After the detective left the living room of my home thousands of ideas raced through my mind now that I was finally freed from the oppressive hold that my brother had on my life. I stood up and carefully walked to the staircase that led to my room on the second floor. With every step, I desperately wanted to burst out into a song and dance to celebrate the pitiful death of my bastard brother.

I walked up the stairs slowly and deliberately until I was on the second floor where I speed-walked to my room. I launched myself to my bland-looking bed where I could finally yell out with the greatest amount of Joy

"YESSSS" my voice came out muffled by the pillow that I forced into my face to make sure that my still mourning parents didn't hear me celebrating the death of their favorite child. I sat there in ecstasy for the next hour and a half until I hear a soft knock at my door.

'bam'

After hearing the knock I straightened up and told the person to come in, the door was pushed in and my mother looked at me with a glassy look in her eyes. Her curly hair black with specs of gray looked unruly and unkept, and her eyes were red and bloodshot from crying about Justin's death. She said nothing to me and she ushered me to the first floor of the house where I was greeted by my father who despite not looking as much of a wreck as my mother still had red bloodshot eyes from crying.

"Son" he started in his usual strong and deep voice " I need you to step up now that our brother is gone" despite trying to uphold his image his voice cracked and croaked when he mentioned Justin at the end of his statement.

I looked at bother of them with the same empty look, as usual, the only difference in my appearance came in my eyes that I had intentionally irritated to make it seem as though I was morning that bastard's death. I responded in a still tone "what do you mean step up?". He looked into my eyes as he stated with anger and base in his voice " You were the son that failed in every metric, while Justin was a beacon of strength and greatness I shouldn't have to explain to you why you must finally stand up now that Justin is no longer here". I felt sick to my stomach at the idea of replacing Justin as the golden child as I had had quite enough of the cage that Justin had spent our entire childhood creating.

I immediately wanted to scream out and tell them to fuck off but I felt sick to my stomach at the thought of them looking at me like they always had. I feared the repercussions of rejecting them and I feared the complete and absolute breakdown of the fragile structure of my household.

With a feeling akin to swallowing a mouthful of bile I begrudgingly accepted the new role with the simple utterance "Of course, I will step up" one quick sentence that would alter the trajectory of my entire life.

The very next day was woken up to what was essentially a feast of eggs, toast, bacon, waffles, pancakes, coffee, and Orange juice. I marveled at the breakfast spread that was all but foreign to me, I had normally woken up much later when the house was completely silent and devoid of the presence of my family. Normally my breakfast consisted of bland oatmeal or maybe some boring cereal, never in my life had I ever imagined that Justin ate like this.

My parents greeted me with a smile as my mother handed me a cup of coffee, My mother asked me with the brightest beaming smile I had ever seen " did you have a good rest honey?" a simple question that touched my heart in a way I didn't know It could. I sit at the kitchen island waiting for my mother to finish making me my breakfast plate when my father reached over to me his ebony-colored arm was quite nicely layered with muscle and had left a rather thick day planner for me on the marble kitchen island.

I opened the journal and spent the next five minutes reading before letting out a heavy sigh at all that I had to do.

According to the journal I had to :

Workout for 45 minutes

Study for my classes

Go to my piano lesson

Go to my viola lesson

Go to my college and switch majors from engineering to Pre-med

Come home and prepare dinner for parents by 8:30

This was the schedule that I had to follow indefinitely. When I thought about the logistics of this schedule it meant that I had almost no time in between these tasks.

After the first week, my parents were incredibly furious with me as they claimed that Justin had been doing all of this since he was 13 years old so why couldn't I do it even though I was 17? Their vicious critique only got worse as time went on. Their expectations were crushing, my goals were crushing, my future looked bleak, and I just wanted to die

At 28 years old I was finally everything they molded me into, I was fit, well-liked by my peers, I was nearly at the expert level at both the piano and the viola, I was finally after over 11 years of hard work I was finally able to become a successful neurosurgeon. I had finally proved myself to them and yet. I felt nothing but anger and emptiness, those feelings persisted with me and haunted me every single day of the last miserable eleven years of my life.

In my office, I sit in the dark putting the final touches on some work when all of a sudden a throbbing migraine overtook me to the point that my vision blurred and was reduced to a point. I got up and stumbled over to a side table in the room that held my half-empty bottle of Tylenol. I reached out to that bottle like it was my last lifeline. When I reached it I let out a soft groan as I struggled with the child-proof cap, after a few seconds the cap flung off as well as about a quarter of the remaining pills. I reached a slightly trembling hand into the bottle and threw the first pill I grabbed into my mouth.

I slowly moved back to my chair and close my eyes to sleep off what was hands down the worst migraine I have ever had.

The problem was that I would never wake up from that sleep.