Fall Away

The house was huge. It looked like it was built in the Victorian ages, with sweeping pillars accenting a wrap-around porch. There were huge windows along the side of the house, and I could see the reflection of the setting sun in each of them. The house appeared to be perfect, without the dirty windows or peeling paint that was so common in the town.

“Come on in,” Soren coaxed as I sat, not moving, staring at the house. “You need a formal invitation?”

I shook my head, slowly coming out of my daze. My mind was filled with all kinds of insecurities as I pushed myself out of the car. They only grew worse as we reached the entryway, which was the size of my kitchen and bedroom combined.

What was I doing here? I was obviously out of my element. I didn’t do well in elegant places, having next-to-no experience with them. This was all a huge mistake.

“Kirian!” Soren called, oblivious to my thoughts. “Ellie’s here.”

There was noise upstairs, but no one appeared. I tried not to take it personally – he was probably in the middle of something. Soren shrugged and led me through the entryway and into another, much larger room. As I glanced around, I realized it must be a kitchen, although it was much bigger and fancier than any I’d ever seen in a house before.

A woman was standing at the stove, and Soren hastened to introduce me. “Mrs. Jones?”

She turned around and smiled. I found myself smiling back automatically – she had one of those kind faces, the ones you find on nice, trustworthy people. At least, the ones I met were always trustworthy.

“This is Ellie,” Soren continued.

Her smile seemed to grow even wider. “Ellie,” she repeated. “It’s nice to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Good things, I hope,” I replied, feeling slightly corny as I said it.

She laughed. “With these two boys? It was more than good.”

I smiled. “Good to know.”

Soren rolled his eyes, and if I didn’t know better I’d say he was embarrassed. But nothing ever seemed to fluster him.

“Well, I’ll be out of here in a little bit,” Mrs. Jones informed us. “I’ll just finish making this, then I can stick it in the freezer and be out of your hair.”

Soren gave her a genuine smile. “It’s no big deal,” he assured her. “We really appreciate you helping us out.”

She laughed. “I don’t know what you boys would do if I wasn’t here to keep things in order.”

“I dunno what we’d do either.”

Mrs. Jones laughed again, and waved us away with her spoon. “You go have fun. No need for you to be chatting with me.”

“Oh, I don’t min-”

“Thanks, Mrs. Jones,” Soren interrupted, putting a hand on my shoulder to guide me out of the room. “See you later.”

“So,” he said, once we were out of earshot, “was she everything you expected?”

I laughed. “I dunno. I’ve never actually met a housekeeper before.”
Soren rolled his eyes again. “Then what was the whole deal yesterday?”

I shrugged. “I guess I just found it funny. Like, you’re this young guy and you have people working for you. It makes sense now,” I muttered under my breath, as I glanced around the house.

Soren either didn’t hear me or chose not to comment as he led the way upstairs. I felt like I was in something out of a movie as the winding staircase opened into another open area, this one filled with a few couches and a table.

Soren turned right and knocked on a door. “Yeah?” I heard a voice call.

Soren took that as a cue to open the door, poking his head into the room. “Kir. Ellie’s here.”

I walked up next to him, waving awkwardly. “Hi.”

Kirian glanced up from the desk he was sitting at, quickly shutting the laptop. “Hey Ellie.”

“Hey,” I repeated, then realized I had already said that. In order to avoid an awkward silence, I glanced around the room. “Wow. This is really nice.”

“Thanks,” he replied, leaning back in his chair.

My eyes scanned the large bed and bookshelf before landing on a guitar in the corner. “Can I?” I asked tentatively.

He followed my gaze, then nodded. I made my way past Soren into the room, picking up the instrument. I ran my fingers tentatively along the strings, listening to the sound fill the room. “It’s gorgeous,” I murmured.

“You play?” Kirian asked.

I shook my head. “Nah. Never had time to take lessons. My brother used to, though. He always said he’d teach me, but it never happened.”

Kirian nodded thoughtfully. “I could probably teach you some basics. If you still wanted.”

I glanced over at him, expecting him to take the offer back, but he seemed genuine. “Thanks, but you don’t have to.”

He laughed. “I know I don’t. I offered, remember?”

I nodded, suddenly feeling stupid again. Why was I so much more awkward around this brother?

Soren’s phone rang, startling me. He glanced at the screen, then at the two of us in the room. “I should take this. Be right back.”

He was gone before I could even reply, leaving Kirian and I alone in the room. “Do you play?” I asked, attempting to start a conversation.

He shrugged. “A little. I just mess around, see what sounds good, try to remember it. Nothing serious or anything.

I nodded. “That’s cool. I wish I could do that.”

“What do you do?”

“Huh?” I replied intelligently.

“For fun. If you don’t play an instrument, what do you do?”

“Well, I’m still in school, so at the moment I do a lot of studying.”

Lame. Why didn’t I have something exciting I could talk about?

Kirian just nodded. “I remember those days.”

I shrugged, trying to determine how old he was. He didn’t appear to be any older than 25, but he seemed more mature than that. Did boys reach a point where they stopped maturing? Maybe that was all it was.

“Yeah, it’s not super exciting. Between that and my job, I don’t have much time for fun.”

“You’ve got to be almost done with school, though, right? Things will pick up over the summer.”

He sounded so confident, I didn’t have the heart to tell him that in my case, things would probably get worse over the summer, when I had no excuse for my non-existent social life. No need to go into that in our first real conversation. I shrugged instead.

“Besides, I’m counting on you to show me around town. I haven’t had a chance to see much of it.”

“Me?” I squeaked, resisting the urge to point at myself.

“Well, yeah.” He looked sheepish. “I mean, I don’t really know anyone else. I was thinking – I mean, I was hoping-”

“You don’t really know me, either,” I pointed out. “We had a two-minute conversation one night after I thought you were your brother.”

He laughed awkwardly. “Yeah, well. I don’t really interact well with people. The talking thing doesn’t work for me.”

I had to smile at that. “You’re doing fine now.”

“Well, you’re easy to talk to.”

I bit back a laugh at the irony of this whole situation. The two conversationally challenged people were actually having a semi-intelligent discussion. “Well, if you really want I can show you around, but no guarantees on how interesting it’ll be. There’s not a ton to do around here.”

“Trust me, I’ve heard. It seems like all Soren does is complain about the lack of entertainment in the town.”

“Then why’d you guys move here?” I asked, genuinely curious. “You don’t exactly seem like the small-town kind.”

“There’s a kind?”

“There’s definitely a kind,” I replied. “After you live here long enough, you pick up on it.”

“And we don’t fit the mold, huh?”

Kirian sounded slightly amused, but I just shrugged. “Not really. It seems like Soren could fit in anywhere, but from what I’ve seen of him, he’s more of a city boy.”

“What about me?”

I looked at him for a second. “I’m not sure,” I said thoughtfully. “I’m still figuring you out.”

He smiled at me, and I felt myself grow warm. He was so different than his brother, but it was somewhat refreshing. I could only handle Soren’s energy for so long before it began to tire me out.

The boy opened his mouth to say something, but before the words could come out Soren burst back into the room. “Missed me, didn’t you,” he smirked. “I know, I know, no need to say it. I’m sure you two were just sitting here awkwardly without me to start a conversation.”

I glanced at Kirian, then looked back at Soren. “Actually, you just interrupted a very nice conversation.”

“Really?” Soren looked surprised.

“Nice to know your opinion of my conversation skills,” I remarked dryly.

“No, no. It’s nothing personal. I just didn’t think you two would have much to talk about.”

“We were doing fine,” Kirian informed his brother.

I began to realize how the two brothers handled being total opposites. Whenever Soren was in the room, he seemed to be front, center, and in the spotlight, while Kirian faded into the background. It was just their personalities.

“Oh. Well.” For the first time ever, Soren seemed to be at a loss for words.

I finally put the guitar down, realizing I’d been holding it for quite awhile. “How big is this place?” I asked, completely changing the subject.

Kirian stood up, holding a hand out to pull me up from my chair. “Come on. We can give you a tour.”

I took his hand, letting him bring me to my feet before following the twins out the door. Soren walked ahead, practically bouncing with energy. “Kirian’s room… bathroom… my room.” He pointed to doors as he went, and I barely had a chance to see the edge of the rooms before he had moved on.

“Computer room… random room we never use… guest room.”

I glanced at Kirian, who was walking next to me, and caught his grin. “It’s a storage room,” he whispered to me. “I highly doubt Soren’s actually been inside it, other than to stick some boxes in there.”

I nodded, smiling back at him. I was happy he was there – it was one thing to talk to Soren for a few minutes, but it was a completely different experience when he was in his element. “Library… another bathroom… closet.”

“Library?” I asked. Kirian nodded, stopping for a moment and pushing the door open. I didn’t see wall-to-wall bookcases or any of the things I was expecting, but there were quite a few books in between the comfortable-looking couches and chairs.

“Come on,” Soren called as he disappeared into another door.

“We can come back,” Kirian offered. “If you want.”

“Okay,” I replied before turning down the hall to see where Soren had disappeared to.

The door he had gone through led to a steep set of stairs. I slowly began to make my way up them, not totally sure what to expect when I reached the top.

The room shouldn’t have surprised me. Soren was laying on a leather sofa, a remote in his hand, flipping channels on the huge flat-screen TV that was on the wall in front of him. As I glanced around the room, I saw a mini-kitchen in one corner, and a pool table in another. There was a computer sitting on a desk pushed against one wall, and a few more chairs set up in front of the television.

“Wow,” I murmured. “This is really nice.”

“You said that about my room,” Kirian teased.

“Well how ‘bout I just say the whole house is amazing?” I offered. “Seriously, how did you do it? Didn’t you just move in, like, a week ago? It looks… perfect.”

Kirian shrugged. “It didn’t take that long. A bit of moving furniture, a lot of unpacking… I got it done.”

“I helped,” Soren offered.

“Not much,” his brother shot back.

Soren shrugged, not protesting that much. I had to smile at the first sign of an argument – it made them seem more normal, more like the siblings I knew. Most of the time, their relationship seemed to be anything but normal.

“You want to watch something?” Soren suggested.

“No big plans for the night?” I teased.

Kirian rolled his eyes. “She can watch TV at home, Soren.”

“Not really,” Soren replied, ignoring his brother. “I wasn’t really sure what you’d want to do, and Kirian wasn’t helping at all. There’s some soda’s and popcorn, though, and we’ve got plenty of movies. We could make our own theater right here.”

Kirian glanced at me, almost like he was waiting for my reply before he said anything. “Sure,” I said. “Sounds great.”

Kirian swallowed whatever he was going to say and moved across the room to the mini-fridge. “Make yourself comfy,” he called as Soren went back to flipping channels, this time looking for something to watch. “I’ll grab us some drinks.”

I settled into a pile of pillows on the ground, curling up into a ball facing the TV. Soren found some movie on demand that he assured me I would like, and Kirian handed me a soda and a bowl of popcorn before settling down across the room. I was struck by the normality of it all. It was almost like we were just friends, hanging out and watching television.

Almost.