Saving Melissa

Chapter 6

Gavin

Past

"Michael what the f.uck is wrong with you? You have got to stop this s.hit." I tell my brother, I'm so Goddamn tired of being my brother's keeper. So f.ucking tired of it, I think that my parents think just because we're twins we have a special connection. They would have been right about that up until, hell, up until just a few years ago. Everything seemed to go to hell on our 21st birthday. Michael has been high more than not since then, he's been kicked out of college, been arrested for shoplifting. My parents don't know what to do with him anymore, so they ask me to step in.

Scratch that, they haven't stopped their approach of showering him with love hoping it will be enough to straighten him out. But I am done, I am so f.ucking done. He needs some tough love and that's what he's going to get. I'm not coddling him anymore, it's not helping a single Goddamn thing.

"Do you think you can keep it down?" He asks me, from under the pillow he is currently trying to sleep under, "I have the hangover of a lifetime and your incessant nagging is only making it that much worse."

"When aren't you hungover dips.hit? If I waited until you were sober to talk to you, I'd never have a chance."

"Ah yes, Gavin, perfect f.ucking Gavin, we should all bow down before you, you're never drunk."

"You know I drink Mike, but you also know I have my s.hit together and you need to get your s.hit together too. You aren't a f.ucking kid anymore, Mom and Dad can't keep supporting you. They barely make enough money to support themselves let alone their leech of a son."

"Well we can't all have fancy finance jobs that pay for us to get our degrees now can we?"

"You could have had everything I have if you didn't get kicked out of school in your last semester. Now we have to talk about this, you have to get help because I'm sorry man but this is it. If you won't see someone, if you won't get yourself under control I'm done with you."

"I'm honestly not sure how I'll ever go on with out the approval of the golden child," he responded sarcastically.

I huff and sit down on the opposite end of the couch, so tired of these constant fights. "You won't even tell me what happened, what happened that made you, that made you," I didn't even know how to finish that. That mad him what? An a.sshole? A waste of space? A druggie?

"Awesome? What happened that made me so awesome is that what you were going to say?"

"F.uck off, I'm serious Mike I'm done. And I'm going to tell Mom and Dad they are too. You're not going to get any better if they keep enabling you."

"That's right, take take take, that's all you ever do from me isn't it? You take everything you want, make sure that I don't get anything. I don't see what Mom and Dad giving me money has to do with you, so how about you stay the f.uck out of it?"

"What are you even talking about, when have I ever taken a single thing from you? And Mom and Dad blowing through their retirement plans to pay for all your s.hit does affect me because it affects them. How do you think they will survive? Do you think they should just keep working their entire lives to pay for your drug habit?"

"I think if they want to give me money, I'm not going to say no. And of course you wouldn't remember her, the great Gavin Sinclaire has so many women clambering to get in his bed he can't tell them apart can he?"

"Are you high right now? Because you are making zero sense." There was a time Michael could have had any girl he wanted too, but now after years of drinking and shooting himself up with drugs, he looks nothing like he used to, he looks nothing like me anymore.

"I'm talking about Stephanie, Stephanie, you do remember her right, that girl you slept with on our 21st?"

"I guess so but what does that have to do with anything?"

"She was my girlfriend, my f.ucking girl man. We were together, I brought her to the Goddamn party. Then an hour after it starts I can't find her anywhere, I go looking for her only to find her in bed with you riding your d**k. You know when we f.ucked she always laid there like a dead fish, but with you she went all out huh? That's how it's always been though hasn't it?"

Why is this the first I'm hearing of this. It has been three years since our party, has he honestly been holding onto this since then? "Are you seriously telling me that you got yourself addicted to drugs because a girl, who can't have been that important to you since I obviously had no idea you had a girlfriend let alone who she was, slept with me?"

"That's not all it was," he screams at me, "don't you get it? All my life I've come in second to you, you were even born a full three minutes before me. You were always the smart one, the one with ambition, the one that was going places. Prom King, and the quarterback, they could have made a Hallmark movie about your life. I had one thing, one f.ucking thing that you didn't have. Of course I wasn't going to introduce the two of you. Why would I want her to know she picked the dud? But you had to take that too."

"Mike, come on, be serious. I'm sorry I slept with someone you liked I didn't know. How could I have known? You know I never would have done that to you."

"F.uck you Gavin, now get the f.uck out of my apartment."

"Fine, but remember what I said. I'll drop some information off tomorrow about rehab, get f.ucking clean or I'm done with you and I'll make sure our parents are done with you too. I won't let you take advantage of them anymore."

"F.ucking leave," he screamed as he threw a controller at me. So I turned and left, I had a job to get to, I had an exam I had to study for but I had to drag myself down here once again because mom hadn't heard from Michael in a few weeks. I meant every word, this was his last chance. I love my brother and I know he needs help, I know his addiction is a disease, but you can't help someone that isn't willing to help themselves and I am all out of options.

I headed to work and spent a few hours there, then took off for the library. Once I got out of there I turned my phone off, I had to concentrate on studying if I wanted to ace this exam. I left the library after three hours and headed to my campus to start working on my test. By the time I had finished, it was nine o'clock at night. I was used to late nights, but on days like today they wore on me. Once I got back to my apartment I turned my phone on only to see I had ten voicemails from my mother and what had to be over 30 texts. S.hit something bad must have happened. I didn't listen to any of her voicemails, I didn't even read her messages I just called her back, and she answered after the first ring.

"Mom, what's wrong?"

"Oh baby, it's M-michael."

"What happened now?" I ask in a bored tone, I should have figured he was going to whine to mommy about my visit this morning.

"Honey, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry. He, I don't even know how I say this, how do I say this?"

"Mom," I say, suddenly feeling my stomach drop, this is more than Michael complaining about me, "what's wrong just tell me."

"Honey, Michael was mugged today somewhere outside his apartment. He was injured badly, he had severe head trauma, and he, he, he" she paused as she started sobbing.

"Gavin," he heard his dad's voice after a few seconds, he must have taken her phone. "Michael didn't make it out of surgery."

"What?"

"Son, why don't you come home so we can talk about this."

"I'll be home in a few." I tell them as I hang up the phone, I walk to my car on auto pilot, I start driving towards their house and the only thing I can think is that muscle memory is leading me there because how else am I pulling up outside their house and parking when I don't even remember getting there. How can he be gone? How can he just be gone? I know I was done with him after today, but knowing he's out there being a world class dips.hit is so much better than knowing he's gone. I put my forehead on the steering wheel and just try to breathe. I try to collect myself before I go inside because I know my parents are going to need me more than ever tonight.