Of all the members of the Burleson family, Anthony was, without a doubt, the closest to Jim. Whenever a problem was going on with Jim, his entire family knew to turn to Anthony to go and talk to him. If Anthony couldn't help Jim feel better, nobody else could. For the majority of his life, Anthony had been probably the closest friend that Jim had.
Anthony and Jim Burleson had both been born and raised in Houston, Texas. Their parents, Cheryl and James Burleson, Sr., both worked as lawyers. Working as lawyers in a large and busy city such as Houston took a toll on their parents' daily schedule and they were hardly ever at home. Even when they were at home, James and Cheryl were much too tired from work to spend any time with their sons. Even as an adult, Anthony found it difficult to describe what his parents were like, as he had never talked to them enough to find out exactly.
As children, Anthony and Jim had vastly different personalities. This often lead to problems between them while they were alone at home together. Jim was obsessed with cleanliness and strove to keep the house as neat as possible each day. Anthony, on the other hand, was extremely lazy and hated all aspects of responsibility. Anthony not only refused to help Jim clean the house, but he refused to do just about anything that required even a small amount of work. On a regular basis, Jim would berate his brother for his laziness and tell him that he needed to start being responsible. Anthony would have the same response each time: "You can't tell me what to do. I'm the older brother, so only I make the rules around here."
Tension would always form between the brothers, which would cause Anthony to start shouting at Jim and sometimes even say some very insulting remarks towards him. Jim, however, preferred not to stay involved in these silly little arguments and would always end up turning away and walking to his room. The boys would make up eventually (how long it would take would depend on how serious the situation was), but it wouldn't be long before another argument occurred.
As unpleasant as the problems that Anthony and Jim had at home were, these problems were always the highlight of their day. At school, they had it much worse.
When he first began school, Anthony desperately wanted to make friends. Or, he at least wanted somebody to like him. Unfortunately, Anthony remained friendless even after he finished his second year of grade school. Being part of such a large school (especially one in Houston), it was very hard to not be seen as just another face in the crowd.
During the summer before he began third grade, Anthony had an idea. He knew that people loved to laugh and would be happy to spend some time with the person that consistently made them laugh. By the time third grade began, Anthony's goal was to become the Class Clown. He consistently told jokes to the other students and acted like a buffoon during class. Unfortunately, the jokes he made were mediocre at best and even he knew it. While he got a chuckle out of his teacher every so often, the best he would get from the other students was a sigh or a groan. To his fellow students, Anthony came off as much more annoying than funny. Whether it was during class, recess, lunch, or anywhere that Anthony was with other students, they would lambast him and shout at him each time he tried to act the least bit funny. Even if he wasn't telling a joke, Anthony was glared at by the students every time he was around them. The problems with the students only worsened as Anthony continued to act like a fool in class during the passing months in school, as he was desperate to get at least one classmate to be his friend.
By the end of the school year, Anthony had become well known at his school, though not at all in the way he had intended. By all of his fellow students, Anthony was seen as an insect that consistently bothered you and would not leave no matter how hard you tried to get rid of it. From third grade onward, Anthony was known as "Gnat."
After third grade, Anthony permanently dropped the buffoon act. During the remainder of his school days, he rarely even spoke to any of the other students. However the "Gnat" reputation stuck with him for several years. All throughout the rest of grade school, students continued to shun Anthony and glare at him whenever he was around. There were times when a new student would try and talk to Anthony (to his delight), but then another student who already knew Anthony would tell the newcomer: "Don't talk to the Gnat. You'll regret it." It would always be the first time and last time that Anthony would ever talk to the new student.
The "Gnat" reputation finally died down once Anthony begun high school, but all the memories were hard for him to forget. Even as an adult, hearing the word "gnat" made Anthony cringe.
Anthony's unpopularity at school often made him feel very sad. Even when he was at home, Anthony sometimes found himself lying down on the couch or on his bed doing nothing but feeling sorry for himself. Sometimes, he would cry.
Although Anthony and Jim often had issues with each other at home, that didn't change the fact that Jim loved his older brother very much. Jim hated to see Anthony sad and always wanted to help him. Anytime Jim noticed Anthony was feeling upset, Jim would try to help him feel better by talking to him. But Anthony didn't want help from Jim. He wanted real friends to talk to, not his little brother. Also, how could words of advice from Jim help him feel better? Anthony was the older brother, he felt he should be the one giving the words of advice.
Anytime Jim tried talking to him, Anthony would always deny that he was feeling upset (even though it was obvious that he was lying) and then tell Jim to go away. Jim would feel hurt whenever Anthony rejected his advice. Not because of how Anthony would respond to him, but because of how much it hurt him to see Anthony upset and not want any help. Jim would often cry whenever he saw Anthony this way.
Jim was equally unpopular, but for a very different reason. All throughout elementary and middle school, Jim was the smartest student in class. He would be the first to answer any question that the teacher asked. This became so frequent that the teacher eventually began asking: "Can somebody other than Jim answer the question?" He also did exceptionally well on assignments and scored the highest on exams. Jim skipped both second and fourth grade (making him the exact grade level as Anthony) and was envied by all of his fellow students. Anthony, who found it difficult to score a B on exams, also envied his brother's academic skills. Despite this, Anthony never joined the other students in Jim's torment. Jim came home from school with fresh bruises every single day. His parents were much too tired from work to even notice them.
Oddly enough, the bullying did not ever upset Jim. He knew he had a bright future ahead of him, that his fellow students could only dream about. He was sure that there was somebody out there with similar qualities that he could connect with. Grade school was only temporary, so why should he let it bring him down?
By the time Jim reached high school, the bullying had toned down. "Cool kid" wannabees would still call him "nerd" but that was the worst ridicule he would receive. Once again, Jim never even blinked an eye whenever somebody insulted him. Anthony wondered how Jim was able to put up with all the cruelty he had received for majority of his life. Anthony's issues at school were not as severe as Jim's, yet Anthony could not even handle those.
When Jim first began high school, he didn't think much of it, as he had the exact same opinion on it as he did with grade school. It was only temporary, so he shouldn't let anything that happened in high school (other than academics, of course) affect his future. Strangely, his freshman year of high school turned out to be a major turning point in his life. This was the year he first met Chris and Julia.
Jim first met Chris Carbaugh and Julia Rhinehart early in the morning in the library. They were all studying for an Algebra II test. The three then decided to study together and ended up getting to know each other in the process. Like Jim, Chris and Julia were both very intelligent and were often picked on by other students. Jim had believed that there was at least several people on the planet whom he could relate to when it came to issues with bullying. He was now glad that he finally met two of them (not that the bullying issues affected him that much).
After the test was over, Jim, Chris, and Julia met up again and talked about it, getting to know each other even more.
"That test was harder than I thought!" Chris said.
"It was about what I expected," Julia said.
"Piece of cake!" Jim said.
Sure enough, Jim, Chris, and Julia all became best friends shortly after they met. Jim was extremely happy about this milestone. His prediction had finally come true. He had only begun high school and he had already made two good friends. He already was looking forward to all of the interesting people he was going to meet once he begun college. He could even picture the great friends he would meet once he finally started a career. By this point, he had practically forgotten all of the torment he had put up with in grade school.
Anthony, however, had the exact opposite mindset about his future. Although he didn't deal with the same problems he had dealt with in grade school, he had now been reduced to what he had started out as: just another face in the hallway that nobody really cared about. He was back at square one. Or rather, as he felt, square zero.
By his sophomore year of high school, Anthony had fallen into serious depression. He had no friends and hardly had any relationship with his own family. Jim was really the only person that Anthony had some sort of relationship with. Of all the people in the world, the only person he could turn to for his problems was his little brother who he couldn't even get along with most of the time. Anthony didn't feel like he had anybody.
Even after years of being rejected, Jim continued to try and help Anthony feel better, especially since Anthony didn't seem to show any emotion other than sorrow by this point. Anthony now would at least let Jim talk to him without telling him to go away. But any advice given to Anthony would go through one ear and out the other. Nonetheless, Jim still tried to help Anthony each day. Jim loved his brother enough to at least make an attempt to help him each chance he could.
Anthony was certain things would stay the same way all throughout his life. He would always be a loner with nobody really caring about his existence. Jim, on the other hand, would live a successful life with more friends and luxuries than Anthony could even imagine. He knew that he would never be as successful as Jim, as he had only maintained a C average all throughout his years of school. Not that it mattered, as he had no career goal in mind. He had always cared more about making a friend than finding a career. Was there any reason for Anthony to even bother living to his years of adulthood?
One day, during their junior year of high school, Jim arrived home from hanging out at the coffee shop with Chris and Julia and was about to start studying for a Chemistry final he had the very next day (though he had been studying for the exam each day for over a week) and found Anthony crying in the living room. Jim asked him what was going on and Anthony, without even stuttering, told Jim that he was planning to commit suicide.
After hearing this, Jim dropped all of the Chemistry notes that he was carrying and walked over to Anthony. Before Anthony could say anything else, Jim slapped him in the face as hard as he could.
"Yowwwwch!!" Anthony shouted, clutching his face at the same time. "What the hell was that for?!"
"For saying something beyond stupid," Jim replied.
Anthony was dumbstruck. He could hardly believe that Jim was acting this way. The Jim he knew didn't even like getting involved in arguments, let alone using physical violence against somebody. Why was Jim acting so different of all a sudden?
"What the hell are you talking about?" Anthony shouted.
"I should be asking you that question!" Jim shouted back. "Why the hell are you even thinking about killing yourself?! What reason do you have to kill yourself?!"
Anthony suddenly felt anger rising in him. Did Jim not know about all the issues that he dealt with?
"Look at me, Jim!" Anthony shouted as tears began to fill his eyes once again. "Look at me! I'm a loser! Nobody even cares I exist! And nobody will ever care I exist! I literally serve no purpose on this planet!"
Jim stared at Anthony blankly for a moment. Anthony blew his nose into one of the couch pillows.
"So, you're a psychic then?" Jim asked Anthony all of a sudden.
"W-W-What?" Anthony stammered.
"You say that nobody will ever care about you. So you apparently have the ability to stare into the future and confirm that. That's pretty cool. Where'd you get that ability?"
"Jim..."
"Also, apparently you have met everybody on the entire planet. Since you believe that nobody in existence cares about you. And that nobody will ever care about you in the future. So, you have met everybody that currently exists and everybody that's ever going to exist? Wow, that's also really cool. Seriously, where'd you get all these awesome superpowers? I'd like to have some, too. I've always wanted the ability to breathe underwater."
"Jim, this isn't funny..."
"Oh, so you don't have superpowers? Well, that's pretty disappointing. I was about to alert CNN. We could've been so famous."
"JIM!! I'M BEING SERIOUS!!!"
Anthony had screamed so loud that his throat was burning afterwards. He began to cough heavily.
"If you're being serious, then why are you joking about having superhuman abilities?" Jim asked.
"I didn't...say...I...had superpowers." Anthony replied, coughing in between words.
"Then why do you believe that nobody will ever care about you? I actually already know the answer. You don't know for sure. You're just making assumptions. Everything is so hard for you right now, so you have the mindset that that is the way it's always going to be. Am I right or am I right?"
"Don't you have an exam tomorrow?"
"Why does that matter right now?"
Anthony was overly surprised. Did Jim just say a final exam "didn't matter right now?" Jim, the smartest student in school, didn't think a test was that important?
"Answer me, Anthony!" Jim shouted. "Do you have the ability to see into the future and see that everybody in existence won't care about you or are you just making premature assumptions?"
Anthony said nothing.
"I thought so. You haven't even graduated from high school. Therefore, you haven't even really begun your own life yet. And you tell me you are thinking about killing yourself before you have even begun that life just because of an assumption. Do you now see why I think what you said was stupid?"
Anthony was shocked at Jim's tone of voice as he talked. When Jim had tried giving advice to Anthony in the past, he had sounded calm and sympathetic. Right then, Jim sounded very firm and almost angry. Anthony didn't even know how to respond.
"I...I..."
"Oh, and another thing. You say that you think that nobody cares about you. So is your family nobody to you now or what? Or have you just flat out forgotten how much your family cares about you?"
"...I...I...I..."
"I'm your family, Anthony! And I'm somebody! If I was nobody, how the hell would I be here standing and talking to you? And if I didn't care about you, why would I even have bothered to stand here for five minutes and tell you that killing yourself would be a huge mistake?"
"......I...I..."
"Yes, suicide would be a huge mistake and probably would be the biggest mistake you could ever make. Yes, all your problems would be gone, but what would you gain afterwards? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. What would you gain if you didn't decide to kill yourself? I honestly have no idea. But it's something. Or, at least there could be something. I can't give you definite answer on what your future holds for you, as I can't see into the future. But neither can you. So it makes no sense to me why you are thinking of just ending your life rather than waiting and seeing what the future holds for you."
Anthony said nothing.
"And no matter what happens in the future, you will always have your family. Your family will always continue loving you. Why would you decide to end your life if you knew that there was somebody that loved you?"
Anthony said nothing.
"Why would you end your life if you knew that somebody loved you enough to go out of his way and try and help you for years and years even though he knew he would get the same reaction each time?"
Anthony said nothing.
"Yes Anthony, I am your younger brother. So what? Since when did age matter? Yes, maybe a six year old wouldn't exactly be capable of giving advice to his fourteen year old brother, but that's not the case here, Anthony! We are only two years apart! Two freaking years! I've had almost as much experience in life as you did! If anything, I've had more since my problems with the kids at school were even worse than yours! Do you see me planning to kill myself?"
Anthony opened his mouth to speak, but Jim held up his hand to cut him off even before he began speaking.
"Yes, I have friends now. But guess what? I didn't think I would make friends in high school either! You know why? Because high school is only four years! You have a whole life ahead of you afterwards. If you make friends in high school, that's great. If anything, it's better. But if you can't make friends in high school, that's no reason for you to just give up! That's no reason for you to just decide to end your life!"
Anthony still said nothing, but he was now staring directly at Jim and listening to every word he said. For the first time ever, Jim's message was beginning to sink in.
"Anthony, I love you, man. It hurts me enough to see you sad. I can't even imagine how sad I would be if you decided to end your life. I may not be the type of friend that you've been looking for all these years, but guess what? As brothers, we should see our relationship as an even greater friendship than the one you've been searching for. Friendships with people from school don't always last. Will I still be friends with Chris and Julia thirty years from now? Maybe I will, maybe I won't. I don't know. However, I know for sure that you and I will still be friends thirty years from now. We are brothers and nothing will ever change that."
Suddenly, Anthony began to smile. A feeling of warmth began to develop inside of him. Anthony had heard about this feeling before, but had never experienced it himself. It felt even more wonderful than he imagined.
Jim smiled as well. The expression on his face showed probably showed the feeling of gratitude that he had for saving someone's life. He deserved that feeling of gratitude.
"Jim," Anthony said. "You're smart enough to be in the exact grade level as me despite being two years younger. You're smart enough to hold a 4.0 grade average all throughout your years of school. Who else should I take advice from?"
"Exactly," Jim said, chuckling slightly. "Exactly."
"All these years and I was ignoring the advice from the smartest kid in school," Anthony said. "I guess I was an idiot."
"Come give me a hug, man," Jim said.
Jim and Anthony then both hugged. The feeling of warmth inside Anthony was now greater than ever.
"Never tell me you plan to kill yourself again," Jim said, still hugging Anthony.
"Don't worry," Anthony replied. "I won't."
"Or I'll kill you."
Anthony chuckled.
"Wow, look at the time," Jim said looking at the clock on the living room table. "I really need to start studying."
Jim then gathered his notes off the floor and left the room. Anthony smiled and lay his head back on the couch, absorbing every piece of advice that Jim gave.
From that day forth, Anthony and Jim spent much more time with each other than before. The two would watch movies together, go out and eat dinner together, and sometimes just sit in the living room and talk about various things. Jim would still spend some time with Chris and Julia, but he never let his time with his friends overshadow his time with his brother. Anthony now had finally seen a side of Jim that he had never seen before. Not even his academics were as important to Jim as his family was. The fact that Jim had stopped focusing on his upcoming Chemistry exam (which he still managed to get a perfect score on) for nearly thirty minutes to help Anthony was enough to show it. After years of being surrounded by nothing but hatred and anger at school, Anthony had finally found somebody was very loving and compassionate. It just turned out that that particular person was somebody he had already known for years.
Anthony now knew how grateful he was to have Jim in his life. Despite him being younger, Jim was somebody that Anthony looked up to. Jim was somebody that Anthony could turn to for advice. Whether it be making friends or getting through school, Jim would always be somebody that would be happy and loving enough to help him out. Anthony often imagined how peaceful the world would be if more people like Jim existed.
Jim had been right. Everything that happened in grade school and high school had nothing to do with your future. All the people you once thought made your life a living hell in school would be nothing but a distant memory once you were finished with high school. What did it matter what all these people thought of you? Anthony had a whole future ahead of him to find somebody that would love to be his friend. There would be many more places opportunities to find friends than he did in just a simple grade school. Anthony could now hardly wait to see what the future held for him.
However, as excited as he was about his future, Anthony was much more excited to see what the future held for Jim. He was sure that Jim would live the successful life that he pictured before. In addition to having a well-paying job, a wonderful home, and possibly a lovely family, Jim would also impact the lives of many people. Anthony was sure that Jim would make many friends and get to know so many people. These people would see the type of person that Jim was and he would become a role model to them. Anthony had often imagined what the world would be like with more people like Jim and now such a possibility existed. Thinking of the future always brought the warm feeling back to Anthony.
However, like Jim had said, Anthony could not see into the future. He could only make predictions and assumptions. Therefore, he could not see what the future actually held for Jim.
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