There I was staring at the scary puddle of blood as my mom picked up my brother rushing towards the car with my grandpa. Tears were rolling down my mom’s cheeks. She didn’t notice it but she screamed at the top of her lungs every word that came out of her mouth,and cried louder each second hoping that my brother would stay alive. She bellowed for me to toss her the car keys as she threw herself into the minivan, as my brother stayed motionless in her arms.

My relationship with My brother, Jason, consisted of never minding each other, except for the times he got all the attention. Other than that, we rarely considered one another. Having a brother wasn’t something that was significant part of my life. To me, I treated Jason similar to how I treat a person I barely know passing me in the halls. I think after the incident, it was the first time something big happened between us. The first time we actually noticed each other. The first time he was actually a part of my life. It all started when I overheard my mom and my grandma talking. I was just six years old.

“I don’t know if he’s walking or running,” my mom said as she showed her mom a video that I jumped up and down behind them trying to get to catch a glimpse of it.

“I couldn't see it!” I annoyingly whined.

My mom then did an irritated sigh, very quietly, that I've been hearing for the last six years of my life. I smiled, knowing it slightly annoyed her as she showed me the video. In the video my brother was awkwardly moving around in a rushed pace then falling to the ground with a little thud and my parents were laughing and over exaggeratedly clapping for Jason, then just a toddler.
 

Knowing that he could actually move and not sit around like an immovable rock every day got me determined to see how fast Jason could run. I went into my room starting to think of a plan to get my brother to waddle as fast as he possibly could. After three seconds, I had thought of my plan; it was simple, but back when I was six. I thought it was spy worthy. I would try to snatch the ipad from him without getting him to scream and cry, let him follow to catch the Ipad, then slowly I would increase my speed. I did exactly as I planned and it worked perfectly. Though, I remember being a little disappointed seeing my brother run as fast as a normal person could walk. I started to go a bit faster than my normal pace and surprisingly, he started to go faster too. My mom told us to sit down, but I definitely wasn't going to stop until I saw my brother go full speed.

At one point I decided to throw in some obstacles so it would be harder for my brother to catch me. After two or three obstacles, he started giving up and slowing down, whining now and then for the ipad. At this point my mom was yelling at me an uncountable number of times to stop, complaining that he'd get hurt, but I just pretended that I couldn’t hear her. After five minutes of my experiment, I discovered that my brother could sprint as fast as I could jog, which was pretty impressive for his age. To finish of the game of (I don't know what), I stopped for a few seconds to let him catch his breath. Then I started to do a confusing obstacle.

At first I started to jog around the coffee table to trick my brother into going into a pattern. After doing the continuous cycle at least five times and hearing my mom yell stop five times, I used all my power to make a sharp turn and sprint behind my confused brother. He was smart enough to realize I zoomed behind him a few seconds later, but wasn't smart enough to keep an eye on where he was going. He turned his head to me, but never stopped speeding forward.

I yelled a loud and quick “stop,” but jason didn’t hear it in time.

I then tried to slap my hand over my eyes, but wasn’t quick enough to not see the horror unfold. I watched helplessly as Jason ran into the couch and bounce off flipping over and hitting the corner of his forehead into the coffee table. At this time my hand had slapped my eye pushing me back, causing me to lose my balance and stumble backwards, as my ears dreaded the sound of never ending moan/scream that flooded the room. It stopped shortly after. After what I had just witnessed I didn’t dare take my hand off my eyes, hoping that what I just saw was just my imagination, but I knew that it was true, hearing my mom scream and cry probably due to the worriedness that flooded her.

Ten seconds after my hoping that I was imagining a death scene in Hawaii 5-O, I slowly took my hand off my eyes with all lost hope when my eyes shot straight to the edge of the coffee table splattered in blood. I got a glance at my brother with half his face dyed red as the giant cut of his was staining the ground with blood even though there was a towel pushed over the giant wound. I couldn’t hear what my mom said as she rushed my brother and grandpa into the car because I stood paralyzed, only hearing the agonizing scream replay in my head. For a few hours, I was the most terrified I had ever been. My heart was beating fast as I was still standing in the same place since the accident feeling sad, shocked, and worried that something really bad happened to Jason. Since I was six, I only watched cartoons so I thought it was impossible for someone to die because of a little accident. At the same time, I wasn't that worried, but rather sad that my plan backfired so badly; I was disgusted because of all the blood and also happy that Jason wasn't dead.

Guilt was all I could feel now how my mom told, warned, yelled, and screamed at me to stop with my plan. The guilt of tiring my brother just to see what he was capable of. The guilt of seeing Jason in pain to the point where he was crying and screaming. The guilt of ignoring my mother, even though I knew she was right. After hours and hours of sitting in the pitch black garage, the garage door creaked open.

My heart was beating fast hoping that my brother was okay. As my mom parked the car, I watched, hoping and begging to god that my brother was fine. I didn’t have the heart to walk to them. What if he wasn’t fine? So I just sat and watched as my mom lifted my brother out of the car, like a prince.

Later, while he watched Power Rangers on the ipad, “Typical,” I mumbled half smiling.

I then looked up slowly, at my mother, imagining her disappointedly stare at me. But to my surprise, her face was half covered with a smile and a really tired expression. Throughout the weeks after Jason got his stitches, I kept more distance from him and I felt he kept more distance from me too.

Until, at a park, my mother finally said to me, “Why don’t you play with your brother on the playground?”
I then raised an eyebrow and asked in a very loud shocked tone and said, “Are you serious?” Ending it with a quiet chuckle.

“Why not”? exclaimed my mom.

“The real question is why you would let me play with my brother when he had to be taken to the hospital because of me,” I said as I gave a small chuckle.

At that very moment I immediately regretted and dreaded my words  since I didn't get a punishment yet and I just reminded her that she forgot to give me whatever new punishment she made up.

My mother just said,  “Will you ever do something as stupid as that again?”

At first I gasped because I was six and the word stupid was like a swear word for my age.

“No never!” I responded trying to sound as trusting as I actually was. 

“Swear?” my mom said suspiciously.

“On my life,” I replied throwing my hand on my chest as fast as I possibly could.

“Ok” she said with a satisfied smile.

I walked up to my brother right after my mom gave me a comforting hug. The rest of my evening I played every possible game imaginable with Jason. After getting home, I sped off into my room thinking of all that happened; an action so stupid could bring people closer.