FINALLY. I wrote it…today…at work :o This is for Lain’s birthday (it was in June, whoops). The requirements were: wine, radio and desert. Ooh, and check out the one she wrote for me, it’s called “Maybe” :DD

Thanks to Amindaya for editing super fast and for the title!

Change

We moved again. I don’t know why we even bothered - I know in just a few months we’re going to be leaving. It’s too dusty here. I just know that’s going to be the pretext. We left the last time because it was too humid, too salty. I don’t know what the hell they were thinking when they decided to move to the desert then.

“Oh, but it’s such a nice house, and so cheap.” Yeah, it’s always a nice house. We never get to call it home though, before we are packing up and heading to the other side of the country to another nice, cheap house.

Mom likes to change. We know that, we’ve always know that and I know both of us always wondered how she stayed married to your father for so long. I think if we were forced to stay in one place for too long, she would be changing husbands as often as we change addresses. I think he knows that too, and that’s why I’m the only one complaining the whole car trip.

I never found it fair that she got to run away and I was the one stuck, never able to escape because the one person I wanted to be far from was sitting next to me or in the room across the hall.

You never minded moving. You have friends in every state we’ve lived in and yet you don’t seem to miss either one of them. You are the first one to finish packing, the first one sitting in the car and the only one asking if we are there yet. You always smile when you open our new front door and run inside to pick your room. It’s always the smallest. And even though you know we are not staying here for long, you put your posters up, you move your bed around until you find the perfect spot and you call everybody to tell them your new number. But we both know they stop calling eventually and that by then you have new people to give your number to and bring over and talk to until I have to bang on the thin wall separating our rooms or yell trough the door for you to keep it down.

“You like it?” you ask me when I’m walking past your room. You’re already finished with it. I try to pay attention to the walls and not the way your hands rub your stomach absently in anticipation. I try to find something different from last time, but the only thing I know is that last time it was a lot easier to note how you had arranged your furniture instead of gazing at your face and wishing you weren’t here.

I nod and you smile, turning on your heels to look around. I hurry away before you can keep talking.

We got here a few hours after noon; no one was out. The stores were closed as we drove by the main street. I think it’s the first time mom chose such a small town.

“Maybe that’s the thing, I don’t like big cities. I need some quiet,” she had said back at the beach when she and Harry had been studying a map on the kitchen table. And then when we were driving past a little drugstore, she stared frowning, and mumbled, mostly to herself, “I don’t think this was such a good idea.”

You and Harry turned to her so sharply I scoffed. You knew this was coming and yet every time you look so surprised. I didn’t dare to look at your face, I don’t know if you looked eager for another trip or sad because, no, some quiet wasn’t what she needed.

Yet, when we finally parked in front of the house,you were excited, as always. You jumped out and went to look through one of the front windows until Harry handed you the key so you could explore. I sat in the car until mom came to tell me to get out; she looked pissed. I bet she was starting to make her list, the one she tells us by heart every time we find a moving truck across the front lawn and Harry locked away with his wines, cleaning the bottles and putting them in boxes.

My new room is next to yours this time; it’s the last one down the hallway on the first floor. We get a bathroom just to ourselves because mom and Harry got the big room downstairs. It’s a suite. I see your toothbrush in a plastic cup as soon as I enter and place mine there too. You’ve already put the shampoo bottles and soap and towels where they belong. I don’t think I’m going to bother to unpack this time.

“I can shower after dinner, so you can have the bathroom in the morning to yourself,” you say from the door. I can hear the smile in your voice. I don’t want to turn around.

“Okay.” I pretend to inspect to floor tiles.

“It’s bigger than the last one. I think it’s my favourite yet.”

“You say that every time.” There’s a pause and I stare at the floor. I hear rustling and my side is warm as you walk past me to leave one last bottle at the edge of the tub.

“Do I?” And then mom calls us downstairs to have something to eat.

-

I don’t know when it started, this feeling at the pit of my stomach, bugging me every day. Consuming my words. Making me unable to look at you for more than a few seconds. The tingle in my fingers every time you sit near me. The knot in my throat when you ask me a question.

I think you notice; you don’t talk to me a lot anymore. Lately, I don’t think you’re talking to anyone a lot anymore. You didn’t even call your friends this time, to let them know you got here okay. Maybe you realized it’s pointless. Maybe you won’t even bother to make friends this time. Maybe next time mom tells us we’re going you’ll look upset instead of asking where, when, with that excited glint in your eyes that makes me have to look away.

I drive us to school in silence. You have the radio on but I don’t think you’re listening.

“You think we’ll make friends?” You always ask that too. You know you’ll make friends.

“Yeah,” I answer anyway because you haven’t asked me anything since that time in the bathroom.

“Karen says it’s too dusty here, she’s sneezing all the time,” yousay, staring out the window. “I didn’t know she was allergic.”

“She isn’t.” You know she isn’t. Once, when we were around eleven, we lived in an old house out in the country. We only lived there for five months but she spent every day up in the attic, cleaning. Every night she would come down, covered in dust and say with a smile,

“Done.I think that room would make a great playroom for you, guys.”

And the next morning she’ll be up there again, telling us how dirty it got in just a few hours, that she had to start over, that the house scared her, that maybe a city apartment would be better.

She isn’t allergic.

The school is a few miles out of town; it’s a big brick building. Just one building. There isn’t a parking lot, just a wide space of red dirt at the side with a bunch of cars aligned in rows. I turn off the engine and wait until you step out, but you don’t. You sit there, hunched over and resting your head on the glass.

“I wish…I wish we didn’t have to come to school.” You say. I look at you, out of the corner of my eye. You’re staring at me, waiting for an answer, but that wasn’t a question and that’s not how it works. I walk out of the car and slam the door shut. My fingers are tingling again. I wait until you’re inside the building to follow you.

-

I know it’s wrong, I know. I can’t help it anymore, you are always there. I can’t help it, really. I try to think of someone else, anyone. But I see you, every time. And every time it’s amazing and once I’m past the point of thinking rationally, you’re stuck and I can’t make you go away. I don’t even try. For a moment I don’t care. Just for a moment.

But after it, when my hand is still gripping, and my breathing is still ragged, I cry in anger, feeling gross all over. I can’t be near you, who knows when I’ll break.

This is wrong.

I go to the bathroom; it’s probably three a.m. I wash my hands and my face and I want to get out of these pants. But I hear your door click open and I see your head peer outside your bedroom and I try to look away, I try, I really do. But you’re already walking over.

“Are you okay?” you ask me. I can tell you weren’t sleeping. Your eyes are wide open and your voice is clear, your hair in place. I tear my eyes off of your face and nod forcefully. You stand behind me, I see you look down before meeting my eyes through the mirror. “You’re not.” You attempt a smile.

“I’m fine.” My voice is hoarse.

“No, you are not. I’m your brother, I can tell.”

I break.

“You are not my brother.” I see you look up, you try to meet my eyes but I’m staring at myself. Hating me even more, knowing that I’m hurting you just because I can’t control myself.

“W-what?” Your voice cracks a bit; I don’t think it ever did.

“I am not your brother,” I hiss and you shove me.I almost hit my head with the mirror.

“Shut up! Yes, I am!” But you are not. Your father is not my father; mom is not your mother. You’re not my brother, that’s just wrong. If you were I couldn’t be thinking this, I wouldn’t be in the bathroom now, I wouldn’t be avoiding you and I wouldn’t be making you cry when you never, not even once, cried in front of me before.

And yet, I can’t stop myself.

“No, you are not,” I growl and turn to face you. Your eyes are red and wet and you never looked at me like this before either. I can’t stand it. “Get out of my face.”

“S-stop it!” you plead, and my hands twitch. I want to reach out, I want to but I don’t know what’d happen. “Please….” Tears are streaming down your face, you touch my arm and I jump, I feel my face burn and my legs are shaking under me. I yank my arm out of reach and walk out of there and into my room. A second later I hear the bathroom door slam.

-

Days pass and you don’t talk to me. You haven’t brought anyone over either, not since we got here. Mom is sneezing more often, I heard Harry and her talking last night but I left when you came into the kitchen; I can’t bear to see you like this. When you come down for breakfast you look worse than ever. I could tell you weren’t sleeping before, but neither Harry nor mom commented on it. Now they look at you and frown.

“Are you sick, sweetie?” Mom asks, a handkerchief in her hand. You eye it wearily, and she sniffs.

“I’m okay.” You don’t sound okay, but Mom stops asking and returns to looking miserable. Harry hands you a plate of eggs but you don’t push it away.

“Do you want to stay in today?” Harry asks. He’s not even looking at you, he’s staring at mom, worried, like this never happened before.

“I’m fine, Dad.” I don’t think he even heard you. Oh, god. I don’t want this; I want you to be happy and excited and blind like you were before. At least one of us was. Someone has to talk in this house.

-

I drive in silence. The radio is off this time and you’re hunched against the window, your favourite pose lately. You look even worse when I’m driving you. I don’t know if it’s because you have to sit with me or because you have to go to school. You never hated school before, until we moved here. You have every right to hate me, - you did nothing more than reach for me over and over and all I did was make you cry. You mumble something; it could have been a question. I ask you what you said.

“You are…you are my brother,” you mumble again, this time in my direction. “You’re the only one there- You’re the only one there that looks at me. Looked at me…Karen says we’re going away again. She told Dad…she told him she was sick and that they had to leave and we are leaving and you are not looking at me and you don’t talk to me and Dad only cares about her. I think he’s drinking again, too.”

I keep my eyes on the road, I try to block you out, I don’t want you to cry again, not ever, and you’re trying not to.

“I…I never minded. I didn’t care because you were there and I was never alone. And every time we left you came along and your room was just there, and we talked. We used to talk all the time. And- and it’s not fair! She drags us around and Dad lets her and it’s never going to stop and now, now you’re not with me anymore, you hate me and-”

I veer the car out off the road and you jump. You slam against the door and close your eyes tight. I step on the break and with one final lurch we stop. You have your head on your knees, I can hear you sobbing. I try to calm myself, - how can you say that? I don’t hate you. I can’t hate, I wish I hated you. If I did I wouldn’t be grabbing you and I wouldn’t be hugging you and I wouldn’t be kissing you.

You stare, face wet. I’m past caring, I’m past everything. I just want you to stop crying.

“I don’t hate you,” I manage to breathe out.

“Then why….”

“I don’t hate you.” You sigh.

“Okay.” I let you go. “Where are we?”

I look around, we are in the middle of the desert. I think I drove past the school. The road ahead of us doesn’t seem to end; it goes forever, straight ahead. I look at you, you’re staring at me and when I meet your eyes, you smile. You smile for the first time in what seems like years.

I smile back and you turn on the radio while I start the engine and drive ahead,and neither of us look back again.