by R. J. Lewis
“See! You did it all on your own!” I hollered excitedly when he did his first lap around me.
He grinned, filled with pride. “I wouldn’t have done it without you.”
*
We stayed up at night around the campfire, listening to Dad’s fabricated stories of giants and monsters, and I clutched Aston’s hand when it got too scary. Then we’d munch on our S’mores until it was bedtime. I’d sneak into his tent with my flashlight after the parents fell asleep. It was a flashlight with star and planet patterns in the light that we used to shine in the top of our tent, getting lost in the fake constellation while we chatted in hushed tones.
“Do you really think there are monsters?” I asked him once, my fear evident in my voice as I reflected on the images of tonight’s hair-raising tale.
He turned his head and stared at me, inches away from my face, enough for me to feel his breaths against my skin and have tingles from it. “Not the kind you think about,” he answered quietly.
I turned my head and looked back at him. “What kind are out there?”
The features on his face hardened. “The kind you can see in plain sight.”
I purposely didn’t answer him. That was the end of our conversation. He fell asleep shortly after and I admired his face for some time before I pushed closer against his body, reflecting on his words. I knew what he was talking about. The monsters that he lived with. The monster that was his father rotting in jail for the rest of his days.
If I thought Daddy’s profession aged me faster, I was wrong. It was Aston that really drove the nail in the coffin. The way he looked at the world, the words he used when he spoke; he was old in spirit and young in age. He influenced my way of thinking, he made me see things in a different light. I loved him for it. For being here. For filling a space I never knew was empty.
I hated to think it, but his abhorrent upbringing had brought him to us, and in a way I was glad for it. I don’t know what kind of girl I’d have grown up to be without him there. It scared me often, that thought. I thanked whatever divine being, or just pure chance – whatever it was – for bringing him to us. And then I felt horribly guilty for it. Because he had a family too once upon a time, and they were buried beneath the earth and that pain must have been indescribable. He never opened up about it and he never spoke of them. Never. And I would never ask.
But I’d study him and the hurt he carried. He’d distract himself just to take his mind off of it, and as a result, he was unusually brilliant. Brilliant in a way that brought attention to him when he didn’t want it.
I felt extremely protective of Aston, and it surfaced in me when he started school along my side. His genius would come to light, and he would be ostracised for it.
That was the day I had to choose: them, or us.
I chose us.
*
“Aston’s really weird,” Cindy said to me during the first week of school.
I followed her eyes to where he was sitting. On the ground, his back against the brick wall of the school, a book in his hands, his face buried in it. His legs were outstretched and crossed over the ankles. He was wearing khaki pants and a long sleeved sweater. He had definitely grown taller in the two years he’d been with us, but he wouldn’t fill out for another three.
“He’s just reading,” I replied defensively. “What’s so weird about that?”
“He doesn’t talk. The boys invited him to play baseball after school and he shook his head no.”
“So?”
“He’s not making friends, and he’s not even trying. That’s weird, Elise. The boys in his class say he just sits there, doesn’t laugh to everyone’s jokes, and doesn’t say anything unless Mrs Lloyd asks him something. Soon, the boys are going to turn against him, and they’ll pick on him for being weird. Maybe you should start telling him to chill out or something. Like, tell him to join in on the games and stuff. He’s not going to be liked if he spends all his lunch breaks reading books.” She then snickered, like it was so unbelievable for a person to be reading during lunch break.
I frowned at her. “Not everyone has to be the same, Cindy.”
She sighed. “I’m just saying. God, Elise. He’s cute, you know? He’s really, really cute. I’m only trying to help.”
He reads because he didn’t know how to for the longest time. I wanted to tell her that, but Cindy had no filter. She couldn’t keep a secret because secrets were juicy and she loved drama. I started to hate girls like that.
She drifted off to another group, and I stressed the next five minutes wondering what to do. I stared at the group of kids, laughing and playing and fitting in. Then my gaze wandered back to Aston, clutching his book, reading with concentrated eyes, alone. Should I have told him to put the book down and join the rest of us? How badly did I want him to fit in, to get along with kids, to be social and loose? Or should I leave him be?
Back and forth, my twelve-year-old mind raged with indecision. Finally, it clicked in place after I stared long enough at him and felt a stir in my chest.
I chose neither.
Instead, I left the others and approached him. He didn’t look at me once as I rested my back against the wall and slid down it. I sat next to him, shoulder against shoulder, gazing at his book.
“What are you reading?” I asked him. I looked back at his profile, at his razor straight nose, his full lips, his blond-white eyelashes and furrowed brow. My heart skipped a beat.
“Goosebumps,” Aston answered, flipping a page.
I let out an exaggerated sigh. “Another scary story, Aston?”
I saw the way his lip curved up just barely, and that heart of mine raced. I loved when I made him smile, even if it was a ghost of a smile. It meant I was doing something right. Aston was so intense and serious all the time, every smile was like a present.
“Why are you sitting here, El?” he replied with instead, turning his head in my direction and piercing me with those green eyes. When they connected to mine every time, I felt my heart race.
“Because I want to,” I told him honestly.
“You’ve got friends.”
“You’re my friend, and you’re better than them.”
He didn’t respond to that. His eyes searched mine, their depths pulling me under like a wave slamming me into the ocean. I didn’t like how muddled I felt with him. It was a constant struggle fighting against my feelings when he was around. After several moments, he looked away and stared at a page for some while. His eyes weren’t moving, so I knew he wasn’t reading. He fidgeted, bending the top corner of the page before muttering, “I know what your friend wanted.”
I was surprised. “What?”
“Your friend. Cindy.” He said her name slowly and bitterly. “I know what she wanted, Elise, and if you’re here to tell me to join the others, I’m not going to do it. I don’t…I don’t want to do it. I like being on my own.”
“I’m not here because of Cindy.”
He looked at me again. “I saw you with her. Just now.”
“I didn’t think you were even paying attention.”
“I’m always paying attention to you.”
Warmth settled in my chest. I felt my cheeks heat. He’d said it so matter-of-factly, I started to think there wasn’t anything more in that statement. Or else he’d be more affected than how he looked. I took a breath and reminded myself this was Aston, a boy I lived with, a boy everyone would soon refer to as my brother. Still, I struggled.
“I’m not a follower,” I then told him, looking down at the pavement because it was less challenging than his eyes. “Just because Cindy said something, that doesn’t mean I’m going to do it. I like how you are and I don’t want you to fit in or be different. I came here because I prefer you over them.”
He was still bending and unbending the top corner of the page when he said, “Sorry. I just…I thought…”
“You thought wrong,” I finished, nudging him playfully on the shoulder. “Now read to me.”
The furrowed brow returned. “I’m not that great, El.”
“You’re great at everything, it’s so annoying.”
“Reading is still my weakness.”
“I don’t care. Just read.”
More excuses. “Some of the words might be wrong.”
“I. Don’t. Care.”
He exhaled slowly. “I’m slow.”
I grinned. “I have all day.”
He licked his lips, hesitated, and then began reading. I listened to his voice, watched his mouth move while the warmth within me grew. Then I leaned against his side and rested my head on his shoulder. Eventually, he brought his arm around my shoulders and held me there against him. We looked more than sister and brother like this, and I could feel the countless eyes pinned to us, but I didn’t care.
I cared about the warmth he gave me, the feeling of fullness that settled in my heart just being around him. I cared about Aston so much, he was starting to consume my every waking thought.
The struggle was real.
Ugh. It was eating me up inside.
*
I wasn’t supposed to really like him. I was supposed to love him in a brotherly fashion. In my parents’ eyes, he’d come to me when I was nine years old and therefore too young to understand love beyond the familial kind. They figured we’d grow up together like siblings, and we played together and fought like siblings did. Yet…there was not one sibling-like bone in my body for Aston. I’m not even going to pretend I tried to grow one either.
No, I never wanted him to be my brother. I never wanted to love him that way. I may have been young, but I was a romantic at heart. Always a romantic. Always seeking love and a happily ever after, and I found it in him. He was my haunted, brilliant prince, and he was the one locked up in a tower in need of saving, and I wanted to do that. I wanted to save him, make him happy, so much so it became a fulltime occupation for me. I knew later on how silly that sounded, but at the time, that want became my dream and I yearned for it so badly.
Love just happened. You don’t feel the journey, you don’t see the warning signs, you don’t realize you’re in the middle of it until you are and the emotion is slapping you hard in the face. And along with the feeling of heart-stopping love, there was fear too. Fear of the unknown. Of the wrongness of it all. And then devastation. Devastation in the purest, rawest form when Daddy came home and proudly proclaimed, “Aston is now officially adopted.”
Heart failure. Oxygen ripped from my lungs. World spinning before my eyes. Shaking in my fingers. Realization dawning…dawning until I had no choice but to face reality and its ugly truths.
Aston was no longer just the foster child inside our home. No longer my best friend. No longer the boy I crushed hard on for three whole years.
He was my adopted brother.
Heart breaking…breaking…
Soul plummeting…plummeting…
I pretended to be happy. We celebrated with pizza, and I smiled while my eyes ached to cry, while my heart tore apart from within, while I stared with a lump in my throat at Aston’s happy, oblivious face. It was the longest, most excruciating dinner of my life, and I would never forget the moment we locked eyes at one another. It was fleeting. Maybe three seconds tops, but there was something there in his expression that mirrored my feelings. It was like…there was conflict in him too, and he wanted me to see it.
He was hurting too, although I couldn’t know for sure, and godddd, I needed to know for sure.
After dinner, Daddy took him out on a drive, bonding with him man-to-man, father-to-son. Meanwhile, I locked myself away in my bedroom and sobbed and sobbed…and sobbed.
It wasn’t fair. This wasn’t supposed to happen. This was bullshit in the purest form of bullshit. Aston was not my brother! He would never be my brother! Goddammit it all to hell, but he was now. In everyone’s eyes – in the eyes of the law – we were now deemed siblings.
It was wrong.
So, so wrong.
Because it meant I was officially in love with my brother.
*
Aston came to me the next morning. My eyes were swollen and sore from the tears I’d shed last night. I was outside, sitting on the porch swing, staring numbly at the empty, quiet street. He sat down next to me and the swing swayed under us.
“Elise,” he whispered, staring at me.
I blinked and turned my head to him. We looked at each other for several long moments without speaking. He appeared so gentle, so caring. Like he wanted to hold me and tell me that everything was going to be alright, but…it wasn’t. It couldn’t be after last night.
“Everything is going to change, isn’t it?” I asked him quietly, my voice hoarse.
He frowned and looked away. “I…I don’t know.”
I swallowed and glimpsed down at my clasped hands. “I don’t want things to change, Aston. Please, don’t tell me you’ll look at me differently.”
He sighed. “I’m not going to treat you differently just because you’re my sister now, Elise. We’re still best friends. We’ll always be.”
That wasn’t good enough.
“You’ll have other friends,” he then added, and I understood what he was implying. Other friends meaning other boys. But I didn’t want other boys.
“You…want me to move on to other friends?” I asked him, my meaning obvious.
He hesitated before responding, and I already knew what the answer was before he said it. I could see it in his face, and it killed me. “Yes, El. I do.”
“I won’t.” I crossed my arms over my chest and looked toward the street, my defiance loud and clear. “And you’re not my brother. You’ll never be my brother, Aston.”
I wasn’t trying to be nasty. I was telling him how I felt loud and clear.
“I know,” he softly whispered, his voice pained. “But I have to be. For now.”
I took deep breaths, trying so hard to keep those tears at bay. Then he wrapped his arm around me and I sagged against his side. I shut my eyes as he held me. I felt like I belonged there, and goddammit, it was because I did. I did belong in his arms, but the world was messy and it didn’t want us together.
When I heard the sound of footsteps and the chatter of my parents approaching the door, Aston immediately withdrew his arm and I shuffled over, away from him. Platonic positions, nothing more, nothing less. This was how they had to see us.
With time, we’d become experts at this.
*
Eventually, that moment on the porch was shelved and forgotten. We were the best of friends, together every chance we had.
Grade school was easy. It was small and familiar, and I was constantly able to rescue Aston from social humiliation when he purposely ostracized himself from the kids. But high school was filled with obstacles. While I flourished in social situations, Aston struggled to care. He was always hiding out in the library with college level textbooks spread open. He filled his head with numbers and math problems, and his intelligence was startling.
On the outside, he didn’t show emotion. His face barely cracked when he was around my friends. They didn’t know him the way I did, and I was exhausted playing two people at once. I loved him, but when he was focused on his books, he just wasn’t there mentally.
His study sessions were so intense, sometimes I wouldn’t see him for days. Even when he was around, he wasn’t really there. I hated those times because I needed him to feed me attention. It was the only way my obsession tapered off and made life bearable.
“I’m talking to a wall,” I’d tell him sometimes when I ate with him in the library. I always had my food hidden under my bag and my eyes all over the place in case Mrs Thompson, the librarian, caught me eating where I wasn’t allowed to. She was a fucking grizzly bear that woman, a king atop her mole hill.
Once, Aston actually heard me and looked up. “What do you mean? I’m right here.”
I turned to him in surprise. Then I glowered. “But you’re not really, are you, Aston
?”
He frowned. “I’m not trying to ignore you.”
“Then talk to me. I’m bored.”
He sighed and slammed the textbook shut. “Okay, I’m talking to you. What do you want to talk about?”
I smiled brightly. “Anything.”
“Like?”
“What’s in your head?”
“Quadratic equations.”
My smile faltered. “Oh. Nothing else?”
His green eyes studied me for a moment. He looked so good that day. His hair was long and down for once, not in the usual man-bun he preferred to throw it in. His features seemed to change every day. His nose was sharper, his jaw more chiselled out than it was before. My haunted prince was turning into a serious babe. “And how cute you look with your hair down.”
My cheeks burned. “Really? It’s a bit wavy today.”
With a ghost of a smile, he nodded. “It suits you very much.”
“Deck said I looked like Rapunzel. I wasn’t sure if he was making fun of me or…”
Aston’s eyes flashed with something. “Who is Deck?”
I shrugged indifferently. “Some dude in Chem. I sit in front of him, so figures he’d comment on my hair.”
He didn’t respond. Instead, he turned to his book and opened it back up. “I gotta finish up some questions, El. You should re-join your clique and talk about Deck of cards with them.”
“Deck of cards?”
He gave me a scathing look. “What kind of name is Deck?”
“I think it’s short for Dexter, and it’s hip.”
“But it’s…Deck.”
“Coming from a guy named Aston.”
“My name’s better than Deck.”
I took a bite out of my cookie. “That’s a matter of perspective.”
“Is that food, Miss Wright?” shouted a voice.
I jumped in my chair and turned to Mrs Thompson. The beast was tapping her foot behind the cart she was wheeling around the aisles. Fucking hell, she was everywhere.
“I wasn’t eating!” I said defensively, my mouth full of cookie crumbs.
“You know the rules!” She pointed in the direction of the entrance. “They’re on the door you open to come inside! No eating in the library!”