I woke up. Sweaty. It was dark as ever in my room. Outside my window were clouds in cool tones of grey and blue, the sun was high and bright-on the other side of the earth. My clock told me it was four am. I'd slept nearly three hours. I rolled out of bed, my shirt sticking to the mattress, and onto my hands and toes. I did eighty pushups before allowing myself to walk silently across the hall. The bathroom light was painfully bright, so I opted to brush my teeth in the dark.
I drank water from the tap like I'd spent the last two hours hiking. In a desert. The water wasn't working.
In the kitchen, I grabbed the milk jug and unscrewed the red cap, chugging from the gallon directly. That helped. It was so cold I almost got brain freeze, but I didn't. The only light was coming from the open refrigerator door. On top of the fridge, I grabbed a Twix from a box of candy. Replacing the cap on the milk, I stuffed it back onto the second shelf. I should not have been eating and drinking sugar. I should have been trying to sleep, made my way back into my bed and tried to watch something boring like Stranger Things to get my heart rate down.
I'd been like this for a while. A sweaty mess of insomnia and sugar addiction. I sought out pain and took sadistic pleasure in causing it. Any control. Any.
Ever since dad left last year. Sure, before that I'd contemplated eating candy bars at four in the morning. Who hasn't. But I wouldn't have done it tonight. I wouldn't have woken up from a nightmare and thrown myself into exercise to feel some amount of reminder that I was fucking here. I was here. That's what I said over and over, to get my heart rate down. I almost cried. I'm not sure why.
A few minutes later, I walked to the front door, unlocking it and going for a walk in my socks and pajamas. The pavement was delightfully cold even outside of my socks and the chill made me keep walking. I walked out my front door and across my dewy grass and down the street and past everyone whose house I knew, whose I didn't. The air was still, no breeze. My god.
When I got home I locked the door and made my way to my sister Lucy's room. I heard the shower going, since it was now 5:45 and my mother would be getting ready for work. She left every morning without saying goodbye. She'd been doing this for years, even before dad left. Now she didn't seem to know how to say anything to us. She barely spoke at all. You said things, she heard you, she did what you asked without acknowledgement. You needed gas money, you told her. Later that day money would be in your bank account.
That was the one thing we had ample of. Not love or a bond or conversation, but money. Made me wonder if it was worth it. Sometimes.
I pushed Lucy's door open quietly after stopping in my room, grabbing my kindle. She was on her bed, still under the blankets. I climbed in beside her, underneath the cotton prison she'd put herself in. She didn't seem to notice I was there. I put a hand on hers for a moment, then kept them to myself. For the next hour, I reread The Martian, by Andy Weir. I found the book comforting, in a way. Things kept escalating in the book in a way true to my life. When one thing goes wrong, it all goes wrong.
Eventually, Lucy rolled over in her sleep and found my mass blocking her from sprawling out on the bed. Her hands explored my chest, feeling the cotton undershirt and the muscle underneath. I won't say my self punishing exercise regiment didn't have any benefits. Her hands eventually met each other on the other side of my torso, and she pulled herself against me, head finding my shoulder. I looked down at her. God, she was beautiful.
Lucy was my older sister by about two years. She was living here while she tried to decide what she wanted to study at college. She was back and forth on it. Truthfully, I just don't think she wants to leave me here alone. It's not like my mom is crazy or strict, she's just never here. I think that scares Lucy, who has always looked out for me as the dutiful sister she is.
And hey, I've looked out for her too. She and I have had our fair share of rejection and angst. Yeah, we're privileged. Most of our problems are first world. But they're still problems, they still feel real. Sometimes our family situation didn't feel so real. It almost felt good to have those heartbreaks, those douchebags she dated gave us something other than the profound fucked yo reality to converse about. I'd never regret the girls who rejected me, because they gave me something to think about, something to change inside myself.
I really didn't feel like going to school today. I wasn't up for the noise and the pretending to learn and the conversations I'd have to have. Today would be my first non attendance of the semester. It was almost summer vacation anyway. I texted my mom.
Vomited. Feel sick. Could be norovirus.
She saw it but didn't respond, and I knew she wouldn't anyway. She just needed to know so if the school called her she could say I was sick. That was fine with me. My fingers flipped page after page after page, my eyes growing numb to the brilliant white pages on my screen. Eventually I realized I'd read the same paragraph over and over again. With a thump, dropped my tablet onto the floor, curled up next to my sister, and slept.
Hours later, I felt her getting out of the bed and squeezed instinctively. "Let go, bro. I gotta pee!" She said. My hands reluctantly left her hips and I heard her trot off to the bathroom. Then I was left with the silence of an empty bed. I didn't like it. After a minute, she came back, drying her hands on the t-shirt she was wearing over a pair of black boy shorts. She had short blonde hair like I did, although hers was a messy bob drawing down to her chin. Her eyes were like deep oceans.
She got back into bed, my arms pulled her into me again. I felt her developed bottom press against my cock. But for once, there wasn't sex in it. My hands didn't even find her breasts, which were cute if not medium sized. My fingers just found hers, wrapped protectively over her tummy. "You need to get up, baby. School starts soon." She warned, holding my hands in her own, caressing them.
"Playing hookie." I mumbled into her back, my face buried in her neck.
"About time. You deserve a break, especially with all of those girls practically tripping over themselves for a taste of you." She teased, looking over her shoulder, admiring either me or her own ass.
"You know you're my favorite." I told her quietly, lips finding her delicate ivory cheek. She exhaled. Nothing more.
"I better be. That little Silver Sable lookalike is cute." She told me, turning over a little so she was on her back.
"Her name is Alison." I told her, feeling her arms reach for a phone, tapping in the Instagram handle I'd given her. She scrolled through some pictures on her timeline. For a moment, appraising.
"Such a shame to see a nice, Christian girl like that with boobs like that. I mean, Jesus, is that a push-up bra?" She asked, assuming, correctly, that I knew.
"No." I said shortly, my nose buried in her hair. She smelled so fucking good. Some unidentifiable flowery conditioner.
"Pray tell, how do you know?" She asked, smiling. She looked proud. "Tell me everything, now." She demanded, flipping me on my back and straddling my lap. She had a playful curiosity.
