Make It Work

Chapter Fourteen

"I want to know everything, from beginning to end, I'm right here," she holds onto his hand as he tries to get his words together.

"Alright," he takes a deep breath before he starts, "like I said I use to have an identical twin. His name is Joshua, and he is ten minutes older than me and would never let me forget that," he laughs, "I have an older sister, but I don't talk to her for other reasons. My parents wanted to have another child but had a great difficulty getting pregnant. But fortunately, after years of trying they finally were successful. They found out that they were having a boy and just started planning everything out. Then the day that he was born I came along too, it was a shock to everybody because I never showed up in any of the sonograms, I was behind Joshua and a lot smaller because he was taking all the nutrients and leaving me with the rest that he didn't want. That's probably not how it works but that how I envisioned it. But they were excited none the less. By the time we were five that's when they found out how completely different we were.

"At the age of five father was trying to get us interested into sports, mainly football, since he used to be in the pros, and he wanted both of his boys to follow through his legacy. Joshua was the one who had the natural talent, while I, on the other hand, didn't have the best hand-eye coordination, and I had terrible asthma that my brother didn't have. Which is surprising given the fact that we were identical. But anyways, father just pushed me to the side and focus all his attention on Joshua, my feelings were hurt a little bit, but I quickly got over that since that brought me and my mother closer together until her death," Logan wanted to ask what had happened to his mother but decided to wait figuring that it would come up later in the story. "I would always be in the kitchen with her helping her with dinner, cleaning up the house with her, grocery shopping, you know 'female things'," he uses his hands to make air quotes. "Father hated that, his beliefs was that a man is to work and make sure that the bills are paid, while the women cook, clean, have babies, and look presentable. Clearly I don't follow that because I am the cook in this marriage."

"Don't get too ahead of yourself Ezekiel," Logan gives him a pointed look as he chuckles.

"But you can just imagine the comments that he would say about me to my mom, like how she's turning me into a sissy. Him, Joshua, and sometimes my sister, Elizabeth would get onto me because I was in tuned with my emotions, but that doesn't mean that I'm gay. I was just heavy into girls like as much as my brother was. I didn't really start dating until my junior year of high school, but they all didn't last because I wasn't giving them the attention that they wanted, or they just dated me to get closer to my brother, and he no problem taking them from me. I met Carla in the beginning of my senior year of high school, the first day actually, I could tell that she was new because of the body language that she had walking through the halls, introduced myself and saw that we had majority classes together, and we became good friends after a week. Everybody thought that we were a couple, the people from school including my family, I was always over her house, she was always over mine, I would pick her up from school and drop her off either after school, or after her meetings since she was apart of the debate team. But it was nothing like that, we had that brother sister relationship, something that I very much craved from my siblings," Zeek smiles when he feels Logan gently kissing his shoulder before resting her head on it.

"What I didn't know was that for a while that Joshua and Carla have been messing around for months until I went over her house to pick her up for school, and she looked really ill, I was worried about her When I pulled into the student parking lot was when she told me that she was pregnant, but she wasn't keeping the baby. I was going to try to talk her out of it, but I knew that when Carla's mind is made up, she is sticking to it, so I just told her that I'll support her no matter what her decision would be. The next day she had the abortion, and by that Friday it somehow gotten around school, and for some reason I was to be blamed for her decision to end the pregnancy. Joshua blamed me for putting a bug in her ear, even though I just found out that she was pregnant. He even tried to fight me but I wasn't about to stoop down to his level, because I did nothing wrong, even father blamed me but he knew better than me that he would have paid for Carla's abortion so that it didn't ruin his son's reputation since he had college's looking at him, I had more looking at me but I'm not one to gloat. Whatever none exitance relationship that we had was gone, I didn't exist in his world, he didn't exist in mine, and we were both fine with that. I had a talk with Carla and she apologized for the way things ended between me and Joshua and that was the last thing that she wanted to happen. She showed me the text messages that he sent calling her everything but her name for 'killing' his baby without even telling him about the pregnancy. Apart of me feels as though he wanted her to keep the baby. He probably would have taken life more seriously if she kept the pregnancy, but we wouldn't know that. The two of us went to prom together briefly, we got in took important pictures and left to go watch some movies and this drive-in theatre before they could announce the Prom King and Queen. Of course, Joshua won, along with a girl that was well known around the school. We graduated and went our separate ways when went our separate ways. I went to a college in Chicago to be closer to Vern since I was interested in getting into the business world with him, and Joshua played football in college. Mother would always call and give me updates about home, even though I didn't ask. She was the only one that called to check up on me, and then one day I get a call from Joshua asking me, no begging me to pretend to be him for his finals. Apparently, he was doing more partying than he was studying, and he was close to losing his scholarship. I had to tell him that I couldn't do it, mind you I'm already preparing myself for my own finals and I was all the way in Chicago while he's in Florida. He ended up losing his scholarship, and I was getting ugly calls from my father disowning me for ruining his son's career. As if I'm the one who told him to skip his classes and get drunk or in between somebody's daughter, or son since he was the one tha- never mind. So out of everybody mother was the one that still calls me until those calls stopped, I didn't think anything of it at first since she was probably trying to heal Josh's bruised ego. I didn't know that she was sick with cancer and passed away until I happened to bump into Carla, she was up in Chicago spending time with her then boyfriend's family. She asked me why I wasn't at the memorial service, I said what memorial service? And her face just went blank, I asked her again, and she told me that my mother passed away while fighting her battle with cancer," Zeek looks around the room feeling his body getting hot with anger and sadness and the thought of being able to spend time with his mother or even say good-bye to her during her last days on Earth, " she was asking about me, I know that she was asking for me and wanted me to be by her side, but they took that moment away from me, and I wanted nothing to do with them for a good minute. How could you not tell me about my mother being sick knowing about the relationship that I had with her. Just, why would you do that," a tear falls down his face as he finally releases all of the emotions that he tried hard for years to ignore. The pain and regret of not being the one to pick up the phone and give his mom a call. The only person that had is back when everybody in the house turned his back on him. Every time he was on the phone with her she would always ask him to come home for the weekend and spend some time with her, but in fear of being in the same proximity of both his father and siblings he would always come up with an excuse if why he couldn't do so. It had gotten to the point where he wouldn't even come home for the holidays, but instead would spend them with Vern and his people.

"After receiving my bachelor's degree I was now working under Vern learning how to run a business and what type of leadership I needed to have to run a successful business. I then get a unexpected call from Joshua saying that he was in town, why was he all the way in Chicago, I don't know why, but it had to be for a good reason. So I met up with him at a local diner, I didn't want him or anybody else to know where I lived, I found out that him and Carla was expecting a baby girl soon and would like for me to be at the baby shower, I went, even though it was against my better judgment, and surprisingly enjoyed myself, I just spent my time conversing with Carla's family and catching up. But during that little meeting, I found out that Joshua was dying mentally, he has been battling suicidal thoughts since the time that he lost his scholarship, and basically apologized to me for being a shitty twin and being mad about the situation between him and Carla. I guess he finally sat down and talked with her about pregnancy, I mean they have to since he got her pregnant again. Just like the last one this one wasn't planned, but they got eloped, against father's wishes I'm guessing," he chuckles rubbing his eyebrows, "I knew that something was going on with him because of the look in his eyes. Throughout the rest of the conversation, he was all smiles, but his eyes said something else. It was like a lost soul in a shell, when I ask if he was okay, he would reply It'll pass, I didn't like the sound of that so I ask him to meet me back at my place so that we can have a private conversation instead of in the middle of the diner.

"So we're back at my place having beer and I asked him what is going on with him mentally, he said that he's not happy with how his life is going, he's not where he envisioned himself to be at this moment, and with father coming at him about him not being the star football player that he wanted him to be, it was starting to get to him. Even though he didn't become a football player he did graduate college with his bachelor's in Teaching, so he was, at the time, a seventh grade Geography teacher. I told him that I was proud of him, and things got emotional from there. He told me that he has been having suicidal thoughts and dreams that would haunt him at night. I definitely didn't want him spending the rest of his time in Chicago by himself, so I offered for him to stay with me until it was time for him to fly back home. During his days with me I took off from work, much to Vern's dismay, and just spent some time with my brother because he needed me, he didn't have to say it but I knew that he did. Even by that phone call, he made me promise not to tell anyone about our conversation, and I did, against my better judgment. So when he went back home I thought, hoped that things had gotten better, I would call him every day, or he would call me when he needed someone to talk to and I was all ears. I wouldn't say anything I would just listen. I started spending holidays with him and Carla, I met baby Genesis, still haven't talked to father, nor do I really want to, and everything, in my mind was going well. Until a couple of years later when I got a call from Carla saying that she found my brother face first in their swimming pool, he can't swim. I go to the service to pay my respect to him and his family, mainly Carla because she was the one who found him."

"Oh my God."

"Yeah, then she ask me a question during the repast if he told me anything, I said yes, I shouldn't have said that because it lead to a huge argument between not only me and her, but my father and Elizabeth. How it's my fault that my brother is dead, that if I would have told them that they would have given him some help, that he would still be here if I wasn't being so selfish. When Carla said that I blew up and I said some things that I shouldn't have said, nor do I want to repeat and walked out, I haven't talk to them since, except for Carla, I did apologize to her for not keeping her in the loop, since that was her husband after all. But as far as my father and sister I have no relations with them, and I plan to keep it that way."