Dear mom and dad,
You’re never going to read this, but Kyle insisted I write it. I made a promise, and I kept it. I don’t know if you remember the promise. I don’t even know if you remember me. I think you’ll remember Chase. I know dad will remember that I stole his car when I left home. Chase, named after the chassis. Gier, named after gear. I don’t think even Emmeline could make dad forget cars like that. Not important.
The things is, Chase dying never made sense. The doctors said it was an aneurysm, but I saw him less than five minutes before he died. He was fine. I thought you’d just lied to me: that my brother had a heart attack during masturbation or something, and that would have been fine. The truth, I mean. It was all I wanted. Eighteen days after he died, I was on his computer. (I’m better now: I can name the months, but not the days.) Our WiFi had been acting flaky since he died, but we all just complained, except when mom swore at our provider over the phone.
I wasn’t looking for anything. But I knew my brother well. I found a collection of pictures he’d hidden in a folder. With a text note about erasing them. A lot of weird things. Anime guys, mostly. I was pretty sure Chase liked guys, but we’ve never talked and I didn’t know about – not important, I guess. I did find out he got around the parental blocks dad set up. Really far around them. So I deleted them all, wiped it from the system.
The next day, our WiFi was normal. No glitches, no hiccups. I told myself it was a coincidence. That it had to be one. I managed that for weeks, and then found some of the pictures he’d looked at. Put them back on his computer in a folder. And our WiFi went bad again. Chase had done something, and I was certain that something was why he died. So I wanted to know why. I went looking.
I met someone who killed homeless people to bring dead puppies back to life. Even saw it happen. But it wasn’t Chase. Not what he’d done. Two – almost three years from that, and I stumbled into Kyle. I suspect I ran into him a few times before, only this time he let it stick. I followed him home, told him about Chase. He was quiet. Like Chase was always quiet, but a different rhythm to it. A sureness.
He told me secrets. Careful ones, at first. So I didn’t think he was a monster, Or that Chase had been one. I know what Chase did. What he learned. I can listen to WiFi too. Bend it. Shape those lines of power, use the energy to – to do things. I think hiding his porn was Chase’s first real use of the power. And he burned himself out. No training, no understanding. He plunged his hand into a river, and then dunked his head right into it. And died.
I’m not going to do that, not like he did. Kyle has been teaching me. He doesn’t like being a teacher, but he’s good at it. Emmeline says the best teachers are like that. He keeps pushing me to be better than he is, because good teachers want students that surpass them. I don’t know if I will. I don’t know enough about – about what we are yet. I just know you don’t remember me. Or, if you do, if I sent this message than you’d be made to forget.
But I figured it out. I fulfilled the promise.
It’s all that came after it that’s too big to ever write down.
Love, Gier.
