Well, Jared was my potential investor, my only potential investor, and he wanted to hear the story. As reluctant as I was, I had to comply. But I needed to use the restroom to “powder my nose” before taking a walk down memory lane.
My brother was seven years younger than me. Despite the age difference, I remember us being good buddies. We had our brotherly disputes of course, and I used to be quite an ass to him, but Charlie liked everyone, and everyone liked Charlie. He was very inquisitive, sometimes to the extent of annoying the hell out of me and seemed to be interested in learning and collecting everything at once. From stones from our stream to postage stamps, from inspecting worms with his magnifying glass to learning star constellations – nothing escaped his awestruck attention. You could often hear him laughing victoriously somewhere in the house or outside when he made another discovery of the day. I aways wondered where that energy came from and why I didn’t have that element in my DNA. I did my best to keep him away from my so-called entrepreneurial attempts. He always wanted to be around me, but I didn’t always let him. There was nothing bad or negative about him. Despite all the nonsense that teenagers usually go through, I think I was proud of having such a brother even without realizing it at the time. When he disappeared, it felt like a black void appeared inside of me that had been slowly growing ever since.
I blamed my negligence for his disappearance. For years, I had the same nightmare where Charlie was calling my name, and I couldn’t find him. I would be running around our house looking for him. I could hear his voice, but I just couldn’t find him. I would wake up screaming and it would take a minute or two before I’d realize that it was a dream. The countless hours of therapy gradually changed the dream to the one where I’d just watch Charlie running through the park. Well, the therapy and the “exciting” combination of drugs, alcohol and quite a bit of casual sex. Theoretically, one could’ve called it a breakthrough, but I had tried to forget the day it’d happened and had been avoiding the topic with everyone, including my parents. Today, however, it seemed that there was no way around it. So, there it was.