1948

It's 1948 and it's  a time where life seem to be all dreary, family seem to be out on their own wits revolving  a murder that took place  a few years back. When Johnny died the Cold War was in action. Well Johnny was my twin brother, in some ways we've never been close, but we had a lot in common. I’m a fighting pilot in the US army. Things couldn't have gone any worse for me when the day I found my identical twin brother dead. I remember it like it was yesterday. I just arrived home after being away a year fighting in the cold war my family was very close knitted and my dad was an Irishman that moved to Wyoming.

Johnny always paved his own way always getting in trouble at school. He had the looks the charm the one always focusing on things other then doing his school work. At the age of 18 he left school and dad kicked him out. I remember his words to our father.
"Father you never loved me; I was the one you use to abuse night after night. You are despicable you aren't worthy of being called my father." It was the last words those two ever shared. It was me my father grilled night after night." If you end up like your brother you better leave now." My dad use to call me a girl. Because I wasn't able to stand up to the beatings at school. Kids made my life hell after Johnny left school.

I never once told Johnny that I loved him. We just pretended that he didn't exist since then. If I look in the mirror I see him, those dark penetrating eyes. Staring me deep and after awhile it started to scare me. I started to hate who I was.

 Johnny's death was on me.

It was a night that had a stillness hanging above the people that was walking the streets, a drunk falling against the walls as he's trying to light a cigarette.  A lady walking pass me her face glowing as the light shown on her red lipstick. Squinting my eyes towards her. Mining my own business as I carry on walking one foot before the other. My jacket's collar pulled up, my hat deep into my head as I blow breathes out into the cold air. I wasn't that drunk a few bottles of the finest whiskey being Irish and all.

I turn the corner just before I get to my apartment on West Street. It’s a quiet night out, but just as I was about to turn the corner I saw a figure in the road as darkness descends upon the figure walking towards me. Without any recognition and I heard a car wheels screeching from a distance as windows went down and gun powder blowing through it. It didn't face me; it was for the dark figure crossing the road. At that exact moment the figure moved towards the light of the street, I caught his face, his eyes looked right at me. Never leaving mine not even a blink as his body gets mutilated by the bullets. He stood redirecting himself towards the car as it drove by me and gone as he fell to the ground.

I couldn't move from where I stood. The corner was like it was hiding me from the light, from what I've just seen happening. The figure dressed in a black trench coat was my big brother Johnny.
It was like time stood still moving like a slow motion train being pushed from station to station by the hand off another.
As I got to him it felt like hours and not minutes going by.

I was brought to my knees as I felt my body shaking over his body. It was a nerve deep within me that couldn't fathom this. The knowing of why and how this actually had to happen. What does it mean?
I gathered him into my arms as he's own tears was sitting to fall. Blood was all over him. Coming from his mouth. I was covered with his blood as I pulled him towards my chest.

"Gosh know, Johnny please don't die." He just looked at me his eyes completely blank.
"Johnny." I shouted into the universe. Hoping someone will come help him.

"Josh." He said out breathe. Remaining calm.  "Josh I just came to tell you, I'm sorry. Sorry for those years. I love you little brother." It was his last words to me. Him saying his sorry.
Right there in the middle of nowhere anyone that knew us, he died in my arms as I rock him back and forth a tear was all I had.
Seeing my brother being shot by a mysterious black Chevrolet, was the only thought that ran through my mind. I stood up and all I wanted at this point was to make whoever pays.

Revenge. Painful devastatingly frustratingly agonizingly torture was all that I consumed. I didn't tell my family about the night Johnny died. I didn't I couldn't face the death of my twin brother. I couldn't allow myself to live knowing that he died in front of me.

 She must have followed me after the funeral as I was sitting with the bottle whiskey, gun lying on the side table.  You might wonder who this lovely lady is. She Corrine Van Dyut. She's the woman Johnny and I've been fighting for since we were teenagers. She slept with him at the homecoming game and a year later she slept with me. I fall in love with her and he was using her to get to me. Every girl I've ever had ended up in his bed. That's why he said sorry that night. It plays over and over in my head like it doesn't make sense to me. Who was Johnny really? What was he's aim in life? What was the purpose of her loving him and me loving her?

"Joshua, he's gone." She says. I use to think that at some point after me being gone I'll come back and she would finally see it that I love her. Yet she never did.
I turn my face upwards as we both stare each other deep in each others eyes.
"I always wondered why you both hated each other." She said. She never knew about my father abusing Johnny. The favouritism between his sons. The one the officer the other the scumbag.  Did she even know him at all?
She never seems to understand the fact that in all my life I've been living under someone else's shadow. You not like Johnny, why can't you be more like him. His made a lot of mistakes, but he still tries with you Josh. Our mother another pain in the ass that's why I've joined the army and took base in Atlanta, far away from the Bogart’s. Lighting strikes and my thoughts brought me out of my memories of the 20years as  a grown up young man to this 40 year old sitting in his own sadness pouring down bottle after bottle, contemplating if he should find the black Chevrolet or let that night just die off when he died in my arms.

Do I tell this beautiful woman that I was the one who's been in love with her all my life? Doesn't it seem cliché when the bad boy brother dies and he left a beautiful maiden and his long estranged brother and his wife find comfort in each others arms? I could read the headline in tomorrow's paper.

It wasn't long I felt her lips against mine. It was long enough for me to pick her up and lead her to my bedroom. It didn't take long enough for us to fall in bed and make love. It couldn't have been any longer then a split second for me to utter the words, "I love you, Corrine." It didn't take my ears long enough to hear her say, "I've loved you for as long as I can remember."

That's when I knew that it all ends here. That for the first time in 20 years I've loved this woman and never felt this passionate about any woman I've been with.
Corrine Van Dyut was my soul mate she was the one person who stood between a rivalry of 20 years between Johnny and myself.
All I knew at that point, I might never know who killed my twin, but I know that he would want us to be happy. For that I can say I love my brother he was trying his best yet at a trying time his life was taken and mine was replaced.

The End