered was that
Sam could not afford our parents’ house. So we moved to a cheap apartment with two
tiny bedrooms, separated by a wall so thin that even a simple nail could break through
it. Now my brother and I had to live much closer
to each other than we were used to or wanted. The nine years is not such a big difference
in age, but we always took very little interest in each other’s lives, we had never even
gone to the movies together. And we did not have mutual friends that could
bring us at least a little bit closer. So, locked together in this tiny apartment
we started to annoy each other." "But there were also more basic problems. For instance, Sam refused to take part in
any housekeeping duties. Oh, God how mad I would get that he had just
left that all for me, with the excuse that he earned the money for both of us! I had to wash my clothes and his, I had to
clean the apartment, and I even had to learn to cook! My mother kept the house neat, but never taught
us anything about an independent life. So at the beginning I felt clumsy and helpless. But, honestly, it was just little things. There was something much worse." "You see, I don't have many friends. Especially ones that I would invite to visit,
but if Sam came home from work and saw any of them, he did not even try to hide the fact
that he was annoyed - he didn't want to see high school kids at his house when he wanted
to come home and relax after a hard work day. So I stopped inviting friends to our house
altogether, but that was not fair! Because Sam invited friends at any time, even
at night! And every time when he threw a party in our
apartment he asked me to “go and take a walk.”" "Finally I got fed up with that and I decided
to not come back home at the agreed upon time. I did not pick up the phone when Sam called
and it made me happy to think that he was worried. But not because I wanted him to care about
me. It was my revenge against Sam for all his
behavior. I did not have any money, so I just hung around
the city all night, hiding from the police patrols. But Sam finally found me – it was already
late morning. I saw his red, tired eyes and realized that
he had been looking for me all night long, driving his used car. Later on I accidentally found out that he
skipped his shift that morning and nearly got fired. Neither of us apologized for that night. In fact, we've never talked about it, but
since then we both did not object to any visitors at the house." But Sam’s friends did not forget how I framed
my older brother and they disliked me. They started to joke and even made fun of
me when Sam was not looking. They never took it too far so I did not tell
Sam about them, but it was unpleasant – to listen to mean jokes from adult guys. I could have probably asked Sam to talk to
them, but I did not want to tell him about my problems. "The only person from my brother’s circle
who was kind to me was his girlfriend, Jane. She was twenty years old and she was very
nice and pretty. I sincerely could not understand the reason
why she was dating my ill-tempered brother. I realized that Jane felt pity for me, but
I still felt flattered by her attention. When she came home before Sam had returned
from work, she would talk to me and it felt so easy to communicate with her! I did not feel like she was older than me. One day I realized that I had never talked
to anybody else as openly as I did with Jane. I started to envy Sam, that he had such a
wonderful girlfriend. And then I made a big mistake…" Once Jane came home before Sam, like most
other ordinary days. We chatted and ate ice cream… and you know,
Jane was very nice to me in a special way. She touched my hand every now and then. And then she said that I had an ice cream
“moustache” and brushed it away with her finger, laughing so sweetly… Well… I tried to kiss her. I do not know what was I thinking about trying
to kiss my brother’s girlfriend, but I almost did it. And what happened next literally destroyed
me. "It looked like the devil had suddenly possessed
Jane. She slapped my face, she screamed, and then
she called Sam on her cell, and, crying, started to ask him to come home as soon as possible. But my brother was already nearby and was
there within a minute. And then Jane accused me of harassing her. Can you imagine? She cried and repeated that I had attacked
her. But it was a lie! I was shocked, but Jane’s next words finished
me. Crying on, she demanded that Sam “get rid
of the juvenile delinquent in this house!” And then I understood that all Jane’s kindness
with me was a lie. She was just looking for a way to get rid
of me. I had heard many times that she would like
to move in with Sam if they had had the opportunity." "I left the apartment and rushed down the
stairs. But I only managed to reach a nearby bench
because I… I burst into tears. Because of the resentment toward Jane. Because I detested myself. Because the world was an incredibly unfair
place. I got myself together when Sam sat near me
and put a Coke in my hands. He kept silent for a while and then he said
calmly and easily that he did not believe Jane and that we would not see her again. I am not sure, but maybe for the first time
since I was a kid, I hugged my brother. And I understood with shame and happiness
how wrong I was about him. There is nobody else I trust in this unfair
world – apart from Sam, my brother." Well, this is my story. It will hopefully help someone realize that
you should only look for support from your family, otherwise you can end up making a
big mistake.
