My Brother

I met him back during the summer after my seventh grade year. I was fourteen back then. Back then, I was a bit larger for my age. My classmates would sometimes call me names, but it never really got to me. I had a lot of friends. More than I do now. I was a real jerk sometimes. I can admit that now. I wasn't particularly excited about getting an adopted brother. It was stranger that he was the same age as me, too. His name was Greg. We were introduced to each other after I got home from school. That was a weird day.

I walked inside and put my things on the floor. I had come back from a friend's house. When I looked up, there he was. He was shy, never really making any eye contact. He only looked into space. My parents told me he was supposed to be mentally challenged before, but I was surprised of how odd he really was. He never spoke. He never said a word. He understood every word I said, it's just that he never said anything back. One hand grabbed his wrist, and he stood and stared down towards the floor. I couldn't understand why. At least not then.
I tried to be friends with Greg, but it was hard. He always did things with me, but I could never get him to say anything. He usually only looked at things. Eventually, that's how we decided to talk. He'd look at something in order to communicate. At one point about a week after we met, we were sitting in our family car, and I couldn't find my pen. I asked him, and he looked straight at my hand. I chuckled a bit. It was fun at first…

We didn't share a room, as you might've expected. There were three bedrooms in our house. One for my parents, one for me, and one for Greg. Greg's room used to be my sister Carly's room... I don't like to think of it that much. My parents don't either, especially my mother. Especially her. They had Greg stay in there to kind of sort of occupy the space. When she was gone, my parents decided to adopt in attempts to reconcile for her. I guess you already know why.

On some nights, I'd hear him stumbling around in Carly's- his room. Some nights, I'd sit in bed, making out his movements. His was next to mine, so I just listened. I'd be able to tell if he stopped somewhere, moved rapidly, climb on top of things, or get back into bed. I'd hear murmurs, too. They were indistinct, though. I couldn't make out what they were, and what he has said, but I guessed they were things he was saying to himself. I'd learn eventually, I thought.

When school started up a few weeks later, he had to follow me around to figure out where to go and where to be. I didn't mind it at first, but he wasn't very good at being social. I talked to my friends, and he simply remained uninterested. I made fun of him sometimes. I regret that, but it wasn't harmful at the time, so I didn't think anything of it. He followed from behind, and I knew that he wouldn't fall behind. He never really looked at me, though. He never made eye contact with anyone.

One of my classes was math. We sat in class during a test. He didn't know the materials, so I just took my test, and he sat there. At one point I looked up to see what he was doing. He was looking straight at someone's paper. I looked, too. Soon, others drew their attention to what we saw. The teacher saw us looking, and he got up and walked right over to the kid's paper. The kid looked up.

He was given an in-school suspension for cheating on his test. It probably wasn't a big deal, but no one would've suspected it if it wasn't for Greg. It was strange. I couldn't tell how he had managed to do that, so I waited till the next day to see if something would happen again. It wasn't even a day.

We were sitting in lunch, and we heard something loud. Two kids rushed through the doors. A teacher, watching as lunch was going on, held them in the lunchroom until he had discovered what had happened.

There was silence as he returned. Some students started to run to see what had happened. I was about to as well, but Greg put his hand on my shoulder and held me back. The teacher told everyone to back off and stay away from the scene. Each of the kids blamed each other for the incident that occurred outside. None of the teachers could decide who it was, and knew that if one of them got away with whatever had happened, it would be awful. No one could be the arbiter, so I looked to Greg. So did some others.

A couple students began to ask if Greg could help decide. The teachers were reluctant, at first. They didn't want to blame the wrong kid. But everyone began to want him to help. They finally, jokingly, had him walk up and see if he could guess. He kept his eyes closed as he walked forward. Then, his eyes opened. He stared at the kid to the left of him. The left kid challenged him.

"But I didn't do it!" to Greg "You can't prove it! You're just some autistic weirdo!"

Greg walked up to him, never losing eye contact, and grabbed into the kid's left pants pocket. He pulled out a knife, covered in blood.

Eventually, we both learned that another student had been assaulted. There was blood everywhere. The blood was the key to discovering who was responsible. Without knowing what had happened, Greg solved the crime. I couldn't believe it. I took it upon myself to figure out how. Was he lucky? No. He was talented. I couldn't determine the extent, though, so I had to look for it.

The next day, we both went out downtown. Every step we took, I observed how he moved, where he looked, and what he was thinking. He stared into bars sometimes, and at other people. Normal looking people.

I needed to figure out why. So we walked into a store. He was looking at some stranger at the end of an aisle, and I was looking at him. I went over and took an item off of the shelf next to me. Nothing from Greg. I stuffed it in my pocket, hiding it from him. He immediately looked straight at me. He knew, in some weird instinct, that I had committed, or was going to commit, some crime or terrible event.

We went home after I put it back. When we arrived at home, our dad greeted us. I told him that we went out so I could show him downtown. He didn't seem to mind. He began to leave, walking down the hallway. I looked back at Greg. He stared straight down at the floor. I soon remembered how he had been staring down at the floor when I first met him. I looked down with him.

The floor was wooden, with a mat sitting on top of some planks. We hadn't needed to remove it in years. I pulled back the mat and stared down at the planks. They were... not as strong. They could've been removed. I wasn't sure. I decided to pull the wood out from there, only to discover some dirt. He lived in a one-story house, so I knew there wasn't anything below. But, there shouldn't have been dirt under those boards. I looked back to Greg. He continued to stare at the dirt.

In anxiety, I slowly began to dig at the dirt. I wedged my hands through, trying to get the dirt out of the way. I continued, growing faster and faster each time. At one point, I was throwing the dirt at the walls, trying to get as much away as possible. Greg continued to stare. I was chucking it in every direction. I couldn't stand any longer what may have been underneath. I began to cry. Dirt got in my eyes, but I cried because I was scared of what I would find. In any other situation, I would've been curious, but I was scared of what would come. I pushed more back before immediately stopping when I...

I looked down. I turned back. Greg continued to stare, but tears ran down his eyes, too. He then looked back up, where him and I saw our father standing there.

...

Carly had disappeared in some apparent kidnapping. It was scary, because I had no clue who took my sister. Who had eventually killed her. But... I never could've imagined how close I had been to my sister's killer this entire time.