Most people who go through life have a sense of purpose, knowing who they are and what they will stand for and what they will stand against. But for some, this isn't the case. Growing up, I always had my one group of friends and didn't seriously talk to anyone else, and if I talked to a girl? I sweated like none other and would fall over my words. I always followed the crowd, never standing up for what I believed in if I thought people would disagree, because I cared too much about what other people thought of me. And if I didn't talk to other people, then I couldn't disappoint them and make them think less of me. But it all changed when my cousin moved into my life. He was everything I wanted to be. Funny, good looking, charming, everyone loved him, but he was a bad person on the inside. He treated girls like trash, yet they still fell over themselves getting to him. But we quickly grew a bond, and he became my brother I never had. He brought me out of my shell, taught me how to socialize and party (sadly), and gave me a life that I never would have had without him. He made me the man I am today. And it all would've been good, except for my junior year of highschool, when he introduced me to alcohol. Before, I never wanted to touch the stuff and looked down on people in my school who drank, but I always looked up to him and, again, didn't want him to think less of me or disappoint him so, I drank. And I liked it. The next year came around, I went to one party, and the whole school knew the next day of the shy-kid-turned-party-animal over the course of a summer. I was popular, I partied, drank, and even tried weed when drunk, which got me a 5 day throat infection trip. I was so grateful that my cousin gave me the keys to the good life, I would do anything for him and he told me the same thing. But I had come to learn that with him, his words didn't mean anything. He would tell girls that he liked them, missed them, didn't want to talk to them, all to get them to like him more through lieing. And I let myself believe that he would never do it to me. Off he went to college, and I was stuck in highschool. Until one day, he started blaming me for his mistakes, for his life choices, saying that he gets in trouble because of me. He fails the easiest of classes to focus on partying instead, and tries to twist the truth to blame me. My dad went through a similar life experience with my cousin's father, and my dad said that my cousin was exactly like his dad: he was fun to hang around with, but he never took responsibility for what he did. And I still didn't believe it, I took the responsibility, blaming myself the same way all those girls he sweet talked before me did, until I learned what he never told me. He had been arrested, he was a druggie now, college had ruined my brother, the one I could always go to for help. Realizing in that moment, that my brother, for my whole life, was gone, replaced by someone I didn't know, different from the guy I knew incapable of betraying his family and tossing out a bond. All to avoid accepting the blame. It just ruins you, just crushes your soul. There is no one else like him and there never will be, and that just hurts me to my deepest core. But I'm happy now that I learned this about him, because now I am a dry highschooler, who lost friends when the partying scene stopped, but I won't turn out like he did. And although my brother died a year ago, my cousin is still family, although he now hates me, never wants to see me again, and blames his misfortune on me. I will still come charging towars him if he needs help, but I will never trust him, never share that same bond again. Because you don't turn your back on family. Even when they do.