The familiar war took up root in my chest. Guilt and fear. Anger and longing. I wouldn’t wish on anyone the need to fear, to the depths of your bones, the person you loved most. My mind couldn’t help but travel back to the memories I cherished most about my little brother. Staying up past our bedtimes to watch our favorite movie. Decorating cookies with Mom for Christmas. Picking apples at an orchard an hour outside the city.

But almost every good memory was tinged with darkness. Michael breaking my favorite DVD because he wanted to watch his. Throwing my cookies in the trash after Dad had complimented my decorating. Pushing me off a ladder at the orchard for no discernable reason.

At three, my parents had realized that something was off about their son. But it took them far too long to come to terms with what that might be. By seven, he’d been hospitalized three times. By nine, we were all scared of the little blond boy who lived down the hall. And when he turned eleven, it was too late for any of us.

A conduct disorder with callous and unemotional traits. That was what the psychiatrists eventually diagnosed him with. Because no mental health professional wanted to use the term recognized by so many. Psychopath.

No one tells you how hard it is. How it will tear you apart from the inside out. Loving a psychopath. You can’t turn off the soul-deep knowledge that the person is your family. It was in my DNA to care about Michael. And even after everything that had happened, I still couldn’t turn it off. I often wished it was possible. That I could kill the part of me that loved him. But I’d never had much luck.

My heart both bled and broke for Michael. It was a death sentence for a child. Not because the diagnosis would kill them, but because there were so few treatment options out there. And often, the ones that did exist were found too late. They had been for my brother.

I tried not to let myself feel the anger about it all. To sink into the frustration at my parents for not doing more. To disappear into the rage I felt because of everything my brother had stolen from me. I refused to live there, scared that it would make me too much like him.

The treatment center he’d been transferred to not long after his conviction had promised rehabilitation for children and teens with Michael’s diagnosis. For the first time in years, I’d had hope. Thought maybe I wouldn’t lose the last person I had left. The center had a lot of wonderful success. But Michael wouldn’t be a story of triumph.