You’re born as a replacement. You fail the tests, but you don’t have time to think about that because your replacement is the only one in the world who understands because your parents have never and will never address your bruises. But suddenly he’s gone. There’s no one to protect anymore. Your tormentor, your other brother, the one you were meant to replace, he bares his heart to you and invites you to join his project. You find excitement in what you do for the very first time. Maybe you love him. You tell him you don’t. You want him to hurt how you hurt.
Years pass. You’re twelve. You see your brother for the first time in four years. You tell him he must return to his own personal hell. He does. He was already a killer, though you didn’t know that, but you made him the most famous killer to ever live all because you had to.
When the time comes, you leave without hesitation. Maybe it’s to punish your other brother. Maybe it’s to punish your parents. Maybe it’s because you owe your brother. It can be a lot of things, but what it can’t be is reversible.
You can’t remember the last time you saw a season twice on the same planet.
Sometime during all this, your parents die. Your other brother, too. His death was a much bigger deal. Or so you heard. Your brother is still the only person who understands.
Years pass. You’re in your thirties. You settle down with another man, maybe thinking that your brother might be ready to consider your happiness over his misery. He leaves for another girl, one who reminds him of himself. You start to wonder if you really understand your brother.
When it comes, you heed your brother’s call because you are Valentine Wiggin. Your children are grown up; they don’t need you the way he needs you.
He surprises you with children of his own. He shares them with the girl he left you for. One of them is fascinated with you. He loses that fascination about the time when your brother brings back another you.
It is you, that’s for sure. You, age twelve. Innocent, angelic, a sight unlike anything else in this claustrophobic town. An image of your other brother is here too. At the age when he accomplished what you sacrificed your childhood for. At least, that’s what you gathered. Regardless, you don’t know either of them.
The angelic you dies. Well, she cedes her body to a being far more capable of taking care of everyone than you’ll ever be. That’s the only way she can die.
Your brother retires to a tranquil life, silently apologizing to the girl who became a woman long ago.
Your brother turns into dust in your hands. It is kind of absurd, the dramaticism of it all. You never thought you’d live in a world without him.
You find out at the same time as everyone else that the image of your other brother now contains your brother—what’s left of your brother.
You find out at the same time as everyone else that there will be no answer to the question you set out to help solve.
You find out at the same time as everyone else that there’s nothing more to be done.
No one will ever sit with you and scheme to take over the world again, even though that boy’s face still appears often in your line of sight. No one will ever stay up all night with you to joke and laugh and cry again, even though that boy’s mannerisms are still alive within that image.
Because you’re the only one still alive.
