Another True War Story

I remeber when I yelled at my little brother, Curt, for the first time. Well, it was the first time he didn't yell back. He was in the sixth grade and I was in eighth. Sure, I had been yelling at him for as long as I could remember. About the dumbest things. Mostly, I yelled at him in front of Mom, trying to regain my status as favorite (and only) child. It took me awhile to figure that shit out. Mom was good at ignoring me when I did this, which made me even more frustrated. I thought she was probably so good at it because she practiced every minute we were together.
Yes, those were the days of long ago. I had, of course, matured when I was in eighth grade, still yelling at my little twerp brother and his jackass friend, Rat. But I wasn't shouting so that my parents would love me again. I had left those days of vying for attention.
That first time, my little brother didn't say a word after I had told him how much I hated him for going to the same middle school as me and how he didn't have any friends to show him around. I told him how mad I was that I got stuck dealing with him when all my friends wanted me to come hang out with them.
It sounds bad, I know, but he was used to hearing that shit and was better at returning the favor, sometimes with a fist. It had always been like that, and always within the vicinty of Mom hearing us.
No doubt, I got spanked, yelled at, sent to time out while Curt got to run outside. I'd watch him play on the little fort Dad made for him. It wasn't our fort; we didn't share anything. I thought about how I would rip him apart one day, and I dreamed that afterward, he'd be sent to his room forever, his fort would be destroyed, and in its place, Dad would build me a roller skate rink.
I saw my chance come on the first day of eigth grade, which was his first day of middle school. I expected the worst, a terrible scream of hatred to minimize my blow. That's all Curt was to me- an excruciatingly high-pitched scream- until that moment. He just looked at me... he didn't say anything...
And I turned away from him and ran to the bathroom. I sat in one of the stalls; the bathroom was clean and anxious for the mess that middle school girls make. I sat there for an hour and sobbed and felt sick and hated myself for saying what I said. I hated how I couldn't get up and hang out with my friends, all of them laughing about the things middle school girls laugh about, or even go to class. But, in the end, I still hated Curt, and hated him even more for that stare and that silence. He just looked at me, so extremely lost and hurt, and with all the bad words in the English language, he chose the worst one. He didn't say anything. I thought, "What a fucking good comeback, you asshole," as I cried quietly so that nobody would hear me. I hoped he found his classroom, and then I hoped I'd never see him again...
I remembered all of that when I read Rat's letter.