𝑩𝒆𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒆 𝑵𝒆𝒘 𝒀𝒐𝒓𝒌 { PREQUEL}

One

My older brother, Aiden, used to be overweight. At first, it wasn't anything that we truly thought about. He started puberty at 11, which was quite an early peak-especially for a boy. It began with the occasional voice cracks. Then a few strand hairs began to grow on his chin, looking like whiskers more than anything.

He got incredibly tall and slept longer than usual. Aiden towered over the rest of our sixth grade class. Along with the growth spurt, came the weight gain. It was a few pounds here and there. But when his love handles became prevalent through his tee shirts, and his calves started to become as thick as his thighs, people noticed. I didn't think much of it. He was still my brother-my twin brother at that.

He was still the Aiden that I loved; the boy that I had shared the same womb with. The one who picked me up whenever I fell down, and kept me company due to my lack of friends. He was the only one who understood me, communicating my breakdowns to my parents whenever they cluelessly asked me what was wrong. Everyone else saw an obese boy whenever they looked at him. But to me, he was simply a hero.

I wanted to be exactly like him. I longed to have his artistic abilities and naturally funny charisma. I wanted his intelligent brain and impeccable study habits. It may have seemed like a lot of people shunned him. To everyone else, the only thing that Aiden would ever amount to was an oversized pre-teen boy. But to me; he was so much more than that. Unfortunately, my opinion of him seemed to matter the least. No matter how many times I tried to remind him of his worth, he refused to believe me.

I mean, what would I know? I was only his baby sister. Who was I to tell him how amazing he truly was? Right?

Wrong.

His logic was completely flawed.

Because I was his sister, my opinion should have mattered the most. I saw who he truly was, not the cowards who hid behind name calling and shunning. And the fact that nothing I said would ever help him in the way that I intended-it ruined me. There was nothing worse than knowing someone that didn't understand how amazing they truly were.

I wished that we could somehow trade bodies, so that he could see himself in the light that I saw him in.

But I was the last person that he wanted to listen to. Instead, Aiden willingly adopted the views of our peers that disliked him the most. He believed their harsh words, hating himself so much that it consumed him. Maybe if I starved myself, purged it of love and nutrients while clothing myself with neglect; maybe if I had done that, he would understand the tragedy in what he was doing.

But if I ever tried to flip the tables, a part of me feared that he would actually encourage me to join him in the twisted behavior; ignoring the error in his ways. Sometimes, when I filled my stomach with enough food to serve an entire family, I felt his judgmental glares boring into my skin. His silence was condescending. Even in the quiet moments that dragged on at the dinner table, the moments where I stuffed my face and he happily ignored the food on his plate, his thoughts were louder than ever: How can you possibly eat that? Don't you want to be skinny? The bloated feeling in your stomach must be eating away at you...

They were comments he had made to me before. Ones I had memorized so much, that he didn't even have to utter them for me to know they were infesting his mind.

Comments that made me realize his love for an empty stomach would always be much stronger than his love for me.

Countless of times, I had wondered what my brother would do if I was about to die. What if a man barged into our house and put a gun to my head? Would he take a bullet for me?

What if I was abducted?

Would he search the ends of the earth to find me?

The answer always felt like a stab to the chest; no.

He wouldn't.

But I knew that he would do anything to lose another pound; anything to test the theory of how small he could actually become.

Every hospital visit, recovery plan, feeding tube, health scare, and rehab center was proof of that. Despite all of the red flags thrown his way, Aiden always continued on.

With the knowledge of the fact that he was killing himself every day-Aiden always continued on.

In his mind, I wasn't worth dying for, yet starving was. And the reality of it was gut wrenching.