The Only Brother by Caias Ward

know they want me here. It took a while, but I got all this across to them.
    This is when Dad started crying. He was angry and red, and his hands shook. Mum wanted to get up and leave, but I told her we needed to do this now or it wasn’t ever going to get resolved. I said it again, because they needed to hear it: William never really showed me that he cared, despite what they said or thought. William was angry with me for some reason, but I couldn’t help being me, just like he couldn’t help being him.
    I just wanted to hear that I was doing the right things – someone telling me, ‘hey, you aren’t screwing up’. Sometimes they’d done that, but I’d had nowhere near the kind of support from them that William had. Just because Williamhad had a tougher mountain to climb didn’t mean that I had had an easy walk of it.
    So I just put it all out there and said we should see about all of us finding someone to talk to about this. We could go to support groups for parents who had lost kids, we could talk with friends. We could even just talk about it together from time to time. I’d buried stuff for too long, they’d kept on trying to keep everything and everyone together on the surface, without seeing what it was that was actually pulling us apart…
    It kind of dropped off from there and these are just the headlines – the whole conversation went on a bit. But I think that some of it got through. We got an Indian takeaway that night, and we actually sat at a table and ate together. Mum talked about some property deals, Dad talked about projects at work. They asked me how work was for me, and if I had painted anything recently. We didn’t talk about William.
    We talked about us.

    GraphicAndrew: *wave*
    HaveYouSeenMyPants: Hey love
    HaveYouSeenMyPants: How was the party?
    GraphicAndrew: It was good…
    HaveYouSeenMyPants: *plays porno music*
    HaveYouSeenMyPants: hehehehe
    GraphicAndrew: stop that. :P
    HaveYouSeenMyPants: well, I figured you would have hooked up with Emma at least…
    GraphicAndrew: nononono…
    HaveYouSeenMyPants: :(
    GraphicAndrew: Caroline was there
    HaveYouSeenMyPants: you mean the blonde girl? The posh one?
    GraphicAndrew: yeah
    HaveYouSeenMyPants: *turns up porno music*
    HaveYouSeenMyPants: ;)
    GraphicAndrew: No no no…
    GraphicAndrew: sort of…
    HaveYouSeenMyPants: oooooooo…
    HaveYouSeenMyPants: do tell…
    GraphicAndrew: we were in bed. Talking mostly. Some other stuff
    HaveYouSeenMyPants: did you get pictures?
    GraphicAndrew: no. :P
    HaveYouSeenMyPants: damn :)
    GraphicAndrew: it’s a good start
    HaveYouSeenMyPants: so you gonna see her again?
    GraphicAndrew: yeah. Gonna see what happens with us. At least give it a shot
    HaveYouSeenMyPants: hey, isn’t she one of Hayden’s friends?
    GraphicAndrew: was, I think. I think I convinced her not to care after I beat Hayden up at Trevor’s party
    HaveYouSeenMyPants: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    GraphicAndrew: don’t remember much, I was drunk. Trevor said I pounded Hayden and threw him down some stairs
    HaveYouSeenMyPants: rock!
    GraphicAndrew: gonna email you something, just read it and delete it, OK?
    HaveYouSeenMyPants: OK
    GraphicAndrew: sent
    HaveYouSeenMyPants: *waits*
    HaveYouSeenMyPants: got it, gimme a sec
    HaveYouSeenMyPants: OMG *hugs*
    GraphicAndrew: I do the right thing?
    HaveYouSeenMyPants: I think you did
    GraphicAndrew: I’m surprised I didn’t get thrown out of the house
    HaveYouSeenMyPants: I don’t think they want to lose another son
    GraphicAndrew: I don’t think they want to lose me. Not just ‘another son’. They actually talked to me about what I was doing. May seem a bit late, but the past is, well… past. Time to be part of the family
    HaveYouSeenMyPants: yeah
    HaveYouSeenMyPants: I love you, you know that?
    GraphicAndrew: yep. Never doubted it
    GraphicAndrew: love you too
    GraphicAndrew: I’m gonna go and get some sleep. Last night and today were rough
    HaveYouSeenMyPants: *hops into bed with you*
    GraphicAndrew: