I looked down my body. I was still naked beside my nightgown that then just rested over my shoulder. Sunlight was breaking through the window. I rolled onto my back and propped myself up from my elbows. A line of dried blood ran down my one leg.
My breasts, they were barely there I thought; just little tiny things. I didn’t know where I originally heard the term, but ‘little lady lumps’ suited them well; just enough of them to show that I was a girl, a late blooming fourteen year old girl who was full of herself. I had a crush on my older brother. How pathetic could I get How could a guy so amazing as him want a little girl like me
I sat up off the side of my bed and turned the alarm on my clock completely off. My nightgown had fallen down over me. I went on to make my bed. It was something I normally did after my shower but I decided it best then to cover up that little red patch in the middle.
It looked haphazardly done, normal, so I threw my panties from the floor into my laundry basket and hunted down my hairbrush on the other side of the bed before heading to the shower.
It was about an hour and a half drive to the airport with stopping off to eat. Over the radio through the long journey, all I could think about was the night before. I was so sure of myself then. In the heat of emotions, I had it all planned out. In the car surrounded by the real world, I second guessed everything. I didn’t want to feel like that toward my own brother.
But I did. It made me so happy; but so confused. It was so good yet it hurt so bad. I had to see him. When I saw him, I knew he would just be my big brother. Things would be normal, just a fun time. It had to be. I wouldn’t know what to do if it wasn’t.
The wait at the airport was the worst, the anticipation. Sitting in the terminal looking out the window at all the planes come and go. That night, or really morning, only hours before, I was masturbating, fantasizing about having sex with him. Something lingered though in the back of my mind; a thought perhaps that I had forgotten.
But for the first time ever, I had willingly masturbated to my brother; that memory would not leave me.
Then all at once it hit me. Everything came back to me. As my mom stood up and I followed her gaze to the doors where passengers of an arriving plane exited.
Ean.
He had grown in two years. His body was much more defined. His nineteen year old shape still held onto that scrawniness, but it was obvious that he was anything but.
The face he had on drove tears into my mom’s eyes. He had all the time in the world to think about it. Reflect on every single detail. Bask in the loneliness that now plagued him.
He didn’t look sad though. I can’t describe what he looked like but it was like he was feeling something so powerful and so bad, and with all his strength, he held it back. He was a person you would want to avoid. Emotionless almost. Like he would kill you without a second thought. Perhaps though, other people didn’t notice it in him. Maybe it was just because mom and I knew what had happened to him.
I couldn’t tell if he had just given up hope of anything in life and just didn’t care anymore, or if he was just so manically sad and drawn into his mind that he just couldn’t control his outer appearance. The happy, lively brother I saw off came back to me sad and torn apart.
As I followed mom to him and her greatest of hugs, I couldn’t stop staring into his distant eyes. Not even the tiniest glimpse of a thought about my fantasy of him hours before even wandered near my mind.
He only spoke when questioned, only ever a few words. No emotion. We searched down his luggage and left. Needless to say, the ride home was very long and tense.
I wanted to be mad at him for some reason but I wouldn’t allow it. He had left us for two years; not even coming back for summers. Now he was there. All of a sudden. A phone call two weeks prior. “Mom, I’m coming home. Please don’t ask why.”
We heard about why from his school.
He left for two years. Only thinking about himself, now he had come back. He was greeted with open arms, cried for, pampered. How could I get mad though He had been punished beyond any transgression he had committed.
At the time, I had no idea what to expect of him when we got home. Once he acted, I thought myself thick that I couldn’t figure it out before.
It was shameful to think but it was the truth after a few days of thinking about him. He locked himself in his room. He stayed alone in his thoughts while mom and I remained less phased by him. It was a defense for him to be secluded but it had also helped us. We didn’t have to see him; his mood wouldn’t spread. It was a painful bliss knowing that mom and I were happier because Ean chose to face his demons alone.
We had tried and failed every day to make contact with him; he refused any help. I frequently heard him move about the house at night but I was always too tired or scared to face him. For nearly a week it continued. Then the unthinkable happened.
The day before; mom left. To be fair, she did announce it two days prior. As a journalist, she did have to leave on a trip every now and then, but why then. Some big court case in the big city. Hours and hours away from home. Hotel, days, maybe weeks, gone, alone with Ean, school, alone.
Mom had talked to him about it. Before I stayed with one her friends. This time, I would stay with him, Ean. She said he was pulling himself together, for me. He was needed then and mom said that right there raised his mood some. He had something to do. He always loved projects. Unfortunately, I was his project that time.
Ean even came out for dinner the night before mom left. There wasn’t much talking, but it was nice to see him. Stare at him. Take him in.
Then mom left in the morning. The day before school. Ean was out of his room most of the day but he was watching TV. I went through all my new school supplies at least ten times before joining him.
I was nervous; anxious, almost sick. I was going to high school. I didn’t know anybody there. I had no real friends in my own class for support. I was all alone through everything.
“Are you ok” Ean asked looking at me. I had been staring off in space. A commercial was on.
“Yeah, just a little nervous about tomorrow,” I answered as he turned the TV off.
“Well, I guess we should go to bed then.”
I looked out the window, then to the clock below the TV; I hadn’t realized so much time had flown by. I was really getting sick then. Go to bed, wake up, then school.
I tremblingly followed Ean up off the couch. I wobbled to my room. I was so alone. The high school was in walking distance, but still, if mom was home, she would’ve drove me. It would have been a tiny bit easier that way.
I dropped my bra beside my bed and opened the drawer holding my night gown. It was so cold. I was in my panties. The air against all my skin was chilling. My stomach was jumping every which way inside me. Weakly leaning forward, I pulled the thin cloth over my head and let it drop down my body. I had to do something. It was all just too much to handle alone.
I walked to my door and opened it. Ean’s door was cracked. He was facing away from me, sitting on his bed lost in thought. Just in boxers and a t-shirt.
“Ean,” I trembled as I pushed the door open. He turned around and looked to me. “I don’t feel good.” I was squeezing one arm into my stomach. I wanted to cry. I didn’t know why. I was anxious, nervous, queasy. At the moment I asked for help, I had given up all the fight in me. My mind was amplifying all my symptoms. My subconscious knew what I really wanted. I wanted someone else to take my burdens, someone else to comfort me. My weak fourteen year old mind wasn’t strong enough to handle it. I asked Ean for that comfort. I had given up all my defenses and relied on him to compensate.
As the words escaped my mouth, my entire body quivered. It was a self-induced sickness with one purpose, to seek pity and comfort from an external source. Whether Ean knew or would find that out in time, he showed no care about it. He jumped from his bed and speed walked over to me. He put his arms around me and lifted me up. He carried me to his bed. His bed. It was twice the size of mine and almost twice as soft.
“What’s wrong”
“I’m so cold. My stomach hurts.” My entire body began shivering. The more I thought about it, the more I gave Ean responsibility to care for me, the worse my sickness got.
He jumped across the room and pulled a trashcan to the side of the bed before lifting my butt onto one of his pillows. He pushed his sheet and comforter down and drug me under it. I was still shivering. Then he climbed on top of me. I was under a sheet and comforter. I was in my nightgown. He was in a t-shirt and boxers. But he was lying on top of me. He was holding me.
We lay like that silently for several minutes. I was feeling amazingly better all of a sudden. I was so much warmer. I wasn’t thinking about school at all. I almost forgot how we got in that position. Every ounce of the sickness had left my body.
“Can I sleep here tonight; I don’t want to move,” I said trying to sound still sick.
“Do you really think I would just shove you back in your bedroom alone in this condition”
“Are you going to sleep like that” I admit that I had no problems at all with him sleeping on top of me with his arms hold me tight, but I wanted more; I wanted him under the covers.
