I Found My Brother’s Diary — It Ends with My Name

My brother died on a Thursday.

At least, that’s what they told me.

Sixteen years old. Suicide, they said. Slit wrists in the bathtub.
No note.

I was thirteen. Too young to be asked real questions. Old enough to hear the words no one said out loud.

He was quiet. Lonely. Sensitive.

What they meant was: we didn’t notice something was wrong until it was too late.

---

I don’t remember much from that time.
Only fragments.
The smell of bleach.
The hallway light blinking all night.
The way my mother looked straight through me at dinner.

After that, we didn’t talk about Evan.

Not on his birthdays.
Not during holidays.
Not ever.

---

This winter, I came back home to help my parents move. The house had that stale silence grief brings — untouched rooms, furniture kept in memorial.

My old room was intact.
So was Evan’s.

Same blue walls. Same posters. Same lamp with the broken neck. Like he’d just stepped out and never returned.

Cleaning out his closet, I found a shoebox taped shut beneath a pile of sweaters. Inside was a green notebook. Plain cover. Spiral spine. His handwriting on the first page.

> Property of Evan Pierce. Do not read. Seriously, I’ll know.

I read it anyway.

---

The first few entries were harmless. Jokes. Class complaints. Dumb thoughts about girls.
But about a third of the way through, something shifted.

> March 3

He's doing it again.
Wearing my clothes. Saying my name.
Mom didn’t notice. But I did. He’s better at being me than I ever was.

I don’t know what he wants.

I stopped reading.

Who was he talking about?

---

> March 8

I told Dad that he took my hoodie. He said, “That’s your brother’s.”
But I didn’t wear it. HE did.

My own parents don’t recognize me anymore......

My stomach twisted.
Was Evan… losing it?

Paranoia. Hallucinations.
Was this the evidence of a breakdown we missed?

I kept reading.

> March 11

He’s trying to erase me.
I watched him smile in my place during dinner. Laugh with Mom. Tell my stories.
He sleeps in my bed when I leave the room.

I screamed.
No one looked.

> March 13

I saw my face in the mirror and it didn’t blink.
He’s not just pretending to be me.
He is me.
Or becoming.

---

There were more entries. Each one spiraling deeper into fear. Confusion. A sense of vanishing.

> March 15

I don’t know who’s writing anymore.

Is this me? Or is this him, pretending again?

If you're reading this, check. CHECK.

What’s your name?

---

I flipped ahead. Toward the final page.

I hesitated.

It had a single sentence.

> March 19

If this is still Evan reading — he won.

Underneath, in a different pen:

I didn’t want to be Evan. You made me.

And then, just below that, in tiny, sharp letters that dug into the paper:

My name.

---

I dropped the diary.

My ears were ringing.

---

I remembered something then.
The way everyone spoke to me after Evan died.
Not with grief.

With relief.

He was struggling.
He was troubled.
He wasn’t like you.

---

That summer, I had started getting better grades. Making more friends. Laughing louder.
Mom said I was “coming out of my shell.”

She stopped setting a plate for Evan at dinner.

She let the world forget him.

And I did, too.

But now I wondered…

Had Evan forgotten me first?
Or had I… taken his place?

---

I looked at the mirror across the room.

My face stared back — calm. Familiar.
But suddenly strange.

The scar above my eyebrow…
Wasn’t that Evan’s?

---

I ran down to my mother, holding the diary.

“Who found him?” I asked. “Who found Evan in the bathtub?”

She blinked. “What?”

“Who found him?”

She looked down. “You did.”

“Did I tell you that? Or did you see me?”

She paused.

Then:
“I don’t know.”

---

I went back to his room.

The diary was gone.

In its place — a single page, torn from the back.

If you’re reading this now — then I never really left.
You just needed me more than I needed to be real.

---

I don’t know who I am anymore.

I just know that when I say my name out loud…

It feels like I’m stealing something.

---

END