Cecil

All he did was deny it.

"No," Kevin insisted as he was six inches away from me, clueless to everything because of a stupid corporation," Cecil, you're insane. We're doubles, not twins, not brothers, doubles and that's all."

I couldn't...

I just didn't say anything. 

For years I wanted to know what happened to him, if he was alive, if he was okay. 

And then I found out that Strex got to him and used him as a poster child for Desert Bluffs. Brainwashed him. 

Not only did they brainwash him, but they wiped his memory. Slowly, but surely, and now it's gone. Every memory he had of this place growing up. He doesn't even remember Mom anymore.

Then again, it's hard for me to distinctly remember what she looks like anymore. It's been over ten years. I was 14 when she died. When she killed herself. Left us.

Abby couldn't be angrier that she had to take care of me after that. Not Kevin, though.

Because he was gone.

And now he's here, not trying to kill me.

But he doesn't remember me.

Looking down at the photo I had ripped up of Kevin, Abby, and I earlier, I became increasingly frustrated.

He wanted this.

He wanted to lose control. To not have to worry about a thing ever again.

Kevin gave up on himself, and I tried to stop him. He answered the call so many years later.

I tried to warn him, but everything already happened. It wouldn't so anything for our reality. For our present.

He didn't listen.

"Cecil? Hello?" Kevin questioned as I looked down at the two of us, opening presents for our birthday. Our last one together. If I only knew that back then. "you're not helping yourself by just staying silent, you know?"

Picking up the now broken picture frame, I just held it for a second.

"Look at us." I remarked.

"What now?" Kevin responded, having not quite gotten what I said.

"Look at it, Kevin," I repeated, showing him the frame. "Look at that and tell me you don't remember it! You have to..."

Kevin glanced at the photo and looked for a moment, but looked away as if it meant nothing.

"Remember what, Cecil?" He questioned and I was losing my mind. "I wasn't at the party, Cecil. We hadn't met."

"Yes, you... You were," I insisted and pointed at the two of us. "see? Right there. I'm here, and you're there. We were opening our presents and... You have to remember some of it, Kevin. Any of it."

But he thought I was a mad man.

"Cecil, I'm sorry, but you've confused me with somebody else."

"No, I'm..." And in a strike of pure genius, I grabbed the recording of my last show and the recording of his. The people who run the studio records his, just in case there's anything subtle in terms of threats in it. "listen."

It took a few minutes to find the exact spot where the signal cut in, but I found it.

And I let him listen to himself all those years ago. God, 20 years ago now. We were so little. 13 years old when he left.

Almost 15 years without a word and I find him in Desert Bluffs, a different person.

All I want is my brother.

"No, that can't be," Kevin insisted, not wanting to believe it. "I never was... I've always been with Desert Bluffs. Not here..."

"I warned you," I remarked. "But you never did go back, right? You were stubborn. We both were, as kids. You brought that with you to the Bluffs. Your stubbornness."

"I didn't... I'm not your family, Cecil."

And all it did was frustrate me.

"It's right here, Kevin!" I insisted, not intending to raise my voice how I did. I'm never that intense. It seemed to catch him off guard. "how can you deny this, Kevin? It was your voice, this is a photo of you! It's right here! It can't be somebody else, Kevin, there isn't another Kevin in Desert Bluffs."

Looking at me, Kevin seemed to look as if he didn't know how to respond to me.

"Come home, Kevin," I requested. "Please. We've been waiting for you."

He looked down for a second.

"Cecil, I don't..." He told me. "I have a show to run in the Bluffs. Productive things to do. I'm always working, being productive, I can't just move."

"Why not?" I questioned, having calmed down slightly. "You moved there like it was nothing, why can't you come back?"

"Cecil, I've been there my entire life."

"Then where did the scar under your eye come from?"

Thinking about it, Kevin shrugged.

"I was a child, I'm sure." He told me. "I'm sure I was playing and I fell."

I shook my head.

"You were helping Mom make lunch," I corrected him. "You were cutting up some vegetables for her and Abby scared you and you cut yourself. Had to get stitches, Abby was grounded for a few weeks. We we're 8."

Kevin placed a finger over the scar. It wasn't that much, maybe an inch or inch a half long.

"No, I couldn't have..." But somewhere, there was a memory of him cooking. Of him cutting himself, and I knew it was there. "How do you know? I always tell people that I was playing. How would you have heard the cooking story?"

"Because I was there, Kevin." I responded. "I was on the other side of the kitchen, helping stir noodles for the stew.'

For a second he stayed silent.

"What else do you know?"