A Need To Know

There it was. Materialising in front of him as it always did, reflecting the light from the setting sun in a million different directions, like Waterford crystal. He had to keep running; running away from the truth, away from the realisation of what had happened, what he had become. Just keep on running and running till he got there. Then, everything would become clear, just like the river itself.

He slowed to a stop, collapsing to his knees in the long, riverside grasses, his heart pounding in his chest, so hard he thought it might leap out, bursting through his ribcage. He could still hear his mother's voice, dancing angrily around in his skull, taunting him. "Get out! Get out! You're not him!" Then there was the ear-splitting crash as her glass of Jack Daniels shattered against the wall, the minuscule, glittering daggers of crystal raining onto the thick carpeting of their family room.

As his heart began to slow down, beating in the regular rhythm, he slid his hands forward through the dewy grass until he was lying on his stomach, barely flinching as the cold wetness seeped through his thin sweater. He'd been so desperate to escape; it hadn't even crossed his mind to grab his jacket. It was February, never a warm time in Tulsa, but he didn't care. As long as he was away from her, from them, then everything was fine. As long as he was here, on the banks of the River Arkansas, smelling the sour smell of the smoke spewing from the oil refinery's chimneys - a smell that almost everyone complained about, but he found strangely comforting - then he was calm, and he could think.

This had been his place to think ever since that night; the place he could come when he needed to escape from the fact that he was all alone, yet surrounded by people. When he needed to forget that his previously loving, wonderful mother now continuously drowned her problems in alcohol, that his formerly strong, invincible father had run off with some typist from Muskogee, that his brother, who used to be so full of joie de vivre, had barely left his bedroom for two years and that, at sixteen years of age, he had suddenly become a mother and a father to his four younger siblings. As long as the Arkansas was still here, then he would still come here, trailing his fingers in the cool, clear waters, just enjoying the serenity and tranquillity - a stark contrast to the zoo that was his house.

He peered into the river, examining his reflection in the water, sighing as he realised that he barely even knew what he looked like any more, never mind knew who he was. Gone was the trademark long blond hair; lost was the sparkle in his caramel eyes; pale skin replaced a once healthy, rosy complexion. He ran his hand through his bristly excuse for a haircut, asking himself for the millionth time why he had cut it all off. But, deep down, he knew very well why. That hair hadn't belonged to him. It had belonged to the person he used to be. But that person was gone. He had died on that night too.

That night - the worst night of his life so far, and the most disconcerting thing was that he could remember every event in minute detail. It was as if it were imprinted in his mind in indelible ink, hiding somewhere in the back, just waiting for a chance to pounce on him, replaying itself over and over again, always stopping on the picture of his then sixteen-year-old brother as he burst through their front doorway. That image would be something that would haunt him for the rest of his life. Seeing Taylor stumbling into the house, covered in blood and dirt, barely able to stand or to breathe, gasping out only four words before he tumbled, unconscious, to the ground. He closed his eyes, trapping the unshed tears as his brother's halting words somersaulted in his head. "There's…been an…accident…"

An 'accident'. He hated that word, 'accident'. How dare they write off what had happened as an 'accident'? He clenched his hot hand around a clump of long grass and tugged it hard, uprooting it and throwing it furiously into the river, watching the stalks separate and drift away from each other in the burning red waters of the Tulsa sunset. Drift away like he had drifted away from Taylor. Granted, it was hard to keep a relationship going with someone who refused to come out of his room, but he was angry with himself for not trying harder. Sure, he'd tried to talk to Taylor, tried to coax him out of his room, but if he was truly honest with himself, he could have tried harder. But he'd been so busy, trying to bring up his younger siblings, that the older one hadn't been his top priority. It was hard work, doing all the washing and the cooking and the ironing. Now, though, he felt terrible. It had been up to him to make the effort; Taylor had still been badly shaken from the accident. There it was again - 'accident'. It had been no accident. It was a fight. A last fight for his oldest brother, Isaac; a fight that he had lost at just nineteen, jammed between the driver's seat and the steering wheel of their family car on the Oklahoma interstate, somewhere between Tarwater and Tulsa. In many ways, it had been a fight for Taylor as well. A fight to come to terms with watching Isaac, his only older brother die; a fight that his little brother was sure was still ongoing in Taylor's mind.

Momentarily blinded by tears for his lost brothers, he stared into the sun as it finally disappeared, seemingly sinking into the river. Agitatedly, feeling awkward, silly and like a baby, he wiped his eyes. He was sixteen years old; he shouldn't be crying. Especially not for something he couldn't change.

Isaac was dead. He would always be dead. He wasn't going to come back and make everything better. A smile passed fleetingly across his salty lips as he remembered that Isaac had never been very good at that anyway. Whenever there had been tension between anyone in the family, and Isaac had tried to fix it, the two people arguing had always ended up mad at Isaac as well as each other. But even if his oldest brother had been wonderful at making everything better, he doubted that he could fix this. He doubted that anyone could fix this. His dad was gone; his mom preferred Jack Daniels' therapy to the regular kind and Taylor…well, he was no help. He would lie in his bedroom, on top of his sheets, staring at the ceiling and muttering to himself or to God, something about being sorry.

He wondered what Taylor had to be sorry for. Isaac had been driving the car, not him. But Taylor was adamant that it was all his fault, something which made his younger brother, lying at the river, dabbling his fingers in the water, suspicious. He knew that it was tragic, losing a son and a brother, but he had a feeling that his parents and Taylor knew something that he didn't; something that was making them so much more distraught and affected by the accident than he or his younger siblings were. Ever since he had overheard Taylor praying for forgiveness the day after Isaac had been killed, almost two years ago, it had been on his mind, tormenting him. What exactly had happened that night? He didn't just want to know. He had a need to know, a burning desire in his heart to find out, so he could finally say goodbye to his oldest brother.

And so, that afternoon, he had asked his mother, but she had turned to him, blue eyes wide and terrified, before she started to cry, then yelled at him to get out, hurling her glass of whisky at him. That had only made him more convinced that there was something he should know. But the only person he could ask hadn't spoken to anyone - besides God - for a long, long time.

He felt the grasses move, brushing against him in the sweet, prairie breeze that everyone in Oklahoma loved to tell tourists of. Usually, being the second largest city in the state, Tulsa didn't experience it much, although on the summer nights, it playfully danced in the suburban backyards. But this wasn't summer; it was February. Something else had to be causing the movements of the grasses.

He looked up, eyes still stinging from earlier crying and seeing the person he had least expected to see beside him. "Taylor?" he asked, finding it hard to believe that his brother had finally come outside.

"Hey. I thought I'd fine you here. I can't believe you still come here, Zac, after all these years…" His voice trailed off as Taylor gazed faraway, into the distance.

"What are you… Why are you here?" Zac scrambled up to a sitting position, looking curiously at his older brother.

Taylor took a deep breath. "I found your letter."

His letter. How could he have forgotten about the letter?

Earlier that afternoon, desperate for a way to express his feelings, he had locked himself in their large bathroom - it was the only room in their house with a lock on the door - and had written a letter, to no one in particular, pouring all his jumbled-up feelings on to the blank sheet of A4. Once he'd started, it had been hard to stop. The words had tumbled out, one after the other, until he'd filled four sides in his untidy, looping script, mirroring the way he was feeling inside - the contempt, the hatred, the confusion over Isaac's death.

Closing his eyes, he cursed himself for being so stupid and leaving it lying around in the bathroom, the only room in the house where Taylor actually went besides his bedroom and the kitchen. He winced inwardly, remembering all that the letter had contained: the horrible things he'd said about his parents, about Taylor and about his other siblings; the emotions he'd poured out about feeling left in the dark about his brother's death; how he'd written that he'd needed to know… "Oh, God. I'm sorry, Taylor, I really am."

Taylor shrugged, betraying no emotion. "I'm not mad. I guess nobody realised how angry you were, how much you were hurting." He turned to face his brother. "Do you really want to know how it happened? I just figured that you thought it was the impact of the accident…"

"I'm not stupid," he replied. "I was fourteen, not four. I know when there's something weird going on. I want to know," he repeated staunchly, clenching his fists around the long grasses once more.

His brother sighed, as if talking about it was too painful to even consider, but still, he opened his mouth and began to speak. "We'd been at Dan's party, you know that. I mean, I guess it was like any high school party - music, girls, beer… Even though Mom was always telling us not to, Ike got involved in one of those beer-drinking competitions."

His mouth dropped open at this piece of information his brother had revealed. Isaac never drank. He had always been the one lecturing Taylor about not needing alcohol to have a good time, believing that too much alcohol was not correct social behaviour. "He did what?"

His brother turned to him, smiling sardonically. "I know. He never drank. I guess, just this one time, he decided to cut loose. Anyway, we met up back at the car, and I could tell he'd been drinking. But I didn't know how much. So I told him to give me the keys, but he wouldn't. He just kept yelling at me, saying that I would crash into a tree or something. And he swore blind that he was okay to drive. I didn't want to fight, and I was tired, so I gave in and let him drive. I let him crash instead of me."

Zac watched as his brother brought his hands to his face, choking back a sob. So, this was why he felt so guilty. Hearing his brother, a grown man, almost nineteen, cry so hard made him feel like someone was twisting stakes around in his heart. He slid closer, putting his hand gently on his brother's shoulder, almost scared as to how he would react, so long it had been since they'd had any contact.

But Taylor fell limply into his arms, clutching onto him tightly, sobbing hard against his shoulder, all the guilt, all the grief and sorrow of the past two years finally flowing out of him. "We were nearly back in Tulsa," he told him, choking the words out through his tears. "I thought we were gonna make it. Then the truck came. Isaac didn't see it. I grabbed the wheel and the car skidded, but we crashed. I managed to move the car to save me, but not him. It's my fault. I shouldn't have let him drive in the first place!" He pulled back, red, teary eyes looking straight into his younger brother's, and, for a second, to his brother, he looked just like he had when he was a little boy. He was still a little boy, scared, confused and lonely, the pain of what he was feeling so clearly reflected in his eyes. "It's my fault, Zac. I killed him."

Zac stared at his older brother, a million different emotions racing around inside his head. He didn't know whether to hug his brother or to punch him for not saving Isaac. Eventually, he swallowed and shook his head. "It's not your fault, Taylor. Of course it's not your fault. You tried to stop him. I mean, I know what he was like… Damn stubborn." He took a deep breath, looking seriously at his wreck of a brother. "No one could reason with him at the best of times, and I guess if he was drunk it would have been harder. It's not your fault."

Taylor wiped his eyes, embarrassed at his breakdown. "Mom thinks it is. She won't speak to me. And Dad left. I mean, what does that tell you?"

Zac felt the rage flare up inside of him, feelings of contempt for his parents. How could they just abandon their son when he was obviously in need of support? He'd been lying up there in his bedroom for two years, blaming himself for his brother's death, just longing for someone who cared about him to reassure him, tell him that it wasn't his fault. In many respects, Taylor was still a child. He was fragile and sensitive, always desperate for approval, to make sure he was doing things the right way. Zac could only imagine how terrible these past couple of years must have been for his brother. And, partly, that was his fault. He'd never really made the effort to go see his brother, always just complained about him and secretly hated him for loading everything on to him. "I don't think it's your fault," he blurted out, desperate to try and compensate for the awful time his brother had been having. "I don’t. I just wish I'd told you earlier. I mean, all this time, I hated you, despised you for never helping and leaving me to look after everything." The words were tumbling out now, thick and fast. He barely knew what he was saying, but after keeping it locked up inside him for so long, he just had to get it out. "I mean, you know, Mom's always drinking and Mackie's always hurting himself playing and I just always wished that you would do something to help. I can't do it, Taylor. I can't hold this family together on my own!"

His brother stared off into the rapidly darkening river, the faint ribbon of the moonlight shimmering in the bluish waters. His eyes were far away; he looked as if he were pondering one of life's great mysteries. He felt different now. He felt like he could finally breathe again. It was as if he'd spent these past two years in some sort of foggy, underwater world, starved of oxygen and company. Now though, he'd come up for air; the invisible forces holding his head underwater had finally let go, and he felt like a new person. It was almost like he'd been born again, and now he was ready. Ready to say goodbye to Isaac, ready to accept that the accident wasn't his fault and ready to help Zac, to support him and to care for him like he used to.

Eventually, he turned to his little brother, the determination evident in his bright blue eyes.

"You don't have to."

***

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