S2, Account 2: Cordell
It’s a messed up situation. No doubt. I’ve not been in the family home since I was 16. School didn’t care about me, my parents didn’t anymore, other relatives didn’t want anything to do with me, everyone gave up on me…except Cory.
I love that kid. We’re twins but truly Cory has always been like my younger brother. He would always follow me around, copy what I was doing and never wanted to be apart from me. We were seriously tight. And that’s how I know there’s a side to Cory that no-one else ever knew about. Maybe I helped to cover it up. I don’t know. All I know is that out of nowhere this impulsive, daredevil side to him started showing itself around the time we were 11 or 12. He would do things like run in front of cars in the road at the last moment, to see if he would make it. I did it a few times too for the sheer thrill of it, and because young boys are stupid, but sometimes it felt like Cory needed to do it to feel alive. It became a daily thing with him, and it scared me to the point I screamed at him once (after he almost got hit), that I would tell Mum and Dad. That shocked him. Our parents are not the most understanding people, so Cory knew that if I was threatening him with that, what he was doing was really troubling me, and so he stopped. Just like that. That’s how close we were. We wouldn’t deliberately do anything to hurt each other. Bit by bit however, I started to see that Cory had just transferred that sense of recklessness to other areas.
By the time we were 14, Cory was regularly taking Class B drugs and drinking in secret. He was very smart with it though, and so he never got caught. Plus, he always had me to look out for him. Bar smoking marijuana here and there, I wasn’t really into anything else, not even alcohol (not a fan of the taste), so I would just watch him and my friends do all that. When I found out that Cory was taking ecstasy, I was livid. My brother was spiralling and I was afraid of where it would go. Still, I didn’t tell my parents. You have to understand, we grew up in a very strict household, and anything less than perfection, respect, deference and the appearance of faultlessness, would be considered betrayal. I thought I could manage it.
We used to go to a youth group at church on Saturday evenings. It was alright. Although myself and Cory no longer went to church with our parents, we liked the group. It had a lot of our school friends too. One evening we were there and I had gone to get some drinks and sweets from the tuck shop for us. When I came back, I saw Cory huddled in one of the less well-lit corners, talking to the pastor’s daughter. She hadn’t long started at our secondary school, I believe she was 12. I was intrigued as I hadn’t known them to socialise before. In the blink of an eye I saw a see-through bag pass from Cory to Laura (her name). I almost dropped our drinks and sweets in shock as I realised that Cory was dealing to Laura, a 12 year old, on church grounds. I rapidly walked up to them, thrust the drinks and sweets into Cory’s hand, and attempted to grab the bag from Laura. There was a brief tussle between us as she tried to hold on to it hissing that she’d “paid for it” and I attempted to snatch it back. I wanted to tip the entire thing down the toilet and drag Cory out of that place.
Alas, the bag split, the pills fell out catching the eye of one of the supervisors, and the rest was history. Laura upon realising what had happened, told the supervisor I was trying to sell to her. I didn’t deny it (I didn’t want my brother to get into trouble, god knows what else he had on him), the police were called, and I was charged with possession with intent to supply Class B drugs. I did a little bit of time in a young offenders institution for it.
Suffice to say that my relationship with our parents broke down significantly after that. It was if I was filthy rags to them. I guess their pride was hurt also in the sense that they were considered pillars of the church community, and their son had been caught attempting to sell to their pastor’s daughter, a minor. Luckily for me, because of no priors, and an exemplary school record, my sentence was not long. Upon being sentenced, my parents told me to stay away from the family and never return home once I was released, and I never did. I’ve not spoken to them since. I’ve got my boys and that’s it now.
I was perfect to them before, but now I am a dead thing. It hurts. I don’t blame my brother though, there is no way I would’ve let him take the fall for that. He’s always been a bit fragile — that’s why I think he was doing those daredevil things — to find the self in him he felt he had lost or never had. It also doesn’t help being identical twins — people compare you constantly, and up until this point, I had been the shinier of the twins so to speak. I saw how over time that eroded his self-confidence and made him feel invisible, and it’s why I fought so hard to protect him from his baser instincts and always be there. I wanted him to know that he will always have at least one genuine champion. I still am his greatest fan.
Originally posted: September 29, 2020