Disclaimer: All characters in the story are over the age of eighteen. This story is a very slow burn. If you enjoy reading things that jump straight into the action, then this may not be for you. Please be kind in your review if that is the case. However, if you are interested in a bit of a journey then I invite you to follow along. You may be surprised where this adventure goes. To be honest, I was.
Part One
Family
My name is Katie and I never fit in. I have three older brothers and as the story goes my mother always wanted a daughter so my parents kept trying. By the time they had my third brother, Jeff, my parents almost stopped. But my mother insisted that they keep trying and if they had a fourth son then it was fate or god or whomever's decision that we would be a family of all boys. Well, it turned out that the fourth time was the charm and just a little over nineteen years ago I was born. I was born into a happy, loving and relatively "normal" functioning family. However, if I was to honestly reflect on the last nineteen years, I just never quite fit in. I was the daughter that was born just a bit too late. I was the girl that tagged along with the boys and did boy things, but really I just wanted to doing girl things.
I was the kid in school that had the "talent" of moving between social groups. In a way I could fit in with any of the groups but the reality was that I didn't actually connect with any of them. I am quiet, much more a listener than a talker. I like to listen to people and to watch them. I always have. However, it is generally thought that those sorts of people would listen and then at the right moment when they spoke they would have something meaningful to say, to offer, a sort of amalgamation of all that had been said would be summarized by this quiet wise person that chose to speak at the right moment. Well, that wasn't me either. When I did speak in groups it was often if I was asked a question or it would be to clarify something I had heard. But I wasn't bringing new ideas.
It isn't that I am stupid necessarily, though I have been called that. It isn't even that I am timid. When I know the rules and what is expected, I will do what is required. It is more that I never really felt like I belonged. With belonging comes confidence and I never had the confidence and therefore I never belonged. My dad used to say that we always needed to be people that added value. That was how he raised us. So I often framed things in terms of where I could add value. The problem with that way of thinking was that meant there was an inherent pressure on everything I did. Did this friendship add value? Did that conversation add value? Am I going to add value to society? I need to find the right job, friends, husband, etc.
I certainly wasn't academically stupid. I graduated high school early and never found books and education difficult to grasp. My older brothers were jealous in that school came so easy to me and often they would even enlist my help with homework and all of three of them had me write their college essays when they were applying. They all got in. I liked that. I liked to help. I was adding value.
When I turned eighteen I decided to take the year off and not think about college. I told my parents that I wanted to take a break and just to live. That was a lie. I didn't have any drive to go to college. There wasn't a subject that I excelled at more than another and there was no career that I wanted to work towards. I knew that I just wouldn't fit in college and I dreaded it. So I didn't go.
My parents didn't want me to just live at home either. They were traditional and so I got a job at the nicest restaurant as a waitress and made enough money to live in small apartment on the edge of town. I did that for a year. It was a simple life and in a way you could say I enjoyed it. I had a near perfect memory and I was very polite so waiting tables was easy for me. I was suited for it. I was told that I had a very "girl next store look" which helped with the tips apparently. I didn't understand that.
I was simple but pretty enough. Very feminine features with fuller lips, blue eyes and dirty blond hair that I never knew exactly how to style. I had my mom's body: 36 c chest and a narrow waist with round hips. If I wore baggy clothes, I looked heavier due to my chest but when I wore tighter clothes I got a lot more looks from boys. I was told that I had a good body, particularly by other waitresses, they either wanted my tits or my ass or whatever it was. But I didn't think about that stuff too much. It wasn't that I wasn't sexual. I had urges and I knew I liked boys. But I just never knew how to approach people and I just didn't know where I fit. I did my best to look nice and to be pretty. My mom was just terrible about teaching me that stuff and by the time she got to me: her fourth kid, I think she just gave up on the whole parenting thing and just kind of let me figure it out. So I didn't fit.
Where I did fit the best was with my three brothers: David was the oldest. He was 25, very much the alpha of the bunch. He was married to a beautiful woman named Erika (she absolutely hated me and I never knew why). John was next. He was 23, very funny and more of the goofy brother of the 3. He was also newly married to Chelsea. I secretly wondered if Chelsea was actually a lesbian. She would often look at my chest and she had a sort of man-hating attitude which over time was breaking John's spirit. If anything I just thought of her as a ballbuster. Finally there was Jeff. He was 21 and more like me, a little more awkward and it took him longer to figure things out. He wasn't married and seemed to be taking his time in that department compared to the other two. I was closest to Jeff. We understood each other. He would call me every day or two and we would hang out. He liked to come to my apartment and we would play cards or have dinner. If anything Jeff was my best friend.
But I loved all my brothers more than anything. I supposed that is where all of this began. I loved my brothers. If I did fit in anywhere with anyone then it was with them.
The summer is when things changed for me. David sent a group text out to the rest of us siblings with the idea that we needed to get together for a week or two at my parent's summer house for some much needed vacation and just family time. He was specific that this was for us kids only (no mom and dad, which my parents were fine with. They were rich and were always traveling somewhere in the summer so their summer home was virtually never used) and also that spouses may or may not be invited.
"Are you going to go?" Jeff asked me as he sipped his drink and reclined at my table. I had made dinner for us and was cleaning the dishes.
"Of course," I said. "I don't think David gave us an option to say no right?"
Jeff laughed, "No I suppose he didn't." David was notorious for bullying my brothers and forcing them to do whatever he wanted. "I wonder if Erika and Chelsea will come."
"I hope not,' I replied. "Erika hates me and Chelsea is just lame."
Jeff laughed again. "Yeah I don't think Erika likes anyone, including David. I wouldn't mind it if Chelsea came though."
"That's because you think she is hot," I said teasingly. Chelsea was always the woman that wore the wrong thing and by wrong thing I meant it was always just a little sluttier than you would expect. She always wore cleavage-baring shirts or very short shorts and then there was the time she wore a tank top with no bra to our family dinner. John loved it and they always had their hands all over each other, but it made all of us uncomfortable. I still thought she was a lesbian.
"I am a guy," Jeff said. "Is it so bad that I like to look at tits while I am watching a game on TV or opening Christmas present?"
I rolled my eyes at him. "It's John's wife, dummy."
Jeff laughed again, "Yeah well he knew what he was getting into. Remember that red dress she wore to their engagement party?"
"How could I forget?" I remembered it well. David and Jeff called it they "tits and ass" dress or the "fuck me over the table until my tits fly out" dress. Both were accurate. We speculated if Chelsea cheated on John. I didn't think she did. She seemed very much to love my brother, in her way. I remember being up one night listening to them have sex in the room next to mine when we were staying with my parents at the same time. The truth was that John was actually my favorite brother. He was sweet, funny and sensitive and Chelsea had taken him away from the rest of the family. She had inserted herself and she rarely let John do anything on his own. Us siblings had a bond and Chelsea didn't seem to understand or to like that. "I doubt she will let John come to the house without her," I said as I finished the dishes and sat down with Jeff.
"True," Jeff said. "I think David is looking for a week that she can't come. If anyone can figure out a way to exclude her, David will."
I smiled. Three days later, it turned out that would be more true than we realized. Chelsea had a work trip and David figured out what weekend it was and managed to get John's commitment to come out to the house without her for that week. When I heard the news I was so happy. Happier than I thought I would be. For the first time in a few years all the siblings would be together for a whole week in August. I couldn't wait.
A few weeks before the trip Jeff showed up at my door. He had lost his job during the last round of lay offs two months prior and now he was out of money and still looking for work. He had nowhere to go and my parents were out of town again. He could have stayed with them and in hindsight I wondered what the real reason was that he didn't ask them, they had a big house, lot's of space, etc. But he asked if he could stay with me until he got his feet under him again. Of course I said yes.
Two days later, Jeff moved in.
I only had a one bedroom apartment, though the living room was large and I didn't own a lot of things. Jeff didn't have a lot of things other than clothes and his laptop so he agreed that sleeping on the couch would be fine. We had to share a closet and the master bathroom but we used to share a bathroom when we were young. The truth was that I was excited to have Jeff as a roommate. I loved John the most but Jeff was the easiest for me to be around.
It took one conversation to figure out a few logistics and then Jeff was my roommate. The first few days were nice and I supposed I didn't know how lonely I was until I had my brother with me each night. We would watch TV together and it was fun to have someone to cook for. He would search for jobs during the day and he even kept the apartment reasonably clean, so when I came home all I had to do was make him dinner. Jeff was incapable of feeding himself. It was annoying at first but I liked having the role of taking care of that for him.
One night I woke up in the middle of the night. For no particular reason, I just woke up. I lay on my side and saw that it was 12:14 am. Not too late and I didn't have to work until afternoon, so I wasn't too worried. But I couldn't get back to sleep. I sat up and stretched my back. I was wearing a white t-shirt and black underwear. Without thinking too much I got out of bed, opened the door and started to walk to the kitchen.
