There are twelve things you need to know about my brother,
One, his name was John.
Two, He was a year older than me.
Three, he was a great phenomenal football star, with a scholarship to play for the TCU Horned Frogs, but by the time I graduated high school and he was supposed to be in college he stayed to protect me. I always told him he was an idiot.
Four, John was the sweetest and most caring person I ever met. He smiled at you, and behind that smile you just know no one else on the entire world could ever understand him like he could.
Five, he previously dated Jenny Gullerback (yes her last name was as terrible as her personality) his relationship ended due to me, being the little sister, did not take so kindly too Jenny. He always took in my opinion the most, plus he deserved better.
“Her boobs are too big.” I said sitting on the concrete of our father’s garage.
“Too big? Impossible.” He said with a sly smile as he fumbled with the engine on dad’s buick.
“Plus her last name? No wonder she’s such a slut, tries to date someone and get hitched to dump ‘Gullerback’”
“And our last names are better? ‘ Heather Rucker?’ How terribly unfortunate, you should get hitched quick, take lessons from Jenny. For I am cursed by my penis to keep this last name and the memories of our ancestors that will haunt me. And you’ll get married to a famous actor who will have grandkids who look back on his family tree on that website what’s it called?” He looked up from the engine of the car.
“Ancestry?”
“Yeah Ancestry, and they’ll look back and find your name and click on your family tree and see how far back the bad goes. But your grandchildren could never care about your last name or ancestry since aliens will take over. My grandkids on the other hand will know exactly where to look because of this cursed last name. Cursed! Cursed I tell you!” John exclaimed.
That was another thing about John he always got lost in the absolute craziest conversations about god knows what
“Back to Jenny, I just don’t see the great thing about her.” I said standing up and going to look at what he was working on this whole time
“She has a good… heart?” He said it as if he was questioning himself,
“I say spilt up and then get this car fixed so you can take me to the bookstore.”
“Who the hell said I would drive you to a bookstore?” He tried to act serious and slammed the Buick's hood but broke into a grin. The sequel to our favorite book (Tree and Bark) was coming out that day and he was just as excited as I was.
"Get in."
After that conversation he broke up with her, and that was that. Turns out he was dating her for pity after her parent’s divorce and felt bad to break the news to her. John was always too sweet.
Six, you should know John was always there for people. Example A being Jenny. His sweet and caring attitude always got himself laid.
Seven, he protected me from Dad and his drunken nights.
The only thing you need to know about my Dad is Mom left him as soon as she birthed me and he’s been drunk ever since. The only time I’ve seen him sober up was when John played football. Dad sometimes would get too drunk to comprehend what he was doing, I know he didn’t mean to put us in harms way, but that doesn’t mean we weren't in the line of fire. Our dad would yell at me because he said I was a spitting image of her. So one night I cut off my long blonde hair, I even cut some nice bangs and dyed it brown. I thought Dad would stop yelling when I stopped looking like her, but he didn’t.
Eight, John was the glue to a lot of things. He kept me straight when Dad didn’t care how late it was when I got home.
Nine, John wasn’t always sick, he used to play football, he used to smile and tell stories of how he was going to get better and run away. He said he’d take me with him, said we’ll reach the Mexico border and turn around and do it all over again.
Ten, John died October seventeenth, a day before the ending of our favorite trilogy came out with it’s final book.
Eleven, the last thing John swore for me to do, and I recall so clearly the sound of the beeping machines as he laid in the hospital bed.
“Get away from here. As fast as you can. Dad will destruct himself and there is nothing you can do. There is a map in my room and money in a slot I cut into the mattress. You’re going to get out of here and you’re not going to look back.” and then he smiled, like he just didn’t give me a huge life mission to go and leave. He smiled like he just asked how my day was and I replied positively.
Twelve, the last time I ever saw John he couldn’t talk, he had a breathing tube down his throat. After surgery he couldn’t breathe on his own, so now he got his own handy dandy breathing machine. I bent down to hug him and it sounded like he was trying to mutter something. After a minute of frusturation I handed him a napkin and a pen. He passed me the note over after struggling writing, it only contained two letters:
Go.
And that’s exactly what I planned to do.
