His phone’s on the side, neglected and ignored.
Remo is alone here.
Nobody else bothered to work overtime for today.
Fuck them all.
“You fucking bastard,” I snarl at him. He doesn’t hear me. When he’s in the zone, he never hears me.
Mom and Dad must have had super genes because both of their sons turned out to be brainy little idiots.
Everyone knew about Remo, but my intellect was questioned for years.
Up until I revealed my secret life for Big Daddy.
What we never understood about Remo was his fascination for software engineering. The kinkiest shit one can come up with, my brother can develop it. He battles AI for fun.
Sometimes, I want to pinch him and confirm that he is indeed not AI himself.
“Idiot. Get your mind off that shit! Talk to me!” I yell at him, but he doesn’t react. He’s typing away like a maniac, murmuring shit to himself.
I snap.
Charging forward, I kick in the screens my brother is so fascinated by. The glass breaks into tiny pieces, spreading over the desk and the floor. My shoes are ruined, and I’m pretty sure that I’m bleeding because I got cut by glass, but I don’t care.
Remo wakes up from his daze only to gaze at me, looking all lost. His eyes are glossy and bottomless, a pit of nothing that I want to dig my brother back up from.
My anger becomes a little bitch, crawling back into the corner that it jumped out of.
“What’s wrong?” I ask him instantly, stepping closer to him. I hear the glass break some more as my soles walk over it. Crack. Crack. Crack.
It makes the same sound my brother’s heart does when he’s down.
“She said I murdered innocent children,” Remo gasps.
He’s fragile right now, so I’m cautious about how I touch him. His meltdowns haven’t been too extreme since Grey stepped into our lives. Even in her absence, he remained calm, for the most part.
He was sad, though.
And I didn’t know how to help him.
After all, I was in my feelings, too. I take responsibility. I failed my brother.
“Who said that, Remo?” I ask. What the ever-loving fuck?
“She said it. She hates me. I murdered innocent children,” my brother murmurs. He looks away from me, staring at nothing in particular. His eyes eventually focus on the broken displays in front of him. I know that Charles will beat me up for plundering his office. It’ll cost, but I can manage.
“Bro, be more specific. Come on, now. You know I’m the dumb one,” I say to uplift him, but it’s not true. I can hold my own next to my brother. We may have disappointed our parents’ favorite employer, aka Big Daddy, but if they knew what we’d accomplished in their absence, they’d hopefully be proud of us.
Hopefully.
“Grey hates me. I kill innocent children.” He takes a deep breath. “I’m trash. I’ve murdered innocent children. I’ve murdered… I’ve murdered innocent children.”
He’s rambling now. That’s when he gets repetitive. He starts sweating, and his face turns red. I take out my phone, and I click on my sugar puff’s saved contact on my phone.
It takes her a couple of moments to pick up.
“Did you find him? Is he okay?” That’s the first thing she says, and I feel the love for her inside of me pulse with happiness.