Title: Write a story beginning or ending with the words: 'He took a deep breath and knocked on the door'
He took a deep breath and knocked on the door. I could tell he was nervous. As soon as I saw him pull up infront of the house I knew why he was there. A part of me had known this moment would come, but nothing could prepare me for the pain and the confusion that I felt now.
There was a time when I was part of a happy family. That was before my dad died in a car accident. It was four years ago to the day, he had had an argument with my mum, probably the biggest argument I've ever seen them have. The silly thing is, I can't even recall what it was about exactly, but my dad left the house in a rage. Apperently he went out to the local pub and got drunk. On the way back home in the early hours of the morning he swerved into a steep ditch, hit his head and died instantly. After that things continued to go downhill. I myself couldn't come to terms with the fact that I would never see my dad walk through the door or ever hear his voice again. I just kept thinking that he'd come back someday.
I lived my life in a detached manner for the best part of a year. My mum got me to talk to a shrink who said I was experiencing denial. Anyway eventually I came to terms with what happened. I recovered. I continued living my life as was expected. I moved on. On the other hand my brother didn't take it as easy. He refused any help given to him. He sort of built this inpenetrable shell around him. He didn't talk to anybody, not even to mum and me. He stopped going out, and seeing his friends, it's almost as if he stopped living and noone could get through to him. Mum wasn't coping too well herself, and with us two to take care of, I'm sure it wasn't easy on her.
Eventually my brother started going out again and socializing, although he still kept his communication with us to a minimum. Mum wasn't too strict on him either, she was as happy as I was to see him getting out there and living his life. That was until his outings turned into long nights out, fueled by booze and drugs, from which he sometimes wouldn't even return home. Mum put her foot down, she refused to let him go out anymore, but it seemed to me like he didn't care. He would go out anyway and there was nothing mum could say or do that could keep him from leaving.
One day, out of the blue, he came and knocked on my bedroom door. It was hard to get half a word out of him those days so it really surprised me. He walked into my room, sat on my bed, and just started talking to me...about his feelings, his thoughts, everything. I was so happy that he'd finally opened up, but then later that night I started thinking. I wanted to believe that maybe my brother was cleaning up his act and sorting out his life, but this was too unnatural, and things between us had changed too fast.
That's why, when I saw the police cruiser pull up in front of our house, and a nervous man with a grave look upon his face step out of it, I knew that something had happened to my brother, even before I heard my mother's whaling ascend from the living room. The next day the headlines read 'Teen OD's..'. I could already feel myself detaching again. I don't know if I can deal with this a second time round.
