I barely remember the fall. I don’t even remember the hour before it. All I remember is waking up in the hospital with half a dozen lines shoved up my arms and a worried doctor staring at me.

That’s where I am now: bruised, broken, and barely able to swallow the flavorless apple juice the doctor gave me. She had stepped outside for a moment to speak to some other people, but my head was throbbing so much that I couldn’t even hear the monitor beeping beside me.

She comes back in and starts asking me questions about my family life, especially about my older brother. He was never really a stable person, to begin with, but I had hope, and that’s all I felt mattered. He’d been there when I’d failed my algebra class to support me, and there when I found out my boyfriend was cheating. My brother scared him so badly that he never came back to school.

I listen as they tell me about my condition; and how lucky I am to be alive right now. I don’t feel the same excitement that I felt earlier. I’ll likely never be able to graduate 9th grade in this condition, much less make it back before the next year begins. Almost half of my bones broke just by the accident, but . . . I suddenly realize that I don’t even know what happened to me anymore. I just remember tripping, and my brother catching me.

The doctor told me that I had been on a hike with my parents and my brother, and while I went off to get some bottled water, someone had fired a gun twice. According to CCTV footage, I tripped on some rocks while running for cover, almost falling off the edge of the cliff.

She stops talking, and even through the numbness running through my veins, I can tell she’s hesitant to go on. Whatever happened, she doesn’t want me to know just yet. 

She inhales slowly and continues. She tells me that my brother had reached for my arm and in the video I looked relieved. Until I saw the blood covering his jacket. She tells me that I likely pulled away, angering him.

She pauses briefly again before continuing. I listened as she told me the final part of this harrowing story. My brother tried after that to throw himself off the cliff . . . but I grabbed his sleeve . . . and then I was flung off the cliff.

He ran away and hasn’t been caught by police yet. “But don’t worry,” she reassures me, “your other older brother is here, and he wants to see you.”

My breath catches and my heart stops. I only have one brother.