I was paralyzed by fear in the doorway of my bedroom. My small, bare feet were planted safely on the carpet of the dim hallway. In front of me was the open door to my pitch-black bedroom. I took a deep breath, contemplating my next move. As I stared into the darkness, I pictured the Judy Blume novel on my bed. I needed it, but I couldn’t enter the dark room alone, and the switch that would solve all my problems, sending the demons into hiding, was located on the wall parallel to the door.

My six-year-old imagination ran wild. I imagined goblins and goons eagerly awaiting my first step over the threshold. That image was enough for me to pivot and run down the hallway to recruit my brother, Austin. But he scoffed at my pleas and called me a “scared little baby.” When my mother instructed him to help, he rolled his eyes and reluctantly arose from his game of “World of Warcraft.”

When he took the first step into the dark room, his entire body catapulted into a frenzy of convulsions. He collapsed to the ground and started to shriek as his body heaved and contorted violently. My fear of the darkness vanished, and I rushed to his side and knelt by his seizing body, as boiling tears flooded my cheeks.

It was no time to say, “I told you so,” but nonetheless I felt a sense of reassurance knowing that I had been right about the darkness all along. But that realization crumbled to dust as my brother opened his eyes to see my grief-ridden face buried in his chest. Guilt written all over his face, he apologized for tricking me. That was the first bitter sip of what it tasted like to lose my brother, and after his insensitive joke, I wished that I had.

Many of my memories of my brother are surrounded by animosity. In his mind, I was the annoying little sister who was too young to understand his jokes and too old to be completely manipulated, but that all changed one sweltering summer night before I started third grade. I came home from my dad’s house, as I did every Tuesday evening. Dinner was on the table. I looked around with puzzlement, as my mother and stepfather started to eat. Couldn’t they see that something was missing? My brother’s placemat wasn’t next to mine; in fact it was nowhere to be seen.

“Where’s Austin?”

My mother looked down in an effort to hide the cracking of her voice, as she answered casually that he was spending the night at his father’s house. I found this alibi highly unlikely, considering my brother, according to a court agreement, was to spend Thursdays and Fridays with his father.

My dinner tasted bland, and even after finishing I was still hungry. I wasn’t hungry for food, but instead, the vacant dining room chair fueled my emptiness. I knew that if my brother had been sitting in his spot, our conversations would have run like two freight trains on different tracks, with only sparse instances where they would be forced to intersect for a brief second. He would scarf down his food, ask to be excused, and return to his computer games. But this night was different; the dining room was filled with the sound of silverware scraping against plates and the heavy chewing of people who were high strung and defeated at the same time.

Later that night, once the table was cleared, my mother nonchalantly told me that Austin would be staying with his father for a while. Once again, I recognized the unpleasant taste of losing my brother, but this time I wasn’t sure when he might return.

After several months, Austin’s absence became normal to me. I didn’t find out for a year the real reason my brother had moved out. My mother and Austin had gotten into a devastating argument after he’d enlisted in the Marine Corps. This news shattered my mother’s heart. Some parents see their child enlisting in the military as a great honor and blessing, but my mother saw it as a guaranteed death certificate with my brother’s name on it. Although I never admitted missing him, I secretly yearned for his companionship.

One day during my sixth grade P.E. class, I got a call from a number I didn’t recognize. I ran to the bathroom and locked myself in a stall. The voice on the other end was one I hadn’t heard in what felt like decades. It was Austin. With his simple hello, I felt joy filling my heart. I hadn’t realized how much I missed my brother until that moment. He spoke with a new maturity.

“I’m sure Mom told you that I’m headed to Afghanistan today, but I just wanted to let you know that I love you, and I’ll be back before you have time to miss me. I don’t want you to worry. Trust me, it’s not as bad as everyone says.”

Tears started to pool in the corners of my eyes. I responded in a shaky voice how much I already missed him, and despite his wish, I would worry. That was the first time I had ever heard my brother say that he loved me, and in that moment I had no doubt in my mind that I loved him too.

He tried to comfort me about the idea of him being airdropped into a war zone. He offered me ease of mind in a time that was, undoubtedly, the most terrifying he had faced in his 18 years. Even though his words were soothing, I could hear the slightest shake of fear in his voice.

In that moment, I felt nothing but pity for the person on the other end of the line; he was no longer the brother I had once loathed, but a child afraid of the darkness in his own life. I understood that I could never go back and redo all those years of hatred and bitterness. I had completely lost the brother I had grown up with, and in his place stood this brave young man. As I reluctantly put away my phone, I realized that my childhood relationship with my brother had symbolically, metaphorically, and physically come to an end.