Brothers Torn Apart: How Life Put Everything in Its Place
“Why do you always have to make everything about you, Mike?” My voice shakes as I slam my locker shut, the metal echoing through the empty hallway. It’s after six, and the janitor’s mop slaps against the linoleum somewhere down the corridor, the sound marking the end of another long day at Millfield High. Mike leans against the opposite locker, arms crossed, jaw set. “Because you never say what you’re thinking, Chris! You bottle it up and pretend you’re fine. Well, I’m sick of it.”
I stare at him, my older brother by two years—my hero once, the kid who taught me how to ride a bike, who let me tag along with his friends until, somewhere around middle school, he stopped answering my knocks on his door. I want to tell him how lost I feel, how the absence of our father has hollowed me out, how I’m tired of pretending that Mom’s love is enough. But I can’t. Instead, I shove past him, backpack heavy on my shoulders. “Just leave me alone, Mike. I mean it.”
He doesn’t follow, and I walk home in the spring dusk, the air thick with the smell of grass and gasoline. Our house sits at the corner of Sycamore and Third, paint peeling, porch sagging. Mom’s car, a battered Civic, sits crooked in the driveway. I can hear the TV through the window—some game show, her escape after a double shift at the diner.
“Hey, honey.” She doesn’t turn as I walk in, just waves a tired hand. “Dinner’s on the stove. Mac and cheese.”
I grab a plate, the noodles gluey and cold, and eat standing up. Mike comes in later, slamming the front door hard enough that Mom flinches. “Boys, please,” she sighs, “not tonight.”
But tonight is like every night—tense, brittle, full of unsaid things. After dinner, I sit on the porch, knees pulled to my chest, listening to the hum of insects and distant traffic. I think about Dad, or the idea of Dad. He left when I was five, Mike seven. I barely remember him—a hand ruffling my hair, the smell of aftershave, a fight behind closed doors that ended with a slammed door and silence.
In elementary school, it didn’t matter. I had Mom, and Mike, and that felt like enough. But once I hit middle school, everything changed. The other kids bragged about their dads—who got them the newest iPhone, who drove the biggest truck. I lied sometimes, said Dad was a trucker, always on the road. But people knew. Small town, big mouths. Soon the jokes started—about my old clothes, about how Mike and I never got picked up from practice, how we never had money for field trips.
Mike changed, too. He got angrier, started skipping school, hanging out with the wrong crowd. Mom yelled, pleaded, cried. I kept my head down, made honor roll, hoping it would make up for something—anything. But at night, I’d hear Mike’s door slam, hear her sobbing in the kitchen. And I’d lie awake, wishing I could fix things, wishing Dad would come back and make us whole.
High school made it worse. Mike dropped out junior year, started working at the gas station. He bought a motorcycle with his savings—loud, shiny, dangerous. I envied him, his freedom, his recklessness. But I hated him, too, for leaving me alone with Mom’s worries and the neighbors’ pitying looks.
One night, after a particularly bad fight—Mom screaming, Mike yelling, me hiding in my room—I found him sitting in the garage, head in his hands. “Why do you hate me?” I blurted out. He looked up, eyes red. “I don’t hate you, Chris. I’m just… tired. Of this house, this town, pretending everything’s okay.”
We sat in silence, the air thick with words we couldn’t say. Eventually, he stood, ruffling my hair the way Dad used to. “You’re the smart one. Get out of here. Don’t end up like me.”
I wanted to tell him I didn’t want to leave him behind. That I needed him, the way I’d always needed him. But I said nothing.
Senior year, I got a scholarship to Ohio State—full ride, the first in our family. Mom cried, proud and terrified. Mike just nodded, jaw tight. “Told you,” he said. “You’re getting out.”
The night before I left, he handed me a battered envelope. “For books, or whatever.” Inside was $200, all in twenties. I wanted to hug him, to thank him, to tell him he was my hero. But instead I just nodded, afraid I’d cry.
College was everything I’d dreamed—freedom, possibility, a way to reinvent myself. I stopped lying about my family, stopped pretending I wasn’t angry. I called home every Sunday, listened to Mom talk about her new boyfriend, listened to Mike’s silences grow longer.
Then, in sophomore year, the call came. Mike had crashed his motorcycle—drunk, late at night, hitting a patch of gravel. The hospital was two hours away. I drove like a madman, heart pounding, hands shaking.
He was alive—broken leg, concussion, a dozen stitches. Mom sat by his bed, eyes hollow. “He’s lucky,” the doctor said. “Could have been worse.”
In the sterile hospital room, Mike looked smaller than I’d ever seen him. I sat by his bed, words tumbling out. “You scared the hell out of me. Mom, too. Why do you keep doing this?”
He stared at the ceiling. “Because I don’t know how to stop.”
We talked all night—about Dad, about anger, about being left behind. For the first time, he let me in. “I resented you,” he admitted. “You were always the good one. I felt like I couldn’t compete.”
I shook my head. “I was just scared. I needed you, Mike. Still do.”
He squeezed my hand, tears in his eyes. “I’ll try, Chris. I promise.”
It’s been three years since that night. Mike’s sober now, working as a mechanic. Mom married her boyfriend, a decent guy who treats her well. And me—I’m graduating next month, about to start a job in Columbus. Sometimes I think about how easily things could have fallen apart, how close we came to losing each other.
Family isn’t something you choose, but maybe it’s something you fight for—over and over, even when it hurts. I wonder, sometimes, if Dad ever thinks about us. If he regrets leaving. But mostly, I wonder: Can love really heal what’s broken, or are some scars meant to stay?
What do you think? Is family about blood, or about the people who stay and fight with you, even when it hurts?