“Matty!”
The little blur of blue jeans and blonde hair slammed into me full force, leaping into my arms with the force of a small meteor. I staggered back into my tiny one-bedroom flat as I caught my kid sister, barely staying on my feet. She clung to me tightly, and, after a moment, I did the same to her. I had missed her so much since I last saw her at Christmas break.
“Hey, Sammy.” I enjoyed the warmth of her petite body against mine, the love and connection that had always been between us feeling even more vital to me after the shitshow of the last few weeks. Even though I was four years older, we’d always been close, and I was so glad to have her there.
She kissed my cheek and bounced back down to the ground. “A whole week together! Spring break, big bro! Woooo!”
I snorted. “You know, you’re supposed to try to get away from school for spring break, not stay in town.”
Sam hauled her luggage inside, far too much for a week’s stay, and closed the door behind her. “Ah, but I am getting away from school for a week. It’s just that you’re not.” Her head barely came up to my chin; she beamed up at me, “Thanks, Matt. Seriously. Mom and Dad wanted to go on that RV trip, and, ugh, no. I don’t need to see the biggest ball of twine in Minnesota. Plus– “ She chuckled. “ – I expect they’ll have a nice time, ah, reconnecting without me there.”
“Ew.”
Sam collapsed onto my futon and splayed out there. I tried to not look directly at her, like an eclipse. Except instead of going blind, I’d get an uncomfortable boner. Of course, that might lead to going blind later when I was alone.
She was turning nineteen in the next couple of months, and she’d really filled out over the last year. Very much a late bloomer. If she were any other girl, I’d say she was hot, but since she’s my kid sister, I’d instead say she was uncomfortably hot.
I grabbed a beer from the fridge. “You want anything?”
“I’ll have one of those!”
“Hah! No, you won’t. I’m not telling Mom you came to scope out the campus ahead of next year and spent the week getting smashed in my apartment instead.” I pulled out a soda for her.
Sam snorted as she accepted it. “‘Smashed.’ I’m not going to get smashed from a single beer, Matt. I have a better tolerance than that.”
“Well now, what have you been up to while I’ve been gone?”
She rolled her eyes. “Dad gave me one, silly.” Sam shook her head and said, “No time to party for me. Study, study, study. You know how it is.”
I did. Mom and Dad were sticklers about academics, and it paid off: a son who graduated salutatorian and a daughter who was on track for valedictorian, both with nearly full-ride scholarships. It was hard to argue with the results. Well, except for the fact that we were social outcasts left with not even the vaguest hint of how to interact with our peers, nor an understanding of the pitfalls of the dating scene once we hit college. Okay, that last one was just me, but I expected Sam would have the same problems.
Then I took another look at her and realized she was going to have a very different problem instead. A sense of unease gripped me as I suddenly comprehended that she was likely to be the favored prey of every predator on campus when she got here. While I was staying in town for the job I had lined up, I wasn’t going to be able to protect her like I think Mom and Dad were hoping, especially when she went out to parties. I shook my head. We’d figure that out in the future; some kind of crash course in college social interactions, I guessed.
Sam cocked her head. “What’re you smiling about?”
I sat beside her and tapped the neck of my bottle to hers, the plastic and glass making a dull, quiet thunk. “Social studies. Sort of.”
She wrinkled her nose at me. “All right then, keep your secrets.”
“Dork.”
“Nerd.”
“I’m really glad you’re here, sis. It’s been–” I looked away for a moment and took a swig of my beer. “It’s been pretty shit this last month. I’ll be honest, I don’t have a lot planned for you to do. I wasn’t expecting to be here in the first place, and I- I just haven’t been in the right headspace to come up with fun activities. So, I’m sorry if you don’t have that great a time.”
She put her hand on my knee. “Oh, Matt, it’s okay. I know that it’s been hard, with…” she trailed off. We both knew. I’d caught Traci, my girlfriend of nearly a year, cheating on me with a close friend of ours. She didn’t even apologize, just got mad that I found out.
I put my hand on Sam’s and squeezed. “It has.” Letting out a deep breath, I put on the best smile I could for her. “But you’re here now. And we’re going to have some fun. Somehow. Somewhere. On a deserted campus in a little college town.”
That goofy laugh of hers lifted my spirits. “You’re here with me. That’s all I need.” The look in her eyes was sweet, almost expectant. I met her gaze for a little longer than I meant to, and Sammy looked away, suddenly embarrassed. She cleared her throat. “How about. ah, how about you show me where I’m staying, and I’ll get unpacked. Then we can grab some dinner and figure something out afterward?”
I had done my best to clean up the flat, but let’s be honest: I was a college senior living by himself after a bad breakup in a place that was little better than a tenement. There was only so much I could do, and I hadn’t even done all of that. But I’d made space for her in my dresser, and the bedroom and bathroom were clean. Small victories are still victories. “You’re in my room. I’ll take the futon.”
“No! I am not kicking you out of your bed, Matty!”
She tried to get away when I ruffled her hair. “Yes, you are. I’ve got the futon. It’s fine, I’ve been sleeping there half the time lately anyways.” Sometimes that was because I’d been drunk, and sometimes it was because I didn’t want to remember Traci lying beside me in my bed before things went wrong. “I just end up binge-watching Netflix half the night and crash there.”
With an exaggerated eye roll, she sighed, “Fiiiiine.”
Sam unpacked, snarking about my decor the whole time. We both got freshened up and went out to find some dinner. She wasn’t dressed any different than usual– jeans, a cerulean blue t-shirt that didn’t quite match her eyes, a hoodie tied around her waist, and her old beat-up Chucks– but she looked… different. I didn’t know how to describe it.
Part of it was that, like I said, she’d filled out. She was wearing makeup, which she usually eschewed, and she’d put her long blonde hair into a braid instead of her usual loose ponytail. I realized, finally, what it was: she looked like a woman. She was still my kid sister, and she always would be, but I was going to have to contend with the fact that she was also a real head-turner now.
At dinner, I got to see the first immediate effects of that. If you’ve never had the good fortune to be seated at a table for two with the most attractive woman in the room, let me tell you: it’s quite an ego boost. Yeah, she was my sister, but no one there knew that. The men in the place looked on with envy. The women did, too, just a different sort; a calculus that they did in their heads saying, “If she’s with him, there must be more than meets the eye.”
That’s not to say I’m bad-looking; Mom and Dad also insisted that we adhere to the ideal of a sound mind in a sound body. For Sam, that meant aikido, where she’d earned a first dan. They tried to get me into something social, too, like another martial art or dance, but I went for weightlifting instead. I liked that it was solitary, that I could put headphones on and just focus on me and the iron. It had left me with a physique that was muscular, but not overly muscled; think Chris Hemsworth in the first Thor film versus the most recent one.
But if this had been an actual date? Yeah, I would have been punching well above my weight. And I would have been screwing it up, too, because I realized I’d zoned out while Sam was talking, and I had no idea what she’d just asked me. I shook my head and said, “Sorry, what?”
There was a gentle reproach in her voice as she said, “I asked, ‘What are you thinking about?’”
I laughed. “How nice it feels that I’m here with the prettiest girl in the room.”
Sam rolled her eyes. “Suuure, bro. Whatever you say.”
“Sammy, look around. You are! You…” I sighed. “Look, I don’t know if you’ve realized it yet, but college is- it’s going to be different. I know there are predators in high school, but here, they’re an order of magnitude more dangerous. Insistent and… devious, I guess, in ways that you haven’t seen yet. I look around this room, and I can tell that every unattached straight guy in here is trying to decide if there’s a way he can peel you off from me. And not a few of the ones with dates are, too.”
She perched her chin on her hands. “What about the girls? Is a roving band of lesbians going to drag me away?”
“Sammy, I’m serious! I– Sis, I love you. It would kill me if something bad happened to you. And I’m here right now, so I’m not worried about that, but once you’re living here, I can’t be around all the time. I just want you to be ready, okay?”
Her hand went over her heart, mock horror on her face. “My fiancé won’t be there to defend my honor?”
I groaned. When we were kids, she five and me nine, I’d carried her down from a tree that she shouldn’t have tried to climb. Sam had clung to me for dear life all the way down, eyes tightly closed and whimpering. When we reached the ground, she told our mom that she was going to marry me. We both laughed, but she wouldn’t let it go until I’d agreed. She still wouldn’t let me forget, especially when I was, in her eyes, being overprotective.
“Don’t do that, Sammy. Please. I’m– I’ve seen it happen; some douchebag roofies a girl’s drink or even just gets her a bit too drunk, and no one steps in because it’s not their problem. I’ve gotten in the middle of it a couple of times, bounced a couple of guys from parties, but…” I shook my head. “You think you’re going from a little pond to a bigger one. You’re not. It’s a shark tank.”
She cocked her head to one side. Her smile was sweet, her expression appreciative. “Okay, Matty. Okay. I– thank you. I’ll just… What if I only go to bars or parties when you’re there for a while? Or with people you trust to keep me safe?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I think that’d be fine.” I took her hand in mine. “Thanks, Sammy. Thank you for listening. I promise, I want college to be fun for you. I want you to have a good time here, maybe find a good guy.” She frowned. “What?”
“I’m just not really looking for a guy, Matt.”
“Are- are you… Is this you coming out of the closet?”
Her loud laugh drew glances from the other patrons. “No! No, you goob. I just… I dunno, the boys at school were just that, boys. And…” She rolled her eyes. “And–God, you’re going to be insufferable–I haven’t found any guy that measures up to you, okay? I know someone like you is out there, and I’m not going to settle for less.”
“Sam! That’s– “ I reached over to stroke her cheek, and she leaned into it. “God, sis. That’s– thank you.”
“It’s just the truth.” She looked to the side, bashful now.
“Hey, don’t. You don’t need to be embarrassed, Sammy. It’s really sweet. I’m…” I sighed. “Honestly, that’s about the best thing I could have heard right now. It’s been really hard for me lately, with Traci and everything. Even if you’re just being nice–”
“I’m not, Matt!” Her hand squeezed mine. “God, she really messed with your head. You’re fucking great, bro. You’re cute and sweet and smart and kind. Jacked as hell, too. The only problem you have, other than your complete inability to keep a clean apartment–” I grimaced. “ –is that you have terrible taste in women. You just need someone that loves you as much as… that loves you the way you deserve.” She snorted. “If you’d stop dating dumb sluts, that’d probably be a good start.”
It was my turn to snort now. “Sage advice from the hobbit.”
“Asshole.”
“Yeah, yeah. I know you love me.”
“I do, thank you very much. I just wish you loved you as much as I do. Then maybe you’d see you deserve better than the bitches you keep dating.”
That gave me pause; maybe she was right. I did tend to fall for pretty faces with not much behind them. I’d been warning her that college was a shark tank, but maybe I was just another guppy, too. We sat quietly for a few moments before she said, “So, what’s good here?”
We had a nice meal together, leaving our previous topics behind. We chatted about her school, movies, TV, all the usual stuff you’d expect between two siblings who hadn’t seen each other in a few months.
I reflected, as we talked, about how strange it had been watching her grow up the last four years. It was like time-lapse photography. When I left for college, that was sort of the image that anchored her in my mind, the one that I compared the later versions of her with. Jump forward to Christmas break that first year, and she was a little taller. A day’s layover during spring break and her braces were gone. Pimply the next visit. Clear-faced and more graceful after that. On and on, little flashbulb strobes of progress that brought her to this charming, funny, beautiful young woman I had the pleasure of sharing a meal with.
