Chapter 1: Burning Bridges (Mentions of attempted suicide)

Dear Journal:

Miraj is still pretty shook up over Iqbal's death. Probably because, unlike me, he actually liked the guy.

If the kid wanted to cry, I let him cry. There wasn't really anything I could do about it.

What I couldn't take was that it got so bad, he kept getting nightmares and waking up at the worst possible times of the night.

It's always the same nightmare, he says. He sees the fire, he hears Iqbal screaming. He wakes up right before he turns into ash, though.

And after that, he says he can't get back to sleep. Or rather, he doesn't want to.

...I don't blame him.

I told him earlier this morning, at least try to go to school. I could tell he didn't want to go, but I insisted. Dead Iqbal or not, he still needed to work on his education.

Or at least that's what I told him, anyway.

Prologue

Dear Journal:

I have no idea why the hell I decided to start writing one of these. Maybe it's because a few days ago, he was still around.

I'm gonna be brutally honest: I never always got along with Iqbal.

There were days I told him he sucked, to put it nicely. I even blamed him for Mom leaving.

A day didn't go by without me thinking of some awesome prank for him to deal with.

Hey, I figured he needed to lighten up once in a while. But no. He'd always say something like, "VJ, stop pulling that shit!"

The guy was lazy, never cared much for working. And even if I wasn't messing with him, I somehow got into trouble.

"Why are you such a bad kid?" He'd say. "Why can't you be more like your brother?" I guess sometimes he just needed a scapegoat.

At least we had Miraj there to keep things from getting too intense.

My little bro showed wisdom that most at that age have no chance of getting. He'd always try to get Iqbal to lay off me, and he'd try to get me to do the same.

Somehow, Miraj always knew when an argument was about to get out of control.

But he still needed some kind of parental guidance. He won't admit he did, but after Mom left, he was at a loss as to what to do.

I think we all were.

Then came that day. All I'm going to say is this: I may not have liked Iqbal...

But that doesn't mean I wanted him to die.

(End of Prologue.)