“Eat your
dinner, Charlie,” Mum says tightly and I look up to find my little brother
looking at me strangely.
“You’re
different Scarley.” He hasn’t called me that in years. It’s a cast off from his
younger days and I wonder if he actually chose to use it now for some reason,
or if it came out unbidden.
“No, I’m
not,” I say. But he’s right, I am. How can I not be? Aren’t all of us changed
in some way by what we’ve been through? And isn’t it just and right that I
should be changed the most? After what I did?
“Yes,
you are,” he insists.
“Charlie
that’s enough,” Mum warns and he goes back to eating his dinner but keeping his
eyes on me.
I feel
bad that he got told off. “You wanna match on the Playstation later?” I ask.
“We
don’t have one anymore…” he says.
“Oh… I
forgot.” And I genuinely had for a moment. “Well we could watch TV together, what do you
think?”
“I
guess.” He’s unenthusiastic.
I try to make it up to him, everything that
he’s lost. “I’ll let you chose what to watch.”
“Okay.” But
his face hasn’t changed. There’s no excitement there. I berate myself for
thinking that the situation could be so easily fixed. Just because Charlie’s
only nine doesn’t make his pain any less than mine, his grief any less
infinite.
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