AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I knew I owed him one for the comment about his love life. It shouldn’t have been any of my business, and I wasn’t even sure why I’d said it. There had just been something about the look on his face and the mocking way he’d asked to help…
There was no excuse. I would have to explain how sorry I was about that. But what about everything else?
If he was that angry about walking in on me — because what else could it have been — then did I owe him another apology about that? I’m sorry you walked in on my research project probably wouldn’t cut it. I’m sorry you saw me getting ready to shove a tail up my rectum probably wasn’t appropriate either, but for different reasons.
I heard a door slam and a car start. The rattling sound of Dad’s old car let me know it was Owen and not one of the neighbors. He was always the one who got to stomp off when we argued. Even when we were little, I was the one who had to stay and pick up the toys that he’d thrown on the floor when I’d accidentally knocked over his tower. I was the one who had to stay and finish cleaning the kitchen when he’d stormed out saying that I’d insulted him.
I was always the one who had to stay and clean up the mess.
Only this time, I wasn’t sure how to do it. This mess just seemed to be getting bigger as time went on. After the funeral, everyone had said that it would get better, that we’d figure out how to move on, but I was starting to think they’d lied.
How was I supposed to move on when I was living with a person who barely tolerated me on the best days? How was I supposed to move on with a growing mountain of student loan debts and no idea how to hold things together? I was the oldest, the robot or the automaton, as Owen liked to say. I should have been able to see a way to make things better… make us better.
He was all I had left.
Sure, we had a few odd relatives and some friends of our parents who’d stop by every couple of months or so to soothe their guilt, but that was it. Owen was all I had in the world, and I was losing him. Everything I did made things worse between us.
When I tried to talk about his plans for the future, he said I was belittling him. When I asked him about bills for the house, he said I was checking up on him.
Was I? I just couldn’t see it through his eyes. He was a puzzle that didn’t make any sense. There were so many pieces missing, and it always seemed like two or three different sets had gotten all jumbled together.
I always felt lost when I was around him.
I was tired of feeling lost, of the endless emptiness of trying to keep things from falling apart, all while knowing nothing I did would make a difference. I was going to end up alone, in debt, and with a house that had years of bad memories. How was that fair?
I’d done everything anyone had asked of me. Clean your room, get good grades, nice boys don’t argue, don’t hit, use good manners… I’d done everything right, and he’d been free to do whatever he wanted.
When a bully pushed me to the ground at the Playplace in McDonald’s, I was supposed to figure out what I’d done wrong. Someone shoved him down the slide, and he got to give them a black eye and be congratulated for standing up for himself. Yeah, he’d only been three, but still, I’d never understood why they loved him more for disobeying.
Everyone loved him even more for doing his own thing. He wouldn’t have taken days combing through fetishes and trying to follow the guidelines to the letter. Owen would have known exactly what he was going to do, and no matter what, the teacher would have loved it. She’d say she loved his ingenuity, or his drive, or his passion for the subject.
I, on the other hand, was going to turn in a mess. I was going to end up completely oversharing about how I couldn’t manage to get a tail in my ass, so I wasn’t sure how the puppy felt. I had to get some credit for finding a fetish to research and trying, right?
Looking down at the computer, I told myself to pick it up and start doing my other homework if I wasn’t going to get the practical part of my research done, but I just couldn’t. Everyone else got to slack off once in a while. I was going to take the rest of the night off and ignore everything that was waiting for me.
Glancing out the window at the darkening sky, I wondered what Owen was doing. Would he be home for dinner? Eating dinner together wasn’t something we’d done since I’d had to move back in, and I’d avoided the house for so long once I’d been able to escape that it’d probably been years since we’d sat down together.
Would he like that?
Would it make the house feel like a home again?
I wasn’t sure anything would ever be able to make it feel that way for me, but maybe it would be different for Owen. He probably had tons of happy memories of our parents and the things they’d done together, of things like family dinners where they’d sat down and talked without the awkward silences and judgmental looks that always happened when I’d been around.
I’d make dinner for him.
I’d make him something nice. Even if it was only ramen noodles with spices in them, there had to be enough in the kitchen to make him something decent. That would at least show him I was trying to make things right. Then I’d apologize and stay the hell out of his business.
I shouldn’t care who he slept with.
I mean, I didn’t care who he slept with.
Heading toward the stairs, I looked over at his closed bedroom door that seemed to mark the status of our relationship. Closed and off limits. I was going to apologize, and that would make it better.
At least, I hoped it would.
****
The slam of the front door made me jump, and I spilled some of the sauce before I could dump it into the pot with the noodles. It didn’t look anything like the picture, but it was edible and didn’t taste too bad, so I hoped that would count.
