My father had taught me how to fire a gun. He owned one for protection, because he’d had some dangerous skirmishes with other airship pilots and crewmembers in the past, but as far as I knew he’d never used it. Now that he wasn’t working, he kept the gun upstairs, locked in the bottom drawer of a small bureau. Back in the fall, he’d taken me deep into the woods and taught me how to hold it, load it, and fire it. He said now that I was getting older and taking on real airship missions, I needed to know how to protect my crew and myself.

Only use it if you or your crew is threatened, he said. Let them take the ship, if it comes to that, but as captain you have a duty to protect the lives of your crew. Don’t ever forget how dangerous a gun can be. One wrong move, and you could kill someone—including someone you love, if you mess up.

He scared me when he talked like that, which was good, because it was the truth. My skin prickled with goose bumps when I held it, when I felt the cold, heavy black metal between my palms. I’d never seen a real gun before, or never touched one at any rate. When I fired I for the first time, the shock ran through my fingers, and I jumped back, nearly dropping it. Firing it made my heart pound and cold sweat shiver down my back, but it brought a type of power to my fingertips that I’d never before experienced.

Bang.

I never forgot what it felt like to pull the trigger, to have the end of the gun explode in a deafening roar, to see the holes left in the target.

Bang, bang, bang.

Seventy-three days after Roger slit his wrists, I went upstairs into the guest room where the gun was kept, and I took it out. No one was home but me, so I looked at it for a long time. I turned it over and over in my hands, feeling the cold metal against my palms. It was unloaded, but there was ammo in the drawer if the need ever arose for it.

I wondered how brave I was.

Not very, I knew, but maybe enough for this. I felt calm enough. Yeah, I could do this.

What were my reasons not to?

—Not today, though. Wrong timing. I put the gun back in the drawer, locked it, and went from the room.

No one would miss me. If my parents did at all, it was only because they didn’t realize what kind of person I really was. They would only be mourning my false persona, not the real me. They’d probably be angry, if anything. After all, hadn’t I promised to get over my trauma?

“You can’t let this ruin your life, Arik,” she said.

I’m sorry, Mum.

I’m sorry, Dad, I’ll never be the son, the pilot, the man that you wanted. Train Harry in my stead. Maybe he’ll be a pilot someday, if his eyes ever get better. You taught me, I’m sure you could teach him. You’re an amazing pilot, a wonderful man, and a great father. You’re my hero, you know.

At least I won’t live to see you hate me. Thank God for that.

Harry, I hope you have a nice life. You’ll never have to cry because I teased you anymore, won’t ever bleed because I punched you, won’t ever feel worthless because I ignored you.

Yeah. This really was the only answer. Why hadn’t I realized it before?

It would be better to die with my family still proud of me. The suicide of a normal, good son was more honorable than the wicked, worthless life of a faggot. I would never tell them; they would never know. It would be a secret taken with me to my grave.

Good. It was better that way.

My life had been such a waste.

The next Monday, my parents would both be out until the evening, and Harry would be on a field trip for several hours after school. I’d be alone.

Before I left for school that day, I went into Harry’s room and kissed his forehead gently while he slept. I brushed his shaggy hair out of his closed eye and told him goodbye. After I’d eaten breakfast, I hugged my mother and told her I loved her.

“Tell Dad I love him, too,” I said as I headed to the car. Mum gave me a strange look but agreed. “Goodbye,” I told her, and I left.

At school, I caught myself writing down homework assignments in my agenda, and I actually laughed. What was the point? I would never hand it in! Before I left each class, I said goodbye to all my teachers. It wasn’t their fault, after all.

Pete, who had been tiptoeing around me, both nervous and resentful, since I’d attacked him, glared at me in the hallway. I told him I’d see him in Hell.

I took as many books home as I could carry, for they would be that many fewer books my parents would have to clean out from my locker.

When I got home and let myself in, the house was deathly still. Damn, it was cold. I found myself shivering, my fingers numb and my skin prickling.

I changed out of my good clothes and put on a junky shirt and pair of jeans. No need to ruin perfectly good clothes, after all. They could be given to goodwill.

I’d decided not to leave a letter for my family. What the hell would I say? It would be anti-climactic anyway. It had been done already, by Roger.

I went into the guestroom.

Oh God, I thought. I was actually doing this.

I was shivering, but I felt amazingly calm. Shouldn’t I have been crying? But no, today was the first day in many when my eyes had remained dry. What was I feeling, then? —Relief? Perhaps. What reason was there to be upset now? My problems were going to be over in a matter of minutes. Soon, it would all be over. It would all be over.

I unlocked the drawer and took the gun out.

I thought it was a good method, a gun. No way to survive a bullet through the brain. And I did not want to survive. I did not want the same fate as Roger. They’d never get me in any freaking asylum. —Maybe I should have offered the gun to Roger so he could have died properly. It would have saved him a lot of trouble if he’d done it right the first time.

Whatever. One more mistake of mine added to an already lengthy list.

I loaded the gun.

I heard the simple gears click as I readied it and took all the safety switches off.

I rose from aching knees, gun in hand. It was heavy and cold.

I put it to my head.

The round metal nose felt strange against the flesh of my temple.

Cold, hard, life-taking metal.

I could see my reflection in the mirror above the bureau. I was ghost-white, and my eyes were wide, my expression strange. The black gun against my temple looked out of place.

I closed my eyes. Let my last image be peaceful blackness.

My finger found the trigger.

—creak!

My heart gave a jump at the sudden noise, so foreign in my moment of dead silence. I spun around. I recognized the noise as a floorboard being stepped on in the hallway right as the door to the guestroom began to swing open.

What the hell? I thought, bewildered, heart pounding—no one was supposed to be home!

The door opened—my hand with the gun had instinctively dropped to my side, and I fumbled desperately to put it back in the drawer before I was seen with it.

“There you are, Rikky!” said a voice from the doorway, and I froze.

For it was Harry, of course.

I slammed the drawer shut and stood up hastily. “What the hell are you doing here? I-I thought you weren’t going to be home until later?!”

“Oh, there was a problem with the buses, so we couldn’t go. Isn’t that dumb? We’re gonna go next week instead.”

My head was spinning. Oh God, this couldn’t be happening—this wasn’t supposed to be happening—oh, God, Harry, why today?

Harry smiled at me. “Wutcha doin’?”

“N-nothing!” I gasped. No, no, no, he wasn’t supposed to be here. All my plans!

I rubbed my forehead. Fuck, I couldn’t do it today, not if he was home, fuck, no. “Harry, please leave me alone, okay?”

“Oh, okay,” he said. “But first! I have something for you!”

He’d had his hands clasped behind his back, and now he drew them. He was holding a piece of thick construction paper. He handed it to me.

“We had free time at school ‘cuz we didn’t go to the ‘quarium, so I drew that for you!”

It was a picture, for me.

“W-why…?” I gasped, my hands shaking.

“’Cuz you’ve seemed really sad for a couple days. I thought maybe it might make you happy!”

He had drawn, in his first-grade stick-figure scrawl, a tall person with brown hair and a soccer ball and a little person with an eyepatch. They were holding hands and smiling. Above them was written: I LOVE YOU, ARIK, and it was signed “Harrison-Addison M. Redde (Harry).”

Tears came to my eyes.

“Y-you made this for me?”

He smiled proudly. “Yeah! I hope you like it!”

“Wh-why would you do this?”

“I told you, silly! To cheer you up. ‘Cuz you’re the best big brother in the entire world, you know. I don’t like it when you’re sad.”

Harry!

I sank to the ground and burst into tears.

Harry was at my side in an instant, trying to pull my fists away from where I’d clenched them against my face.

“Arik, what’s wrong? Why’re you crying? Don’t you like it?” he asked. I couldn’t answer, too overcome to speak.

When I didn’t answer, Harry began to get nervous. “Rikky, please don’t cry, please don’t! I love you! I’m sorry if you don’t like my picture! Please stop crying!”

I let him pull my hands away from my face, and he dabbed at my wet eyes with his fingers, trying to wipe away my tears. His own dark blue eye was glassy and pink, his cheeks wet, and his freckly face creased in concern. He watched me, nervously and I swallowed hard, trying to compose myself.

“No, Harry, I-I love the picture—it’s the best one I’ve ever got, really—it’s perfect,” I stammered.

“Then why are you crying?”

Oh, God, if only he knew!

—But thank God he didn’t!

I put my arms around him and hugged my baby brother tightly.

“I love you, Harry, I love you so much!”

His little arms wrapped around my neck. “I love you, too!” he said. “Bunches and lots!”

I pulled away from him, and he sat down on my legs.

“But how come you keep crying?” he asked.

I wiped my eyes again. “I-I had a really bad day. But you made it better.”

“But you’re still crying!”

Yes, and I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to stop—but this is different—this doesn’t feel like all the other times I cried. “Sometimes people cry when they’re happy, too,” I said.

He pinched my cheeks. “That’s stupid.”

I laughed—how long had it been since I’d laughed? “I guess.”

“You’re weird,” he said.

“Am I?”

“Very weird. But that’s okay. I still like you.”

I was speechless, and I had to blink hard to keep from crying again. Words I’d wanted to hear for years—so honestly and innocently stated by a six-year old!

Of all the people in the universe—!

Of all people—!

“So you DO like my picture?” he needed to clarify.

“I’ll keep it forever,” I promised.

He grinned and played with a hole in the knee of my jeans. “Hey, Arik? Can I ask you something?”

“Okay.”

“Um…can you be my best friend?”

“Why would you ask that?” I said, perplexed, my head still spinning from all this.

“Well, ‘cuz, I don’t have any friends at school, ‘cuz the kids are all buttheads. Aaand I kind of told them that you were my best friend anyway—and I told them you were gonna beat them all up!”

“I’m not going to beat up anyone, but…” I tried not to get choked up. “We can be friends, I guess, if you really want to. I could use one right now, actually.”

“Ohhh, ‘cuz Roger’s sick, right?”

“Yeah.”

Harry nodded. In a moment he jumped up. “I’m bored, let’s go do something!”

“Like what?” I asked.

He clapped his hands. “Trucks! You can be the firetruck this time.”

I got to my feet. “Okay, but…not right now.”

“Why not?!” he demanded with a fierce scowl.

I kissed his cheek. “Harry, just let me take a shower first, okay?”

“Tch. Fine!” he said, and he trotted off to his room.

Once he’d left, I unloaded the gun and locked the bottom drawer, and I went to take a shower.

I tore my suicide-clothes off with clawed hands and turned the shower and heater on full-blast. I stepped in, and under the roaring of the water and heater, I wailed hysterically.

I cried and cried, hot water scalding my skin, my entire body shaking from head to toe.

I had just tried to kill myself.

I’d meant it—I’d fully intended to pull the trigger—had Harry been even one minute later—thirty seconds later!— he would have walked in to find his brother with his head blown apart.

I sank to my knees. Oh, God, oh, God, I had almost done it.

My plan had been perfect—or so I’d thought. I should have been dead right now. What were the odds of Harry showing up right then? How on earth could such a remarkable twist of fate happen? How?!

I touched my chest and felt my small cross under my fingertips.

For several moments, I could barely breathe.

Oh, God.

I’d almost done it.

Harry had just saved my life.

For today, the six year-old would keep me alive.

What about the next time I was alone, though? Maybe not tomorrow, but soon, I would continue as planned.

But… How could I?

I’d said I would be Harry’s friend. I couldn’t go back on that. I knew what it was like to have only one friend and then lose him.

Would I put Harry through the same pain?

Fucking hell, Arik! I thought, my heart racing.

He loves you, and you want to kill yourself?

Everything I’d gone through since Roger was taken away, all my tears and heartache, all the sorrow and loneliness—I would give the same to my brother? If I’d gone through with it, my six-year old brother would have been the one who found me in a pool of blood with bits of my brain spattered against the walls—and that scared the shit out of me.

What the hell is wrong with you, Arik?

I had to hold the side of the tub to steady myself. Oh, God, so many thoughts were flooding back to my mind—I felt so strange, so strange—like I’d woken up after a dream. My head was foggy, but strangely clear. At least for the moment, my perspective was back, my senses were back to normal, my thoughts were alive again—oh, God, had I really just tried to commit suicide?!

Yes, you did, Arik, yes, you did.

How could I do that to my family?!

You had it all explained out, remember? You decided that it would be worth it, because your family would hate you if they knew you were gay. You decided they don’t really love you.

Harry does. He loves me more than I’d ever realized. I hadn’t thought of him in weeks, but he’d been worrying about me every day. I thought I’d covered up my suffering; I thought no one knew! But Harry had. He knew I was sad, and he wanted me to feel better.

You told yourself you had no one left in the world. You told yourself no one would miss you, because no one really cared about you.

But of all people, why Harry? You’ve treated him like shit since the day he was born. You’re so fucking insecure you have to put him down at every opportunity you can in order to make yourself feel superior. For God’s sake, you made him believe you hated him!

He still loves me, though. After everything I did to him, he still loves me. He still thinks I’m the best brother in the world. Would he still feel the same if he knew what I was?

“Very weird. But that’s okay. I still like you.”

Maybe he would.

If I were to tell him right now, he wouldn’t understand—he’s so young—and he wouldn’t care. But later, when he grows up, will he shun me?

Maybe he won’t.

—I’d stopped bawling, tired of it. The hot water rained down on me, and I closed my eyes, letting the warm rivulets wash down my face.

Why does he love me? How could someone be selfless like that? To be so concerned about somehow who treats him horridly? —And when I’d completely forgotten about him for weeks!

You wanted to be with me, and you wanted me to be happy. You thought about me when no one else did, and you tried to help me when no one else would. You loved me when I didn’t love myself.

Wait. That sounded too familiar.

—Jesus Christ, when did I become Roger?

So then, Harry, are you me?

Would you take my place as the lonely mourner, the friendless griever? Would you grow up without a best friend, feeling the same emptiness that I felt now?

Oh, God, no, I don’t wish my pain on anyone, especially not you, not you. Harry, there’s so much pain in this world, so many tears cried and so much blood spilt. I don’t want to add to it. If my suffering will keep you from this pain, I’ll do it. I’ll keep you company, if you want—if you’ll promise to keep me company, too, because I can’t do this alone.

I need someone. Anyone. You?

I don’t want to hurt you.

I don’t want to hurt anyone.

I don’t want any more hurt in this fucking awful world than there already is—God, no, won’t do that to you! I don’t know what to do, but—

I don’t ever want you to go through this.

I turned off the shower and started to dry off. What was I going to do now? What did you do after you tried to die and messed up? What do you do when you don’t know whether to live or die?

I don’t know, I don’t know.

I’ll find something.

I decided to live.

Epilogue...