When I was younger, my best friend was my older brother Cody. He was six years my senior, and to me he was everything. He was the one who taught me how to ride a bike and how to read. He was the one who would come into my room during a thunderstorm and whisper soothing words to me, so I wouldn't get scared.
Of course my parents were always there also, but it wasn't the same, they didn't understand me the way Cody did. It wasn’t just that idolized him. He was everything to me.
         When I was eight, Cody got into a "bad crowd" at his junior high school. He had stopped doing his schoolwork and he was always coming home late. The police even took him in for a night because he was caught vandalizing the side of his school with a few of his friends. My parents got very fed up with him and after many argument filled nights, they decided to send him to a reform school up state. I guess they thought that if he wasn’t at home, he wasn’t their problem. Even though my parents had sat me down and explained why they were sending Cody away, I still really didn't understand why he had to leave. To me, he was the same older brother that he had always been. He would still read to me at night and play cards with me almost every Saturday. He didn’t seem “bad.” Right before he had to leave he sat me down to talk.
         "Wild," he said. That was my nickname he gave me because I would spend my free time in the woods behind our house. I hated when he called me that but at that point I thought it was kind of endearing.
         "I don't want you to go, it's not fair. They didn't ask you if  you wanted to leave," I whined at him, with tears running down my face. 
         "I know Wild, but we will see each other at Christmas and it will be like nothing has changed."  He gave me his award-winning smile.
         "Promise," I said as I looked into his blue eyes.
         "Promise," He smirked and we locked pinkies with each other. Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew that things would be different now but the promise was nice.
         Over the next two years, I only saw Cody four or five times. Even when he was home from school, he would be hanging out with his friends. But he would always make the same promise. He told me he would see me next Christmas and we would lock pinkies. But the Christmas when I was ten years old was the worst day of my life. We were about to leave to pick up my brother at the train station; I had made him a welcome home card and everything. Just as my dad was getting his car keys out, the phone rang. My dad picked up. Within a few minutes his face went sheet white.
         “Um, ok we will- um okay.” My father mumbles into the phone. He lets it slip out of his hand. He turns to face us. Random words start to slip out of his mouth, it seemed like he couldn’t make audible sentences. He then pulled my mother into the kitchen. After a few minutes, I heard my mother break into tears.
         “Mom, dad? What’s going on?” I yelled out confusion plastered on my face.
         I felt arms wrap around me. The felling of tears falling on to my shoulder. I realized my mother was hugging me. She started whispering into my ears explain to me what happened. He was gone. My Cody was gone.
         I was in shock, I started to scream and yell. I felt as if my whole world had just crashed all around me. They say that there is five stages of grief, the first being denial. I seemed to have just jumped straight to anger. I stared straight at my parents.
         “THIS IS YOUR FAULT,” I shouted. “YOU WANTED HIM TO DIE, YOU SENT HIM AWAY. HE’S DEAD BECAUSE OF YOU.” I kept repeating different forms of that. I was not able to comprehend what has happening. My mother gasped as the words hit her, while my father reacted.
         “How dare you accuse us of that? We love- I mean loved your brother. Go to your room young lady.” My father rarely shouted but at this point his face was red.
         I just screamed, slamming my fist into the television screen that was right next to where I was standing. A huge cracking sound filled the now silent room. I didn’t think that I had enough power to break it and I wasn’t thinking about the consequences. I just knew that I wanted the pain to go away.
The next morning when I woke up I was in a hospital with my parents standing around my bed. My mom was crying, telling me that they thought they had lost me too. They told me that couldn't lose two children in one day. I hugged them both and told them that I didn't blame them. I was depressed for a long time, I barely spoke to anyone the following two years. But I am better now. I got some professional help. It still hurts though, to think about Cody.
I will always remember, that when I was younger, my best friend was my older brother Cody. He was six years my senior and to me he was everything. He was the one who taught me how to ride a bike and how to read. He was the one who would come into my room during a thunderstorm and whisper soothing words to me so I wouldn't get scared. But now my older brother Cody was gone.