[Xen's big sisters POV]
If I was honest even though I love my younger brother I didn't want to raise him. I wasn't ready to take on the roll that a mother takes. I was barely 20 years old. I had to drop out of college for full time work. It's not like I was an irresponsible kid and got pregnant young. It wasn't my fault I had irresponsible parents. I wanted to cover my ears and shun away the boy who choked on sobs as he called out to the mom who loved drugs more than she'd ever loved him. I hated her for ruining my life. I had a future before this. Although I guess, it was my choice. But I couldn't leave my brother to be shoved into foster care jumping around house to house with strangers who cared about him just as much as his mother. "Mommy" he whimpered as he looked up at me with round teary eyes. They glittered under the weight of tears. He was three years old a half brother I'd only met once before this afternoon, three years ago the day he was born. He couldn't talk very well and he didn't understand much. When you throw away your life for a stranger some people think you're a saint but I wasn't a saint. Some part of me wanted him to die. Those weren't saintly thoughts. I didn't want to give up my life for him but at the same time it felt even worse not to. He was so expensive and so time consuming. He was severely malnourished so I had to slowly adjust his body to food and it was hard to get him to eat healthy quantities without throwing fits. Sometimes I just wanted to bash his head into a wall. I wasn't a saint. As time passed I learned that love has a proximity. The more time I spent with the boy who was supposedly my brother, the more dear to me he became. At some point hurting him became the unthinkable, seeing him hurt was as painful as death itself. I loved him, deeply and truly, I loved him like a big sister should. My brother didn't have many friends, really it'd be easier to say he had none. He didn't get along well with people. He was a bit aloof and socially awkward. I always thought he must be lonely, but when I tried to surround him with people he'd grow tense and upset, he'd seem so uncomfortable in a way that said he preferred his loneliness. By the time he turned four he started calling me 'mom' despite my constant corrections. Even though I'd grown to really love him I felt disgusted being compared to our mother. And despite the guilt I felt at the thought, I felt disgusted at the idea that I could mother a child like him. I'd learned loving someone doesn't mean they can't disgust you. I'd die for him, I really would, but just as much as I love him I hate the idea of being his mother. I never wanted to raise any child or even pets at all. Not even if I were married and in my thirties. That's not what I ever desired.
By the time he turned six he'd made his first friend. He didn't seem to like the kid much at first if he didn't hate him fully. But he was the only person he let play with him besides me. It was a bright and cheerful kid. He was a bit older then my brother, he was around 8 years old and followed my little brother around like a ducking to his mother. It was a one sided, forced, inseparability. My brother could probably spend the rest of his life content without even glancing once at the other. But that boy wouldn't allow it. For some unknown reason, something she personally believed to be insanity and delusional, that kid genuinely seemed to like her little brother. He regarded him as his best friend. Everything for a while, was good. She felt like her life had reached a perfect balance everything was good, was perfect even if it wasn't what she wanted at first. Sadly, no matter how much it sucks, for some reason things can't seem to stay perfect. She wished it was something small like breaking her favorite vase or stealing a few dollars for the ice cream truck, she wished he'd done something she could forgive him for. She wished he at least lied to her so she wouldn't have to carry this burden too. Though for her brother…. She couldn't tell if it was a burden, she couldn't tell how much he hurt. Everything, all long, it was a trigger to the gun of fate. One day at six years old her little brother came home from playing and simply whispered the words "I killed him" to her and that was it. She tried and tried to pry but he wouldn't budge he wouldn't say what happened all he was willing to say was that he'd done it coupled with to who. "I killed Xenith… but he's too human to die" though she didn't know what that meant. 'Too human to die.'
"But I'm not so it can be okay as long as he still lives. So I can be him and he can be me. I died not him. Because I'm Xenith, Xenith, Xenith, im Xenith" her brother whispered tirelessly. She didn't know what to say but she knew she could never look at him the same again. She couldn't look at him with the love she'd shown him before. It died with the little boy he killed that day. With the little boy he claimed to be himself.