The Brother I Could Not Save
Part 2 The Silence Between Us
It started with silence.
At first, I thought Eli was just ignoring me. We'd argued a few days before something small that felt big, like all our fights. I told him his new art exhibit was too "provocative." He told me I was still afraid of what people thought. He left my apartment with a tired look and said, "You'll get it someday."
I didn't get it.
Not then.
Three days passed. No texts. No calls. No random memes at midnight or voice notes of him singing badly to some pop song. The quiet stretched longer than it should have.
By the fourth day, I found myself standing outside his apartment building in Brooklyn. It was one of those old red-brick buildings with ivy creeping up the walls and a coffee shop downstairs that smelled like cinnamon. Eli loved it there said it felt "alive."
The landlord knew me; I'd helped Eli move in. When I asked if he'd seen him lately, he frowned and said, "Not for a few days, no. You okay, son?"
I smiled tightly. "Yeah. Just checking in."
Inside his apartment, everything looked too still.
Paintbrushes lined the table. Canvases leaned against the wall, half-finished splashes of blue, violet, and crimson. There was a mug by the sink, the coffee inside dried at the edges. His phone lay on the couch, screen cracked.
And there, on the table, was a single sheet of paper folded in half.
My chest tightened.
For a moment, I couldn't move. Something inside me knew what that note was or feared it. But my mind refused to accept it. I reached out slowly, as though touching it might change its meaning.
Cal,
I love you. Don't ever doubt that. I know you tried to protect me in your own way, but it hurt when protection meant pretending I wasn't who I am. I don't hate you I never could. I just wish you could see me the way I see you: scared, kind, and capable of so much love if you'd let yourself feel it.
You don't have to fix me. You just have to remember me.
Love, Eli.
The words blurred. My knees gave out before I even realized I was on the floor.
I don't remember calling the police. I don't remember the questions or the noise. I just remember sitting in that apartment as evening bled through the windows, whispering his name like a prayer that had already been answered with silence.
The days after blurred together funeral arrangements, condolences, phone calls from relatives I hadn't heard from in years. People said the usual things: "He's in a better place." "He was so talented." "You couldn't have known."
But I did know.
I knew every time I corrected him, every time I changed the subject when he spoke about love, every time I looked away when someone judged him. I knew the small ways I made him feel wrong.
And I hated myself for it.
Weeks later, I found myself at the same rooftop where we'd last talked. The city stretched beneath me beautiful, merciless, alive. I brought one of his sketchbooks with me. Inside were pages of color and emotion: people, faces, fragments of light. On the last page, he'd drawn two figures standing under a streetlight one reaching out, the other fading into shadow. Beneath it, he'd written:
"Sometimes love arrives late, but it's still love."
I sat there for hours, tracing that line with my thumb.
For the first time in my life, I cried until I couldn't breathe.
It wasn't just grief. It was guilt, shame, and a desperate wish to go back to listen more, to speak less, to love without trying to fix.
When the wind picked up, the sketchbook fluttered open again. I watched one of the loose pages tear free and float away, sailing down toward the glittering streets below.
In that moment, I realized Eli wasn't gone not really. He was in the colors he painted, the music he hummed, the laughter that once filled my apartment. He was in every person who ever needed to be seen for who they are.
And I, for the first time, understood what he meant when he said, "You don't have to save me. Just see me."
I couldn't save my brother.
But maybe I could save someone else by remembering him right.
End of Part 2