Jeremiah

"Welcome home sir,"

The butler left the car door open for me to get down from it. Eight-twenty five PM. I knew I was going to be asked a lot of questions about my whereabouts. Father's instructions were clear, and he made it obvious when he kept Manuel in charge of making sure that they were strictly obeyed.

Good thing Manuel was in Australia on another errand for him. If Manuel, or any of his other snitches didn't give him any feedback, I was sure he was close to knowing nothing about what I did, or where I was. Maybe he did, and hadn't scolded me yet because I hadn't gone there yet. Gone to see her. Gone to the one place I was never allowed to. He had my class' curriculum and time table, so I'm sure he knew that my back home time should have been six-fifteen tops.

But that was the thing about my Dad. He never really talked about anything, until it bothered him. He never really talked to me at all. Let's just say we weren't exactly close. We didn't really have that father-son relationship he pushed so hard to have with Christian. Christian was father's favorite, and second in command, as far as the pubic knew, but that's not really how it was from this side.

It was more like father felt guilty about everything Christian had to go through as a child. For someone who had lost his mother at fifteen, and tried to commit suicide at sixteen, all because of father's mistake, me, being that mistake, he had become someone father wanted to make it up to, to take care of, especially since Christian's maternal grandparents and relatives were really powerful, and wanted their first grandson to live comfortably and at ease. They gave father a real hard time whenever they felt Christian was starting to get neglected.

Father must have felt the need to be the parent Christian had lost, and even more. And unlike the rest of us, unlike the rest of the world, Christian had grown to hate him, and lose all respect for him, to feel entitled to everything Dad had ever built, but at least he always tried to prove his worth to everyone, and to show us he deserved all of it.

Christian practically blamed father for ruining his life, and hated him just as much as he hated me. He wasn't trying to hide it at all, and father felt like he had a lot to make up for, as long as Christian was concerned, and so it looked like he could care less about the rest of us. Except Kodi of course. I had to be the last on his care list, I had to be at the very bottom, because he couldn't even care to call, or even text me, all through my banishment in the states. He didn't care about anything I did at all, as long as his company didn't get hit negatively by it.

"Welcome home sir." I noticed one of the maids trying to stop me from walking towards the stairs. She wanted my attention. I stopped walking, and then I turned to her, and watched her bow to me, to show her respect. "You have a guest upstairs, sir." She told me. I frowned.

A guest? I never had any guests, and especially not in my room. Just like you guessed, I'm an "all to myself" kind of a guy. I hate doing things that bother me. Things like being in a conversation, or doing things that didn't concern me. Talking to people I don't care about, letting people touch me, and walk into my personal space, and my room was the first on that list.

I had lived all my life till that very day alone, without anyone, and it had began to rub off on me, and so, in as much as I had always prayed for this, for this change, blending into a country with people that I cared about not giving a shit about me, and people that I didn't care about all up in my business, bothered me a lot. A whole lot.

"It's Sir Christian." She didn't even wait for me to ask her who. Christian?

Christian was here to see me? That had to be a joke. I just couldn't help but wonder if it was a dream. Christian was the last person I had imagined. Was thinking Oma or Kingsley, but Christian? Christian had never taken a second out of his busy schedule to see me all my life. How come? Had he come back to his senses? Was he beginning to see me in a better light now? To miss me? Did he really want to mend things with me? I wanted to know, and I couldn't wait to. I turned to the stairs quickly, anxiety welling up in my soul, and a tiny confusing smile spreading on my lips as I jumped the stairs, two stairs at a go. I knew I had to make it in time, and I hoped he had not waited for me a long time. I really wanted to talk to him. To mend things with him, and I knew I couldn't let him leave until I did.

I reached for my keys the moment I got to the door, and then paused when I saw that the door was slightly opened. Christian was in. I could see him from the tiny space between the door and the wall, since he must had forgotten to close it completely. He was standing right in front of the set of framed pictures on my desk. There were about three of them, representing three most important people in my life, and a picture of me at eight, and fifteen year old Christian holding hands, and smiling honestly at the cameraman, was one of them.

My heart skipped a beat, because right beside the frame was a picture I wasn't allowed to have. A picture I didn't bother to hide, because I had always locked my room, and didn't expect anyone to go in. How did he even get in? Maybe he had asked the butler for a spare key. He practically had the power to do whatever he wanted. I could feel my hands shake as I reached for the handle. I was so nervous. I took a deep breath, and then another, right before I pushed the door open and walked in as slowly as I could, not bothering to close the door behind me, or make a sound, even though I was almost sure he knew I was inside.

He didn't bulge. I watched him walk past the frame beside ours, to the frame after ours. To the picture of Rebecca.

"Such a beauty." He announced as he passed his fingers slowly on her face. "What was her name again?" He asked, not bothering to look at me. "Matilda? Emmanuella?" He raised his head like he was trying to think. Not like I expected him to know. He never knew her. The only time he might have bothered to, was after the accident, and I was so sure he still didn't care. "I'm sure Manny talked about her one time in the past. What was it?"

"Rebecca." I answered. Standing still, not bothering to move.

"Yes," he snapped his fingers. "Yes, yes. Rebecca." He answered. "Too bad I didn't even get to have one meal with her before she died. She looks like she had a very promising future. Like she was a smart kid. Too bad."

I let out an exhale, and then hurried to the table, and then the picture. I turned it upside down, because I had heard enough, and I didn't want to talk about it. I heard Christian let out a weak scoff.

"Can we talk?" I asked him, because that was all I really wanted at that point. I hoped he wanted that too. I mean, why else would he be here? He raised his head to look at me. There was something different about him. He was smiling at me. Christian never smiled at me or anyone. Never.

Not even if his life depended on it. Was he drunk? I stared at him. He looked like it, and was beginning to smell like it too. He had his tie way down his neck, and that only happened when he had too much alcohol. Christian turned back to the frame with us in it. I swallowed hard, and then turned to it too. I wasn't going to ask him any questions. I knew I shouldn't cross the line. He scoffed again.

"Do you remember when we took this picture?" He asked me. His eyes still on the frame. I nodded.

"On my eighth birthday." I told him. "At the park. You took me there because I wanted to ride on the Ferris wheel, instead of a cake. You ended up getting me both."

"Remember how we were able to take this picture?" He continued. "We had bought a ticket for the wheel, but they were out of change, and had asked us if we wanted to take a picture instead-"

I had no idea when a smile escaped my lips.

"And you had to force me into believing there was a ghost in the camera that would follow me home and haunt me, if I didn't exchange my freedom with a smile. It worked like a charm."

He paused for a short while, a frown slowly finding its way to his lips, exchanging itself with his smile.

"Stop coming to my house." He told me. I froze. "Don't come there tomorrow, don't come there ever again."
He let go of the frame. I let out a forceful exhale.

"Christian-"
He turned to me.

"I'm doing all I can, Jeremiah." He told me. "I'm doing all I can to keep my sanity, since you came back, and that was why I left this house, because of you. So you could have your space, and I could have mine. I can't leave my own house because of you. You are becoming a real bother to me."

"I just want to talk."

"But I don't want to talk to you!" He hit the table as hard as he could, raising his voice and glaring at me. "What could we possibly talk about? Isn't it obvious? After all these years, isn't it obvious how I feel about you? Why do you keep bothering me, and becoming a parasite in my life? What must I have to do to make you understand that I want nothing to do with you? You're constantly making me lose my mind, please."

"I've missed you." I told him, slowly raising my face to his, so I could look him right into his eyes. "Everyday for the past eleven years, I've wondered how it would have been, how we would have been if we didn't know all we knew. If all that happened, didn't happen? If we hadn't found out the truth?"

"Did you really think-" Christian chuckled for a second. "Did you really think there was a slight chance of us ever growing up as friends? Me? Being friends with the child of a mere maid? A house maid? Why? Because we played together, and took pictures like this together? We were only kids. Kids that didn't know what life really was."

"We were brothers."

"You are not my brother!" He raised his voice in frustration, and then shut his eyes for a short second. I watched him take deep breaths like he was trying to calm himself. Then he opened his eyes.
"We might have had some sort of relationship in the past, and share the same genes, and the same father, but you are not my brother. I can never see you as anything else than a fraud. A cheap and fake replacement for me. A mistake my father wasn't supposed to make, but did, and then sent away to correct. A killer, a liar, an opportunist, and most of all, the son of a village prostitute."

"I didn't lie to you." I told him. I heard him scoff. He didn't believe me. "I never lied to you. Never once in my life. Everything I told you back then was the truth. The truth I was told. I was kept in the dark, just like you."

"You and that dirty, slutty mother of yours came into my home under false pretense, and made a fool out of me and my mother. A woman, recommended by my father's PA, they said. A poor woman from the village that just needed a job and shelter for her and her little bastard. We opened our arms to you, took care of you. We were kind to you, she was kind to you. We took you as our own, for one long year, and then what did you two do? Huh? You made a complete fool out of me, and made me lose the only person that ever cared about me. The one person I'd have moved this world for. You and your mother drove her insane. The news, the thought that she had been looking after the same people that ruined her home, the thought that she had taken you two into our home, out of the goodness of her heart. My father, her own husband's illegitimate child. Do you know how that news ruined our lives?" He glared at me. "Did you know what it did to her?"

Of course I knew. I swallowed hard. How could I ever forget?

"Just in case you forgot, I'd love to remind you. You and your mother turned my mother to an addict. You made her miserable, until she had decided that she had had enough of the humiliation, and took her own life. She overdosed. I watched her body turn cold in my arms. That was what you did to me. How do you expect me to ever forgive that? To ever erase the thought of that from my mind?"

"I'm sorry." I whispered to him. I was almost falling short of breath and words. I didn't know what to say.

"Of course you are, but sorry doesn't bring back the dead, does it? It can't bring her back. It's what you do to people. People always get hurt when you walk into their lives. You're bad luck. An agent of misfortune. It happened to me, and then it happened to her."
He turned back to the picture of Rebecca.

"You cause more harm than good wherever you go, even when you don't mean to. Your mere existence is dangerous and problematic, and that's a problem we all here are living with. You. We all have to bear and live with you for the rest of our lives. Cleaning up your mess, and taking care of your problems. You never do what you're told, you never stay put, and play dead like you were told to. The instruction was to stay in the states and not do anything that would make people notice your existence. Act dead, become useless if you had to, but what did you do? You enrolled in a film academy, and got yourself a modeling job. You started putting yourself out there for clout, being on the front page of every international magazine,"

"Partying loud every day and night, drinking yourself insane, joining gangs, selling drugs, being a complete bad boy just to get our attention, and when you finally did, it was because you made the worst mistake of your life. You drank yourself to stupor, and then decided to drive home on full speed, with someone's child in the passenger's seat, in the middle of the night. What were you thinking? You should have died in that accident, instead of her. You're the one everyone wants gone. You should have been the one to die. I wish you had, but I guess God and the universe is always on your side."

I shut my eyes for a second.

"He must hate us so much, and that's why we can't really get rid of you, no matter how we really try. You have no idea, do you? You don't know what it took for Benoil, for us to cover your ass after that accident. An accident you were supposed to learn from, but the mistakes and disobedience never ends with you, does it? Even till now, you don't know your place. You don't know when not to cross the line. You still do what you want, go where you want. Did you really think I could let you reunite with the only one person that cares what happens to you, after you took away the chance of me being with mine? Did you really think coming back here would let you get reunited with her? You might have Ozor blood in your veins, but she doesn't. She can can never belong here, and you can never leave this place. You can never have the privilege of calling her your mother, just like you both deserve."

Christian's words were piercing through my soul like a sword. My hands were trembling just listening to him.

"It must really hurt, doesn't it? Calling someone else your mother, watching everyone call someone that didn't give birth to you, someone that clearly doesn't care what happens to you, your mother, when your real mother is out there, cleaning poop, and washing dishes like the dirty maid she is. I bet she hates it just as much, and the fact that she can't do anything about it must really kill her. Hell, I bet she wishes she wasn't alive to witness all of this, but she can't die just yet. None of you can die yet, until you watch me take back everything you took from me. If there's anyone that's going to kill any of you three, that person is going to be me."

"Is it really that hard?"
I could hear my own words echo in my room as I looked at him. "I slowly raised my head to him. I had tears in my eyes. I could feel it. "Is it really that hard to just let it go, and go back to when none of this ever happened? Do I really mean nothing to you? Can't you ever forgive me? Do you really hate me this much?"

I looked into his eyes, hoping he could say something else, something that wasn't the same with what I've been hearing for the past eleven years, but he just stared at me. His frown worsening.

"Stay away from my house, and my family." He told me. "Or I might have to get a restraining order, or better still, murder you, and I swear to God, I mean every bit of what I just said. If you ever come close to my house again, I will kill you, and It's not a joke."

I held my breath for a long while, just as I watched him turn back to the table. I couldn't believe he had said all those things to me. I mean I had heard these same words all my life, but at that point, at that moment, it felt like I had lost him. Like there was no chance of us ever getting better than this again. He turned to the last picture on the table, and then picked it up.

"You won't be needing this here." He told me, holding on tight to it. "You can't even have the privilege of keeping a picture of her. Someone might come in here and see it, and begin to ask questions. It's not good for the company."

He took a step towards the door, and then another. I just froze. Standing still, and not moving a muscle, as I heard his footstep retreating to the door. I was taking fast and deep breaths all at once, and then the door opened. It shut back again.

He had left.