Shadow Brother

The call came just after midnight.

I was already half-awake, the way you are when your mind senses something before your body does. The screen lit up with "Unknown Caller," but I knew. I didn’t need a name or a number.

“Jake’s in the ER. Overdose.” That was all my mother said.

I sat on the edge of my bed for a long time, phone still in hand, her words echoing like a song I didn’t want to remember.

Jake.

My little brother, though he hadn't been little in years. Just six minutes younger, technically—we were twins. But while I kept moving forward, ticking the boxes—college, job, apartment—Jake had wandered. From rehab to halfway houses, from fleeting highs to crushing lows.

Everyone called me the “good twin.” They said I got the brains, the self-control. Jake got… lost.


---

We were five when we started pretending we were superheroes. We called ourselves “The Keeper Brothers.” Jake picked the name, said we protected each other no matter what. I wore a blue cape made from Mom’s old bedsheet. He had red.

“You fall, I pick you up. Deal?” he said.

“Deal,” I answered, and we spit in our palms and shook like men.

I remember that day more vividly than birthdays or graduations. That day, Jake was mine to protect.

But somewhere along the way, I stopped keeping my end of the deal.


---

At the hospital, the nurse said I was listed as emergency contact. He was stable, but unconscious.

I stood outside the door and watched him.

Jake’s body looked deflated. Like the air of his spirit had escaped. Machines hummed beside him, indifferent.

I sat. Waited. Remembered.

The first time he stole from me was high school. My watch, then later my car keys. He crashed it into a street pole—no license, no insurance. Dad had to fix it. I wanted to scream at him.

I didn’t. I told myself he’d get better.

He didn’t.

At twenty-three, I gave up. Told Mom I couldn’t keep bailing him out—emotionally or financially. “He’s not your project,” my therapist said.

But he wasn’t a project. He was my brother.


---

Jake woke up around 4 a.m.

His voice was raw. “You came.”

“Yeah.”

“Bet you’re mad.”

“I’m not mad,” I lied. “Just tired.”

He turned his head slightly. “Of me?”

I didn’t answer.

There was a pause, one of those thick, heavy silences that holds more than words ever could.

“I was clean for three months this time,” he said. “Longest ever.”

I nodded. “I know.”

He looked at the ceiling. “You remember when we tried to build that treehouse in Grandma’s backyard?”

“You sawed the ladder wrong and fell. Broke your arm.”

Jake chuckled, then winced. “You stayed by my bed for three nights straight. Didn’t even go to school.”

I swallowed hard.

“I don’t know how to be that brother anymore,” I said.

Jake turned to me, eyes dull but searching. “Then just be you. That’s enough.”


---

The next morning, we sat in silence while the nurse changed his IV.

Before I left, I placed my hand over his.

“You fall, I pick you up. Remember?”

He smiled—tired, but real. “Deal.”


---

Jake didn’t get magically better. Recovery isn't a montage with upbeat music.

But this time, I stayed involved. Not as a savior, not as a fixer. Just as a brother.

I showed up to his meetings. I answered his texts. Sometimes we didn’t even talk about addiction. We talked about old cartoons, or pizza, or who Mom liked best. (We both knew it was Jake.)

Two years later, he stood at my wedding and gave a toast that left everyone crying.

He ended with: “This man used to wear a blue cape and pick me up when I fell. And even after I burned the cape, he still picked me up. That’s what brothers do.”


---

If this were fiction, I’d end it here. On a hopeful note, with a redemptive arc.

But this is a not-so-fictional story.

Six months after that wedding, Jake relapsed.

This time, there was no hospital call. Just a police officer, and a bag of his things.

The blue and red capes were folded neatly among them. He’d kept them all these years.


---

I visit his grave every Sunday. Not out of guilt—but love.

I talk. Sometimes I even laugh.

People ask how I manage. I tell them I still keep the deal.

You fall, I pick you up.

I couldn’t pick up his body. But I carry his memory.

I am, and always will be, my brother’s keeper.