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I slid my finger across the screen, and I answered, “To what do I owe the pleasure of you calling me little brother?”
“Hey, Nate.” He sounded tired and worn down.
Usually, my brother was a lively little shit who talked too fast and animatedly. This was a little weird for him to sound so mellow.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” he yawned. “Just went out last night and got back home late. No big deal.”
“It was a Tuesday last night.”
“I know,” he said.
“Why are you going out on a bender on a Tuesday night? Don’t you have work?”
“I took some personal days off. I needed to rethink my life a little bit.” The silence was on the other end of the line as I waited for him to continue. “I’ve had a lot on my mind that I’ve been dealing with, and it’s been messing with me…pretty bad.”
I took a sharp intake of air.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know, man. Maybe it’s like some quarter-life crisis that I’m dealing with. Or maybe it’s the breakup. All I know is that my head is spinning, and alcohol seems to work until it doesn’t.”
My chest tightened at his words. “I thought we learned from Dad that booze does nothing for you but hurt you and those around you.”
“I know,” he groaned. “I know that. But I just needed to take the edge off. I didn’t want to go down Dad’s path, but I felt so…alone.”
“What happened to your girlfriend?”
This was a question I had wanted to know for a while now, but I just hadn’t figured out how to ask it. We weren’t close enough for me to randomly ask about Amelia out of the blue. Especially when he thought I hated her.
“I broke up with her.” There was something in his tone that raised a lot more questions in my head.
“Why?”
Silence.
He didn’t answer me for what seemed to be a minute, if not more.
“I didn’t think she was what I wanted anymore. She was just so…stuck. At least, it seemed that way in my head. She always followed me around like a lost puppy. It was like she didn’t have a mind of her own. She tried to intertwine everything we did. It felt like she was taking away my identity.”
Why did I find that hard to believe?
“She was always on my case about marriage and babies and settling down and, I don’t know, I guess I just panicked. I’m only 22. How can I introduce life into this world when I don’t have my shit together? How would that work? But she kept pushing and pushing, and I guess I just snapped. I wanted out.”
I thought back to the time in her apartment when she had told me that she wanted to have babies of her own one day.
New life. New hope.
“Did you ever tell her you were feeling that pressure?”
“No,” he finally admitted after another long pause. “I didn’t want to upset her. So, I just kept telling her soon. I told her that she would be the mother of my kids, but I didn’t know if it was immediate like she wanted.”
It made sense why she had been so upset.
She had felt like she was promised this world that he had painted for her and even confirmed for her. Then, one random day, he broke her heart and told her he wanted out.
I understood my brother’s side. I was the same way. I didn’t want anything serious. I didn’t want to be tied down right now. I was happy with my job, my life, and my city. I didn’t need anything or anyone else coming in and ruining that.
