My memories are a bit sad because my brother and I have a pretty decent relationship now, and a lot of what I remember is faded and distorted.

Once I was perusing a thrift shop and an old landline phone jogged a memory that made me start crying right in the store. When I'd get home from elementary school my brother would already be home (high schoolers got out earlier) but my parents wouldn't be home from work yet. He used to pick on me pretty badly, and it'd often turn violent. I remember hiding from him when I could, under tables and in closets. When he'd find me, it would always get ugly. Once when I was hiding under our parents bed and I snuck out, grabbed a telephone (identical to the one in the thrift store), and hid again. I remember calling my mother and begging her to come home early from work, and her just sighing and telling me to deal with it. Of course they'd "punish" him when they got home, but it was never effective because it went on for years. Another time he had me pinned up against the wall and wouldn't let me go and just kept berating me until I snapped and started to hit him. I was smaller and weak and I just remember him laughing.

In retrospect I should have stopped going home unless my parents were around, but I didn't have anywhere else to go and I didn't think I had options. Years of this left some physical and emotional damage that I've only started working through. We've never really talked about it, and since spending a lot of time apart our relationship has slowly improved. I absolutely forgive him because as awful as he made my life he was just a kid, and I don't know where all his anger came from but he was probably dealing with something. He's turned into a fairly normal adult who has decided not to have children, so no danger there.