Kit Temborough stopped in front of the storefront and eyed the window suspiciously. The dirty panes were lined with faded advertisements that might have been older than she was. At nineteen, Kit was just about to start her first year of college.
She read the ads in the window and snorted. Most of them were in Chinese, but a few of them could be read in poorly translated English. They promised a cure for all sorts of ailments: hair loss, erectile dysfunction and even bad breath.
"This has got to be the place," Kit murmured under her breath as she placed her hand on the door. She hesitated for a moment before taking a deep breath and pulling it open.
Her friend had told her about the Chinese medicine shop in the strip mall. She'd been to the mall dozens of times, but she'd never even glanced at the place she was walking into. She looked around and blinked, halfway expecting to see some sort of mystical symbols on the walls, but the place looked pretty normal. All sorts of herbs and bottles lined the walls, along with boxes of roots that she'd never seen before. She took a few steps forward and turned up her nose at a case of dead beetles that promised to cure rheumatism.
"Hi there, looking for something particular?" Kit heard someone ask from some direction.
She glanced around and saw a middle aged man on a short ladder behind a shelf. She bolstered her courage and nodded, "Yeah, I am... Maybe you could help me out?"
The man hopped off the ladder spryly, "Certainly. It's okay if you don't know what you're looking for, just tell me what you need and we'll see if I can help," he said with a sincere looking smile.
Kit glanced at the dead beetles and tried to keep an open mind. She felt like walking away, but she'd already come as far as she had and she wanted to try and make up for something terrible she'd done.
About a week prior she and her friends were celebrating her birthday and Kit was unaware that her brother was home. Kit and her brother were non-identical twins, but for the past decade Kit's birthday was celebrated a week prior to their actual birth date, just to make their birthdays feel a bit more special. Kit's parents were out of town for the weekend and she and her girlfriends had gotten into her father's liquor cabinet. Naturally, the conversation had turned towards potential love interests and the girls began to chat away. Kit knew that she had been drinking too much, but she was having such a good time that she kept going.
After a while, she was well past buzzed and giggling up a storm when her friend Lettie asked her, "So, Kit, is your brother seeing anyone?"
Kit wrinkled her nose, "No, why would anyone be seeing my brother?"
"Why not?" Lettie answered with a slight frown, "What's wrong with him?"
Kit knew that Lettie had had a crush on her brother for some time, and she knew that her brother, Jake, had always found Lettie attractive. Both of them were the shy sort and neither one had made any real attempt to talk to one another. Having graduated a year early, Jake was already in college and well on his way to his sophomore year, while Kit had been held back a year because of her grades. She envied her brother because of his smarts, though she was the more athletic of the two, it seemed like everyone in her family expected more out of him than they did out of her. It was little more than a normal sibling rivalry, but in that moment, between the alcohol and her flippant mood, Kit was feeling particularly malicious, "Well, he's so... shrimpy. I thought you'd go for a guy with a little more muscle."
Lettie blushed, the alcohol working its magic on her as well, "Who said I was interested? I was just asking."
Kit laughed, "You wouldn't have brought it up if you weren't interested! C'mon Lettie, I know you like him, it's super obvious."
"Is it?" Lettie blushed harder.
"Yes!" Kit's two other friends in the room chimed at the same time.
"See?" Kit licked her lips and laughed some more, her cheeks ruddy and red from the booze, "I'm telling you, Lettie, you don't want to be with my brother."
Lettie frowned, "You can't say shit like that and not give me any reasons, Kit; that's not fair."
"oh, you want reasons?" Kit sat up suddenly and pursed her lips. She thought about how proud her parents were of him when he graduated with honors, while they barely gave her the time of day when her volleyball team won the nationals, "I've lived with him my whole life. All he does is read all day, and he studies so much, I doubt he'd even have time for a girlfriend. Not only that, but, he's just so shrimpy."
"You said that already," Lettie was beginning to look frustrated. "He doesn't sound all that bad, I think you're just jealous."
"Me, Jealous?" Kit snorted. Of course, nothing could have been truer, but she wasn't about to let her best friend compare her to her brother. Jake made up for his lack of physique with his mental prowess, while she had always been the more athletic of the two. She'd always envied him for how easily scholastics seemed to come to him, but she'd never once admitted it. She and her brother were about the same height, but her legs and arms were thicker and years of sports had toned her body well. She was naturally tan, and he was pale from being away from the sun constantly. It was by their physical differences that she justified her indignance, but that wasn't where their dissimilarities ended. She could think of a thousand ways in which they were different, but in her buzzed state, she could only seem to dwell on the fact that he was so much more gangly than her, "When I think manly, the image of my brother doesn't come to mind. The guy can't gain any muscle at all, like, seriously. Last year he went to the gym nearly every day cause' he wanted to gain so bad, he drank protein shakes and took supplements and he only gained a little muscle for all of his effort."
"Some people are just naturally thin and they metabolize quickly," Lettie was defending Jake openly now, even though she didn't know him very well. Kit's two other friends had become quiet and were simply watching the conversation escalate.
"Yeah, sure, but it's not just his body. He's also kind of wimpy, like he doesn't stand up for himself like he should. He always does favors for people and let's himself get stepped on; not really the kind of guy that you want as a boyfriend if he's not going to defend you."
"I appreciate a non violent approach, especially with men," Lettie was openly upset with Kit now, her irritation etched in her features, "I can't believe how jealous you are of your brother, I mean, you have no reason to be, you're both really talented. So what if I really did want to go after him, would you have a problem with that?"
Kit's two other friends snapped their heads back to Kit as the challenge was issued, "N, no, I guess not. I mean, I don't care, Lettie, I just don't think you guys would be a good fit," she mumbled, thoroughly frustrated by how badly the conversation had turned against her. Instead of belittling her brother, it seemed like her trash talk had actually improved his image. Her mind raced for any kind of relevant dirt she could think of to use against her brother, and she settled on something quickly that jumped out to her in an instant, "Plus, he's got a small dick."
Lettie went wide eyed and said nothing as an almost palpable silence came over the room.
Kit furrowed her brow, "What the hell is wrong with you gu..." she trailed off as she heard someone charging up the stairs quickly. A knot formed in her stomach as she realized what must have happened. Her brother must have come down from upstairs to get a drink or something and walked in right at the end of their conversation. She had been sitting away from the stairs, so she hasn't seen him. She took a deep breath and tried, fruitlessly, to alleviate some of the tension in the room, "Oh shit..." she sighed, "Do you think he heard me?"
Lettie nodded but said nothing.
