Harder To Love Than Blood

I was glad that this time, when I hit the door at a run, it didn't hit back. My door opened, I threw myself through the threshold, and slammed the door behind me, throwing the lock into place.

Then I stopped, and glared down at the lump of metal. Why didn't I think of the lock earlier? Might have avoided that whole incident with Jonathan from before.

I felt weird that that thought came to mind in the current situation I was in. And it was a situation. I was stuck in a house of guys I hadn't known very long who were supposed to be my brothers while there was some huge cat stalking around in the yard and one of my brothers just slobbered all over my neck. I think I had a working script for some horribly cheesy soap opera.

I stripped out of the shirt and jeans I was wearing--they had the icky, grimy feel of Jonathan's sweat all over them--and fell into bed. I was too exhausted to root around in my bags for a big shirt. Maybe I would after I calmed enough and my body wasn’t producing as much heat. As it was, I was too hot to want anything covering me right now.

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It took me a while to struggle out of my dream enough to realize that the noise I was hearing was indeed outside the window of my bedroom in the real world. I bolted up in bed, my heart hammering against my ribs while sweat trickled down my back. That goose/hog sound, though softer, was right below my window.

Deciding this whole thing was some huge, ignorant prank from my so-called brothers, I chose not to make a total ass of myself and just went back to sleep.

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I had no idea how much later it was when I woke up again. It was still dark out through the blinds, with just that first set of white-wash that signified sunrise. Too early for anyone in their right minds to be awake. Then again, with everything that’s happened, I doubt I was exactly in my right mind.

I pressed my lips tight in irritation, wondering what the hell woke me up at the ungodly hour, until I realized it was nature shouting my name.

"Ugh." I grunted in a new wave of irritation. Kicking off the covers that had somehow wrapped around my legs as I slept, I pulled on my previously-worn shirt and pants, and stumbled to the door. With a jerk, the door was opened, and with a few ungraceful steps, I was slammed into something rock hard and nearly too hot to touch. I was almost on my butt when arms were suddenly around me, holding me to the naked chest they belong to.

Looking up, I found it to be Clive, who was sweating and shivering.

Groggy and unfocused, I scanned his body. "Clive? Are you okay?"

He stood there, fevered and shivering but not lifting one finger as if, if he moved he’d break something.

This was where I drew a line in the sand for myself. I might still be pissed at DJ for abandoning me to the orphanage, despite his reasons, and I would never stop being pissed at Jonathan and his twisted little games. But Clive had been no more than a baby. I never got to know him, and as DJ had said, he was too young to have any sort of memory of me. So if we can forget our less-than-thrilling first meeting, we could maybe have a chance at being friends. Or at least not try to kill each other. That includes death by omission, which is why I can’t ignore the fever he clearly has.

"Clive?" I asked again, touching my hand to his arm only to have him jerk the limb away as though I were the one to have burned him.

I took a calming breath and let it out. Sticking to my side of the line wasn’t going to be easy.

"Clive, you need to get in bed and break the fever." I stood there and watched him, but his eyes seemed to be on everything but me, as though he couldn’t quite focus.

I took his arm again, and again he jerked away, this time shaking his head.

Frustration started rising but I tampered it down.

"Clive, you have a fever. Let me get you to bed." There, that was calm and reasonable, wasn’t it.

This time when I tried to take his arm, he took a step back.

Calm and reason left me.

"I don’t want yo–"

"I didn’t ask," I interrupted with a snap.

Clive blinked those large eyes and looked at me in the eye. He was still sweating and shivering, but at least he seemed to be focusing now.

Slowly releasing a breath, I tried for calm again, but the steel edge in my voice sounded more like just this side of harsh. "Now, get to bed and pile the blankets up. I’ll hunt out some medicine. Unless you’ve already taken some?"

There was a reason he was up already but a shake of his head suggested that searching out some Nyquil wasn’t it.

I followed him to his room across from me and pulled the covers over him myself. After rooting through the bathroom’s medicine cabinet, I found something with the words "for fever" on it. Clive was asleep by the time I got back so I left the pills and the cup--a little plastic one that was next to the toothbrushes, presumably for rinsing--of water on the side table.

I stood beside the bed looking down at my little brother, and I wondered at who he took after most; our mother or our father. I didn’t have too many memories of David and Gloria Michaels to begin with, and those I did have were fuzzy at best, with no real images of faces. I remembered that our mother was beautiful because I had heard it spoken. And I remembered that our father was smart, something DJ took after and helped with his career in being a business analyst. I think Clive and Jonathan both took after our mother. Jonathan had the high cheekbones of a woman, though they did anything but make him look feminine. And Clive had a more delicate, lean build that probably helped him get far in less physical sports like baseball and basketball.

So what did I get out of the gene pool? I made average grades and had one of those average, forgettable faces. I didn’t have a curvy body. I didn’t have lush, silky hair or striking cheekbones or an IQ of 160. So what do I have to remember them by? What legacy do I get to pass on?

Running my fingers through my sleep-matted hair in frustration, I pushed the thoughts to the back of my mind and looked around the room. Our parents were gone so it didn’t matter, and Clive’s room was in need of some of my spontaneous mother-henning.

Deciding I was too much awake to get any real sleep now, I began picking up the dirty clothes from where they were strewn across the floor and dumping them into what looked like an entirely unused hamper. From the way his room looked, the clothing was condemned to fester in every part of the room but the hamper.

It was bright through the window by the time I was done, with only one intermission for that much-needed bathroom pit stop. I was folding what had to have been the only clean pair of jeans in the room--which was likely due to it having been lost behind the dresser after the last washer session back in 1942--when Clive finally came around.

It was his groggy, "What time is it," that alerted me.

I set the jeans in a drawer that only contained an impossibly wrinkled shirt and three mismatched socks. It was a wonder the boy could even dress himself. Then again, it could have been this very reason that had him wondering the house half naked so early in the morning

Saddling up next to him, I checked the digital readout on his alarm clock that was on the side table, still with the fever medicine and glass of water.

"Eight-thirty-six. Sun came up about an hour ago."

His brows drew down, as if trying to figure out why my voice was in his room.

"Amanda?"

I lightly brushed his still-damp hair from his forehead and plucked the pills up with the water. "You had a fever but it seems to have broken. Still, you should take the pills."

He grimaced at the sight of the little tablets, as though I were asking him to swallow a roach.

"I don’t need them."

I still held them out to him. "I didn’t ask if you needed them, I’m telling you, you do. So either take them voluntarily or I shove them down your throat. It’s your choice but just so you know option B doesn’t include water to help get them down."

Another grimace but he took the medicine. There’s a reason why they call it tough love. Because it’s hard to feel any sort of affection for stubborn teenagers.

Oh wait, that includes me.

After handing back the half-empty cup, Clive fell back into bed and once again dropped off the face of the earth.

I left him to his sleep, because it was only right that someone actually got some rest, and I had my own room to stamp my name on. At least for as long as I was stuck here.

While I had been sorting out the war zone that had been Clive’s bedroom, I had decided to myself that I wasn’t going to let Jonathan’s game of Hungry, Hungry Kitties get to me. He might think that after all these years he could just pick up where he left off with all the teasing, but I wasn’t the dumb little kid sister anymore. He had no right to think of himself as my brother; je lost that right when they sent me away. Just because I’m back doesn’t mean I’m going to be falling for more of his tricks anymore. I’ve grown up since then, even if he hasn’t.

It was the banging of the last thumbtack into the wall that brought DJ into the room.

"Wow, looks like you’re really making it your own," he commented from his place at the door where he took in the entire portion of the wall next to the bed that was layered thick with posters and random pictures.

"For now, anyway." I hopped off the bed and rooted through the bag of clothes on the floor until I finally found my jean jacket.

DJ watched me as I shrugged into the denim. "Where are you going?"

I slipped a Bic pen into my back pocket and moved past him, closing the bedroom door before making my way to the stairs. "To look for a part-time job. I saw a few places close enough by to walk when my mom and I came in." There was a small notepad on one of the side tables in the livingroom and I tucked that into my pocket, too, just in case.

"Wait, wait." DJ grabbed my arm before I could step out the door. "What do you need a job for so soon? You just got here."

I pulled my arm from his touch, shortly remembering the way Clive did the same to me before I pushed the thought from my mind--useless information. I faced DJ. "The sooner I get a job, the quicker I can start saving up, which means the faster I can get out of here and on my own after my eighteenth birthday."

His face fell at my admission of wanting to get away from them as quick as was possible, but I didn’t really care. He had been in on Jonathan’s sick little game the night before.

I turned away from the hurt and concern in my brother’s eyes. But his voice came softly after me. "I’m sorry about last night...about everything."

I closed the door on him.