Treachery and Betrayal

As the shock and disbelief slowly turned into the realization that this was really happening...all I could feel was incredible rage. I was furious with Charles, and his total rejection of the facts, and the band. But I was livid about my brother's treachery and his betrayal. This had transcended anything I could have ever imagined in my wildest dreams, and it was all happening because of a sibling rivalry I have never understood. This wasn't just irresponsible or unprofessional, or inconvenient. This was life-changing. I have never felt pain like that ever in my life, and today, nearly twenty five years later, the wound hasn't fully healed. I have spent a great deal of time trying to fathom how a twin brother could be so destructive and vicious, without the slightest concern for the repercussions this would have on my life in particular, but also in the lives of the many other people he claimed to be friends with, but whose dreams he had just shattered...and on the brink of those dreams being realized. The wound cut so deep, that it reopened all of my old wounds...still unhealed, but now freshly salted. The old rage was back too. But the pain and the rage were now so magnified, and so overwhelming that I have to say I felt as though I wanted to die. I felt totally used up, spent, and defeated..savaged by a person I thought had been incapable of such malice, after all, we were only nine minutes apart in age, and had shared the bond that only twins understand, for many years...before this pattern of destuction had appeared. The only thing my brother said to me when I asked him how he could have done this, was ..."hey, you guys were just a local band". That was the closest I have ever come to inflicting real violence in my life...but somehow I controlled myself long enough to walk away...and I think it was at that moment...I just quit caring about myself or anything else. For years to come, my brother would prey on me like I was a wounded animal, using and abusing me...because I let him...I had no self-respect anymore...and the downward spiral of addiction exploded in my life again...with a vengence.