I do not know if apologies matter where you are. I do not know if my words can reach you or if they will simply disappear into the void like you did that night. But I have to say them. I have to write them down because they are eating me alive, and this guilt is the only thing keeping me connected to you now.
I failed you. That is the truth I have to live with every single day.
I should have seen it. I should have known. You were not okay, and I convinced myself you were. You smiled when people asked if you were doing fine, and I let myself believe it. I let myself think that you were strong enough to get through whatever you were facing, that you did not need me hovering, that you did not need me prying into your thoughts. I thought I was respecting your space. But what I was really doing was looking away.
I keep going back to that night. The night before you left. You called me. I remember glancing at my phone, seeing your name, and thinking, I will call him back later. But later never came. You never gave me another chance.
I wonder what you would have said if I had picked up. Would you have told me? Would you have let me in just enough for me to stop you? Or were you just calling to hear my voice one last time? The thought haunts me. I play the scene over and over in my head, but it always ends the same way. The call I ignored. The morning I woke up to the news. The moment my world cracked open, and I realized that I had lost you forever.
I was your big brother. I was supposed to protect you. That was my job from the day you were born. And I failed. I let you slip through my fingers, and I will never forgive myself for that.
I see you everywhere. In the empty chair at family dinners, in the music we used to play too loudly in the car, in the old messages on my phone that I cannot bring myself to delete. Sometimes I even hear you. A laugh that is not really there. A whisper in the quiet. And then I remember, and it feels like losing you all over again.
If I could go back, I would do everything differently. I would pick up the phone. I would drive to your house that night and force you to talk to me. I would hold on to you as tightly as I could and tell you that whatever darkness was swallowing you, you did not have to face it alone.
But time does not grant second chances. It only leaves you with regrets.
So this is my apology. To the little brother who needed me and found nothing but silence. To the boy who once looked up to me and saw someone who was supposed to be there, someone who was supposed to notice when he was falling. I am sorry for every moment I did not see your pain. I am sorry for the times I thought you were strong enough to carry the weight alone. I am sorry for not telling you how much I loved you before it was too late.
If you can hear me, wherever you are, I just need you to know that I would give anything to change that night. And if you cannot hear me, then I will carry this guilt for both of us.
I love you, little brother. And I am so, so sorry.