(Readers are strongly recommended 17+)
It's been two years since "the accident."
My big brother meant the absolute world to me.
My fondest memories consist of us playing together in the snow all winter long, tossing snowballs and rolling snowmen until our parents would call us in for chicken noodle soup and crackers. I remember he attended my elementary school graduation and was so proud of me. I never had to worry about the bigger kids on the block teasing me, because he was always there to protect my shy, innocent presence. If it weren't for him, I would have dealt with so many bullies, but thankfully I had a gracious childhood due to his protection.
As we grew older, we continued a deep relationship that I will forever cherish. Yes, we fought here and there, just like all siblings. But without his guidance and loving character, I don't think I'd be half the person I am today. When I was going through my first serious breakup, he'd call every night and ask how I was doing. Even though I was only seventeen and it meant nothing in reality, it felt like my world was coming to an end. Yet he'd always remind me that I'd get through it, and how I wouldn't even remember his name in five years.
And now my brother is dead...gone forever.
Two Christmases ago, my parents and I set up a surprise party for the homecoming of his first year in university. We invited everyone—and I mean everyone—cousins, uncles and aunts, grandparents, step-siblings. We had cooked his favourite ribs and baked potatoes, all in celebration of him completing the first semester of his degree. We had also bought him many gifts for the Christmas holiday, along with myself, writing a nice, long poem about how much he meant to me.
But my brother didn't come home that night. We waited and waited, sitting in our hidden positions to jump out and surprise him like we had planned for the weeks prior to come.
Instead, we got a phone call at four in the morning, that he had been in a terrible car crash on the drive down to see us. Panicking, we all dashed to the hospital to meet him, but it was too late. He had died from loss of blood, being ejected out the front windshield from the collision of a drunk driver hitting him straight on.
And that was the day my life changed forever. The day where my smile was replaced with an irreparable frown. The day my heart turned so cold it could freeze you from just being within my heartless, bleak presence. I developed a hatred inside me so deep for the driver responsible, as she was the one who got to live and see another day. She didn't have to suffer the loss I did. She didn't have to bury her sibling in the ground because some stupid, pathetic bitch couldn't resist the urge to get fucked up and drive behind the wheel. She had taken over my life, to where all I could possibly think about was how badly I wanted to hurt her back. To make her scream; to make her suffer.
Every day from that point on was a living hell. The fact I couldn't talk to my brother anymore was agony, and I formed more and more hatred inside of me for the one who had taken him away. My dad, distraught, but not to the level that I seemed to be, tried to explain that everything happens for a reason. But I didn't buy it. I didn't feel that my brother was in a "better place," or that it was in his destiny to be taken away from us—from me. I had to face the painful reality that he simply was gone, and that I'd never see his beautiful face again.
And so here I walk once again to the courtroom, on my way to this bullshit trial that has been going on and on for over two years now. Finally, after being postponed and taken to the edge of the very earth, today is the day we will see if my archenemy will plead guilty or not. The day where I will finally—finally—get my justice. I think of all the sleepless nights...all the infinite tears I poured...all the anger and bitterness I've kept bottled up in my heart. I will go to the end of the universe to see that whore rot away in a cage where she belongs. I've got something trapped inside me you can't even fathom, and I will not be denied.
