My brother wasn’t either.
He was actually kind of perfect.
We didn’t have much in common, not really. I was quieter, while he was more outspoken. He was always dating some girl or other, and I’d never had a girlfriend. Isaac had a huge group of friends, everyone liked him or wanted to be like him, while I was content with the two people I hung out with—quality was more important than quantity. Isaac was the quarterback on our varsity football team, while I wouldn’t even go to the games if it weren’t for him playing and Mom making me go for family time. Though I’d do it to support him. And on nights like tonight, while I was at home, painting at midnight on a Saturday, Isaac was probably off doing keg stands at whatever party his friends were having this weekend.
Despite all that, over the past two years, he had somehow become not just my brother, but my best friend—though the latter was mostly just at home. We spent a lot of time together, getting lost in this or that. Isaac talked to me, shared things with me in a way he didn’t with anyone else. It had started not long after that night when I’d shown him my sketches, which I wasn’t so shy about anymore.
He even told me about his nightmares, how sometimes he dreamed about the day he found his mom after the aneurysm took her. How scared he’d been that he would lose his dad too; that in some ways, he’d lost him to depression after his mom died, until Timothy and Mom got close.
“Shit,” I cursed when I heard the attic door, then a stumbling sound on the stairs. I rushed over and saw Isaac coming up with a goofy smile on his face, before he almost missed a step again. “Shh.” I grabbed his wrist and pulled him along behind me. “Mom and Dad are going to hear you.”
Isaac was…well, he was the boy next door. While I’d grown over the past two years and wasn’t as scrawny as I had been, he’d always been this way. He was tall and muscular from sports. He kept his black hair in a styled crew cut, and his blue-gray eyes…they always had so much going on in them—happiness, sadness, everything was there, but no one took the time to look. They now met mine, and a small frown curved his lips.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing. You’re always up here, and I was bored.” He flopped down on the couch. Other than the couch, there was an easel, a desk, and a chair, and that was all for furniture. Mom had gotten me a mini fridge for drinks because I could get lost in my art for so long.
“You literally just got home. How can you be bored? And if you wake our parents up, you’re going to get into trouble for being drunk.”
He fought to school his features, trying like hell to make a serious face but looking like he was biting his cheeks to keep from smiling. “I’m drunk not. Not drunk.”
“You’re so drunk.” I got him a bottle of water from the fridge. “Did you have fun?”
“Yes, yes I did.”
“You have a hickey on your neck.”
“Yes, yes I do.” We laughed. I still couldn’t believe sometimes how close we’d gotten. When Mom and Timothy started dating, while Isaac was always nice to me, I hadn’t see us becoming friends.
All the girls thought he was hot, and he got straight As and still partied, played sports, and helped his dad on the weekends in the yard. He kept his room clean all the time and never left his clothes on the bathroom floor. Sometimes it was hard to believe he was real. Half the time, I’d get lost in a painting and Mom would come up here three times to tell me to do something before I’d remember to do it. And my messiness bugged everyone.
“Who’s it from?” I asked.
“What?”
“The hickey.” I sat on the cushion beside him.
“Oh. Shit. Emma Larson. I asked her out. She said yes.” He waggled his eyebrows.
“Dude, you just broke up with Jessica last week.” But Emma was really pretty, and I could see why Isaac would like her. Plus, I had English with her and knew she was nicer than Jessica.
“So?”
“Whatever.” I stood, and Isaac laughed. I went to the desk and grabbed my sketchbook. “Be quiet and let me draw you.”
“I hate it when you want to draw me.”
He always said that but always let me. I didn’t think he really disliked it. “I’m not as good at people, but they’re my favorite. I need to practice for college.” I was still trying to figure out who I was, what my style was, and who I’d be as an artist.
Isaac shook his head, took his shoes off, and lay down on the couch. His legs hung over the arm of it because he was so long. “You’re the best artist I know.”
“I’m the only artist you know.”
“Well, you’re still fucking good.” He turned his head to the side to look at me.
“Just like that. Don’t move.” I grabbed a charcoal pencil and pulled the chair over in front of him.
“But it does make sense…why you would want to draw someone as hot as me,” Isaac teased. He didn’t lack confidence, that was for sure, but I also knew that some of it was a facade.
Just like somehow, I knew he was sad tonight.
“You know you don’t have to pretend with me. You never have,” I said, starting to draw.
“I’m not pretending. I’m hot. All the girls say so.”
They did, but he was my brother and a dude, so I didn’t see him like that.
I ignored him because I didn’t want to argue with him. Plus, I knew Isaac. He closed himself off when he wasn’t ready.
So I drew, and he lay there watching me. Eventually, he closed his eyes, but I could tell he wasn’t sleeping.
I rubbed my finger over the charcoal line I’d just drawn, smudging Isaac’s hair some. He opened his eyes and looked at me. “What’s wrong?” I couldn’t bite my tongue any longer.
“How do you always know when something’s wrong?”
I shrugged. “Just know you.”
“No one else does.”
I frowned, unsure how to answer that. “Stepbrother bond, I guess.”
Isaac rolled his eyes, then turned them back to me. He didn’t say anything for a while, and I didn’t either. I just kept drawing, waiting. My hand was hurting because I’d been at it all day, but he wanted to talk, I could feel it, so I’d stay up all night if I had to.
“Can I tell you a secret?” he finally asked.
“Obviously.”
“This is fucking big, Lane. I’m serious. You can’t… Actually, no. I can’t even…”
Nausea swam in my gut, making it feel heavy. I put the notebook and pencil down. Clearly, this was important. He’d never sounded so unsure of himself before. “You can tell me anything. Always.”
Isaac shook his head. Sat up. Rubbed the heels of his hands against his eyes. “Shit. I hate it when I get drunk and say stuff I don’t want to say to you.”
“You haven’t said anything yet,” I replied, and then, “it’s just me. I’m your brother. You can tell me anything.”
He rested his elbows on his knees, buried his face in his hands, his right leg bouncing up and down. He dropped one arm. “I…I don’t like Emma. Fuck, why am I telling you this?”
Huh? That was it? “So don’t go out with her. It’s okay not to have a girlfriend, Isaac. Even if you did let her give you a hickey.”