he's my brother...

This is my big brother, Havelock.

He's not the most friendly of people. And I'm sure he seems a bit intimidating to a lot of people... I know he intimidates me.

Even though he's my brother, I don't know him well. I'm living with him now, but before... I hadn't seen him in a year before this, and we hadn't been in the same house together for five years. Dad left when I was seven, and Havelock went with him. They weren't even on the same continent anymore.

They came back, years later, though not to live with mum and I. I didn't even recognise him when they came back. He was mean and cold and hard and he never talked. He didn't seem to care about anything - not school, or mum, or even me. He got angry sometimes too, mainly at mum, even though we hardly saw him.

His clothes always smelt of smoke and alcohol, and mum and dad had big arguments about him not coming home for days. He got a tattoo - two, actually, all over his back and chest and got angry at mum when she cried. Nobody knows where he got the money from. He always seemed to have money though, after dad and he came back... but he didn't have a job.

He always called me brat and wouldn't babysit me when mum asked him (even though I'm too old for a baby sitter anyway!). I don't think he ever wanted to get to know me and saw me as unwanted baggage.

But he's still my brother, and I still love him.