AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Kenneth, the puppet master of this squalid tableau, slammed the door shut with a finality that sent shivers cascading down my spine. His sudden movements, his penchant for theatrics, were a familiar brand of torture, leaving me both on edge and strangely enthralled.
"Didn't expect you back," he drawled, his voice a viper slithering across the room. My eyes, torn from the woman's enigmatic form, held a cocktail of shock and something far darker.
"Neither did I," I spat, the state of the house mirroring the tempest brewing within me. "Where's Mom?"
The question echoed in the silence, a stark reminder of the woman who'd instilled an almost pathological love of cleanliness in me. The woman whose mornings began with a gentle, yet insistent, rap on my door, urging me to tackle the chaos of my teenage room. The woman who wouldn't tolerate a single crumb on the floor, let alone an entire Domino's feast left to rot.
"Where's Mom, Kenneth?" The question fell into the stagnant air like a pebble in a pond, ripples of tension spreading outwards. I couldn't tear my eyes from the half-eaten sandwich crawling with ants, the symbol of everything that had gone wrong in the month I'd been gone.
"Mom's not here," Kenneth declared, his voice a hollow echo in the suffocating air. I sucked in a breath, my resolve hardening with each passing second. Turning towards him, I faced the monster he'd become, his bare chest and haphazardly thrown-on shorts painting a picture of careless abandon that mirrored the chaos around him. The dim light cast long, menacing shadows, turning the familiar living room into a stage for a play where I was both the captive and the reluctant audience.
The woman on the couch shifted, a flicker of movement in the gloom. Her eyes, if she had any open, were lost in the darkness.
"Work," Kenneth mumbled, his eyes darting away from the woman on the sofa. "Night shift at a hotel."
I scoffed. Mom, the woman who once wouldn't tolerate a single dust bunny, scrubbing floors for minimum wage? It felt like a cruel joke, yet the stale scent of neglect hanging in the air confirmed it wasn't.
My gaze snagged again on the silhouette draped across the couch, swallowed by the shadows. "And who's… that?" I rasped, the question clinging to the thick air.
"Lily," he said, his voice a shade too casual. "My girlfriend."
"Girlfriend?" My incredulity echoed in the hollow room. "Since when?"
"Just met her today," he mumbled, a flicker of defiance in his eyes.
My jaw dropped. "Today? And you're already calling her your girlfriend? You can't just… bring a stranger into our house!" The words tumbled out, fueled by a strange mix of indignation and something else, something I didn't want to examine too closely.
"Technically," he drawled, his voice laced with defensiveness, "she's not a stranger. We've been talking online for a while, you know. We've got a good thing going."
"Technically," I retorted, rolling my eyes at his flimsy logic, "she's still a stranger. You met her a few hours ago!" My anger simmered, fueled by the absurdity of it all. Who was he playing this charade for?
"She has a name, you know," he snapped, his voice tight. "Lily. And she's not some random stranger I picked up off the street."
The air crackled with tension, a silent battle of wills playing out in the dim glow of the moon.
I stared at my brother, his familiar face twisted into a mask of defiance.
This wasn't the Kenneth I remembered, the goofball brother who used to chase me around the house. This was someone new, someone hardened by secrets and shrouded in shadows.
And Lily, nestled in the darkness like a slumbering serpent, was a living, breathing symbol of his transformation. A symbol of a world I had no part in, a world where family lines blurred and familiar faces became strangers overnight.
"Her name doesn't matter, Kenneth!" I spat, fury bubbling in my gut. He was playing this whole thing off like some casual sitcom, oblivious to the wreckage he'd strewn across our lives. "Does Mom even know Lily's graced our doorstep?" I emphasized the name, my fingers carving accusing arcs in the air.
"No," he mumbled, his swagger shrinking under the weight of my gaze.
"And does she know you have a girlfriend you barely know and are likely sleeping with?" I thundered, my voice unconcerned with the woman on the couch. Maybe if I spoke loud enough, shame would prick her conscience and send her packing. But she remained a silent shadow, unmoved by my theatrics. My own fault, I supposed, for expecting empathy from a stranger draped in my brother's questionable decisions.
"And how old is this Lily, anyway?" I pressed, my eyes dissecting the woman's silhouette. Even shrouded in darkness, I could tell by the easy curve of her hip and the confidence in her posture that she wasn't a high schooler. No, she was seasoned, older.
"College student," Kenneth retorted, his voice defensive.
"College student, huh? What's her major? How old is she, for Pete's sake?" My words were daggers, aimed at making him squirm, at forcing him to acknowledge the recklessness of his actions.
"Physiology. Final year," he mumbled, his gaze darting away.
"Final year?!" The words exploded from my lips. So, Lily, the mystery woman draped across our couch, was three, maybe even four years his senior. A far cry from the innocent high school fling I'd naively envisioned. The pit in my stomach twisted, a bitter confirmation of my suspicions. This wasn't a teenage infatuation, this was something older, more calculated.
"Lower your voice," Kenneth attempted to soothe me, gesturing with his hands to emphasize his point. I was taken aback by Lily's lack of reaction; she remained eerily quiet. It was odd for my brother Kenneth to be involved with someone like her. Perhaps they shared a similar creepy style, but it still repulsed me.
