If we're speaking plainly, and I guess I have to if I want to tell this damn story, I was jealous of those other assholes that always got to fool around with her. Not because she's my sister and I thought of her that way, but because she was getting some action and I wasn't. We attended the same college and were in fact just a year apart age-wise, but Val got all the sexiness and I got...well, I guess I got the brains.
At least, that's what my mom always told me. "Josh," she would say, "you're one smart cookie. I can't wait to see what you grow up to be!" My parents were always supportive of whatever I wanted to do with my life, and when I told them I wanted to be a pharmacist they were thrilled. Valentine was great in school too, deciding she wanted to tag-team with me through college and get our degrees at roughly the same time. Well, at the same time, since I ended up taking a year off school when my parents died.
That's what really took me out of the running, I guess, in terms of women. Losing my parents was especially hard on me, and I had just gotten my acceptance letter to Washington State University, which made it all the tougher. But the biggest thing was Valentine. If I went off to school when I planned to, she would have been all alone to finish her last year of school, so I decided to help around the house and take care of my little sister until she graduated from high school.
Valentine had always been...well, she was always a bratty little bitch, since I've decided to speak plainly. She might read this, she might not, but if she is reading this - I love you, sis. Don't be too pissed. Anyway, growing up Val was always busting my balls. It's just what she did, and in return I busted hers too. That all changed after mom and dad went, though. Valentine took it really hard - she may not have liked living at home with mom and dad (and neither did I, for that matter), but she loved her parents. She definitely took it harder than me, and it took her six months to finally move on from that tragedy and actually become productive again.
She became a wild introvert during those six months, though, neglecting all her friends and, indeed, her entire social life, turning instead to her schoolwork. She was never a bookworm; I often had to help her with her homework. I was a master at balancing my friends and my studies and I always found extra time to help Val during those months after the traffic collision that claimed my parents' lives. It was the least I could do; hell, we were both pretty shaken up about it, but I had always been better at hiding my emotions from people than my sister was. She came to rely on my...solidity, I guess you could call it, but I never felt solid until Valentine graduated.
The house was paid for already (it had been my grandfather's), and the only bills we had to pay were electricity, gas, and food. Cars were paid for. Mom and dad didn't believe in credit cards or even credit, you see, so they bought just about everything in cash, which certainly made it easier for Val and I to make it on my meager earnings at a local auto transport brokerage. Everything transferred into my name - the car, the house, it all went to me, with the condition that Valentine stay with me for as long as she needed to. This last thing was a bit of a redundancy, considering that I had already planned on having Val stay with me through high school and then continue our plan to go to school together.
I feel like an asshole for saying this, but the death of my parents actually made it easier for the two of us. Not financially, no, but rather in the sense that Valentine and I sort of...forgot that we were brother and sister. We didn't bicker anymore, we never fought - it was just peaceful. We grew incredibly close during her last year of high school, and when she applied to WSU and didn't get in we both tried to get in at Portland State University, which was actually easier considering we could carpool down the I-5 bridge each morning, and we wouldn't have to sell the house. We were both accepted.
I won't bore you with the last few months before college. They weren't interesting, they weren't fun. Valentine had escaped back into the real world, waking up from her trauma-induced catatonic state that had been her mental home for six months. When college came around we both grabbed the same classes (as we were both going into pharmaceuticals), but I noticed Valentine and I slowly growing apart. Now that she was out of college and, from what I gathered, around people that were the same intellectual age as her, she began to open up. She didn't need me as much. At first I was heartbroken - I was losing my best friend - but I soon realized that this was another one of her coping mechanisms, and that she really hadn't gotten over mom and dad's death as easily as I had thought.
Her habit of bringing over random guys didn't start until the start of our sophomore year, though. We had had the summer together but it just wasn't the same. We didn't joke like we had, and while she laughed more it wasn't because of something stupid or endearing that I did, it was because of what some guy had said to her. I let it go on for a few months, but after about the tenth guy I couldn't handle it anymore. As she came home from class one day (we could no longer have the same classes in our sophomore year, unfortunately) I confronted her about it, but in hindsight I think I could have been a bit more subtle about the topic. But, again in hindsight, if I hadn't been such an ass, what followed probably wouldn't have followed. You be the judge.
"Val," I said, trying my best to be angry, "what the fuck are you doing?"
She still had her backpack and all her books, which she slammed carelessly down on the kitchen table. "What?" she asked, completely nonplussed about my use of language.
"These guys," I pressed. "All these losers that you bring home. I mean, what are you doing now, just whoring yourself out to the whole campus?"
"What the fuck, Josh?" She was pissed, sure, but that didn't stop me from pressing the issue.
"Don't pull that shit on me, Valentine, you know what I'm talking about. Why are you suddenly fucking anything with two heads?"
"Since when is it any of your goddamn business?" she retorted. She had a point, but I didn't want her to know that. How was it my business?
"I'm your brother, that's how it's my business. Why are you doing this?"
"Because maybe I'm horny, Josh, you ever think of that?"
I was taken aback. "What?" was all I could manage to say.
"You heard me. Ever since mom and dad died I haven't had a chance to get laid. I was with you the whole time in high school and it took me a full year to get comfortable with the people on campus. And now, I'm enjoying myself."
"By fucking everyone at school, is that it?"
"What do you care? It's not like you're into me, you're my brother. So just back the fuck off."
The truth was that I had been into her. I would catch a peek here and there when she got out of the shower.
Because we were so close, it was hard not to be at least somewhat attracted to her. I didn't say a word as she looked at me.
"You're not into me, are you Josh?" her tone instantly went from angry to confused to...what was that, pure intrigue? Sexiness? I was sure I was imagining things, but still I held my tongue. To admit it was to tell her I was a sick fuck who wanted to bone his sister, but to deny it would be to tell her as well - I was a shitty liar. My ploy was to just not talk about it and try to change the subject.
"That's not the issue here - " I began, but she cut me off.
"Holy shit, Josh, you're fucking into me aren't you? Aren't you?"
"Well...I...uh...yeah, a little bit. I mean, we've gotten so close over the past two years..." I trailed off. Damnit! How the hell did she do that?
"Wow, just...just wow," she said. "My brother is a sick fuck." (told you she'd think that)
"No, come on, that's not fair. I haven't been out with a chick since Vanessa Dawson in tenth grade - it's been five fucking years since I even had a girlfriend, Val. Excuse me for being a guy and noticing your body."
"Gross, dude, I don't want to hear about your sexual fantasies about me!"
I was feeling incredibly ashamed now. "Val, I'm sor - " she cut me off again.
"You know what, Josh? First you browbeat me about the guys that I sleep with, and now you tell me that you want to sleep with me. What the fuck is with the hypocrisy, Josh? So no one else can have me, but you can, is that it?"
"No, that's not what I was - "
"Don't fucking start with me, Josh. I can't believe you."
This wasn't going where it was supposed to go. I had expected anger and shame from her, but not anger from her and shame from me. "It's not my fault that you parade around here in nothing but your damn underwear!" I retorted, trying to turn the tables and get on the offensive.
"Because I thought I could! I thought I could walk around here like your sister and not have to worry about you trying to jump me! Obviously I was wrong," she said, and for the first time in quite some time I saw tears in her eyes. "I thought you were taking care of me; now I know that you just wanted to fuck me." She hung her head and sobbed.
"Val, I don't want to jump you, I don't want to have sex with you. I am taking care of you, that's all I've ever done since mom and dad died! You can't blame me for noticing how beautiful you are. I'm a guy, that's just the way we think."
She turned toward me again, her eyes alive with fury. "Don't pull that shit on me. You know what you've been thinking about, and it wasn't about my well-being." She turned around and, before I could say another word, she ran out of the house and slammed the door.
***
I fell asleep in my bed, fully clothed, reading Othello for my Shakespeare class, when Valentine came home. I felt her sit on the bed, but I didn't fully wake up until she shook me.
"Josh?" she said timidly. "Josh, are you awake?"
I woke up and sat a bit straighter, adjusting my glasses. "What's up, Val?" I asked. The argument from that afternoon had yet to come back into my immediate focus.
"Josh, can I talk to you?" she asked, still in that timid voice.
"Sure," I said, "spill it."
"I've been thinking about our argument this afternoon. I wanted to explain my side of things to you."
I hadn't been prepared for this, but I did my best to shake off the cobwebs of sleep and focus on her. "Sure, go ahead."
She sighed. Was this as difficult for her as it was for me? I couldn't imagine it being so, considering that I told her that I had been harboring sexual thoughts about her for the past year or so. I said nothing, though, as she started talking.
"Ever since mom and dad died, I can't help but think that it was somehow my fault. No, don't interrupt me," she said as I tried to say it wasn't. "Don't talk until I tell you to. I need to get this off my chest.
"I've thought it was my fault, and I know it's not rational, but I just can't shake this feeling of guilt. When they first died, I tried everything to escape. I receded from my friends, from the rest of the family...from you," she added. "All I wanted to do was crawl into their grave and die with them.
"But you were so great to me. You were always there when I broke down, helping me through the worst of it. Josh, it was because of you that I got through school in one piece, and it was only because of you that I got into school. I relied on you so much, Josh, you have no idea.
"After I got into school, I figured that it was a fresh start. Not right away, but after about a year I figured that my life was still worth living. The guilt that I had receded and I figured I needed to make up for lost time. But after I started becoming social again, I couldn't connect with anyone. That's why I've been sleeping with a bunch of different guys - I wanted to feel something, you know? Feel worth it, feel like I'm not this fucked up little emo kid who's parents died and she's overcompensating for it.
"But I began to realize that you were the only one that I could connect with." Was she saying that she held feelings for me too? "I didn't think of you that way," she said, "but I knew that what I was doing wasn't working. But then you told me that you...well, you know...and I couldn't handle it.
