Page 96 of The Twins

But I should, after what they did to my brother.

Fuck.

I shut my laptop, and I dash over to my brother’s room.

He hasn’t moved since I last visited him. If he can hear me have sex with random women, he doesn’t say a thing. If he knows that I’m lying to him whenever I claim that I’m off to Miami or Las Vegas to blow off some steam, he doesn’t say a thing.

The brother I grew up with never had much to say to me.

We’re twins, but we couldn’t be further apart.

Now, he doesn’t even open his mouth to say hello.

He feels guilty for what he’s done. I don’t even care how many lives I’ve taken. That’s what separates us.

“What happened to you?” I ask in a room that absorbs my words but doesn’t provide a reaction to my question. It’s like I never said a word, and it’s the first time ever in my life that I feel this overlooked.

I’ve dug as deep as I can, regarding my brother’s case.

Nothing makes sense.

He had a perfect record, and his work was exemplary until that day when everything went so shit. The day that his base was attacked, I lost my sanity.

Not that I ever had much of it to lose.

For a couple of days, it felt as if I were alone in this world.

When I’m everything but when my brother’s alive and kicking.

Remo was found unresponsive, the only body in the rubbles of his building. When my brother’s body was discovered, I threw every cent I ever made with Big Daddy at the people in charge of his health. He was pronounced dead at some point, but they resolved the issue before I had to travel over there and, quite frankly, murder them for neglecting my brother.

Eventually, Remo was flown back to the U.S. He remained in San Francisco for months, asleep in the ICU. They sewed his body back together, but they didn’t warn me about his mental state.

Two weeks ago, he was sent home.

Every other night, he explodes over the smallest things. It infuriates him that I don’t respond to his angry words, the abrupt movements. He breaks most of our dishes, and I keep buying new ones. I pick up a broom to clean up the broken glass on the floor so that he doesn’t cut himself if he decides to leave his room.

Remo barely showers, which gives me anxiety, forcing me to shower twice as much to make up for it.

He has three visitors, his psychiatrist, his lawyer, and his physical therapist.

When his lawyer comes, Remo sends me away.

And because I can’t say no to my big brother, I leave.

And I don’t search for answers. I could. I have the resources. I don’t know the extent of my brother’s work for Big Daddy. It was a different branch. The rules vary for each sector, but what remains the same is the need to fight for your country. To kill for your country. To die for your country.

I could pay my way into finding out the names, outside of the obvious terrorist attack that was performed at his base overseas. The perpetrators of the attack, the terrorists, they died at sight. Suicide.

But the real criminals that messed with my brother’s project are still out there, and my brother has made me swear not to look into it.

I won’t.

Because whatever happened that day, it has broken my brother, and whatever broke him is bigger than money, bigger than him and I. He’s been robbed of a piece of him that he’ll never get back.

He may be alive.

I can count how often he breathes, how often he rolls his eyes at me.

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