roy starling : d9 : fin

My brother is fifteen years older than me. It can be both good and bad. On one hand, he feels more like my father than my sibling. On the other hand, he gives me a pretty good idea of what I'll look like in my thirties. Right now, I'm a pretty short guy, shorter than the rest of the guys I know. My skin is dark, and it sports some ugly sores around my fingers from where I pick at it. Bad habit, I know, but I can't quit it. My hair lays in tight curls that are constantly falling into my eyes. I have grey eyes, like my brother, but his have a lot more wrinkles around the edges.

I already had a wide nose, but when I was fourteen, I broke it. The evidence is still there, a big flat spot in the middle. In a way, I'm proud of it. It makes me look tough, even though I'm anything but tough. A lot of my clothes are hand-me-downs from my brother. They're falling apart, but I can work with them. My brother has kids to worry about dressing before he can worry about me. It's easy enough to stitch up a hole in a sweater or hem a pair of pants, anyway. My secret talent. If I had been born in Eight, I could make money off of this.

I take life as it comes at me. There isn't much that I worry about. What is there to worry about? I'm still in school, and when I'm out of school, the rest of my life is already decided for me. The only things I'll have to decide between are soaps or plastics. Easy. If there's nothing I can do about it, I should just roll with it. Make the best of every situation.

I try to be a nice person. I think that the world gives us enough shit, and we can't make that better if we're dragging others down. I smile at people, and I ask them about their day, and all that. You'd be surprised at how many people appreciate it. I don't want to be viewed as the guy who doesn't give a shit about other people. I care about how people feel, and if my friends aren't feeling their best, I want to help them.

Even though I want to help my friends if they're down, I'll never actually admit when I'm the one feeling blue. Since my parents have been gone for a while, I had to learn things from my brother. He's a real quiet guy who never talks about his feelings. I've never been outright told that I shouldn't discuss any negative emotions, but it felt implied. I mean, I know it's bad to keep things bottled inside you. Like I said- just because I know it's bad doesn't mean I'll stop doing it.

My early life is kind of a blur. Children have shit memory, so I can't really remember anything specific. I know my parents loved me, because my brother told me that. I know they worked as hard as they could to raise me with their small salary. It makes no sense that they had another child so late. Maybe I was an accident. I guess it never affected them in the long run anyway, because they died. When I was six, a part of the factory they worked at went up in flames. Five other people died, too. I bet their families grieved more for them than I did for my parents. How was I supposed to miss them if I barely knew them?

My brother took me in after that. He was already married, with a daughter. Now he has three. Alexa is turning twelve, Jaden is nine, and Leah is five. I think his wife might be pregnant again. She's pretty cool, though. If I were into girls, I'd want to date a girl like her. She's lucky enough to design soap packaging for a factory near our house. It's amazing what she can create with a couple colored pencils. My brother has really managed to make himself a nice family. I feel like a bit of an outsider to it.

Things must have been hard for my brother after our parents died, but he never let it show. Even if he did, I would've been too young to notice. Sometimes I feel guilty that he had to shoulder all the grief. We've never had a talk about it, and I bet we never will. We aren't that type of guys. He's a good brother, really, but he's always felt distant. He's got his own family, his own life, and I'm the little brother he was obligated to take in. That's just how the story goes.