Break the Walls

I leaned against my car door, watching as the bus had pulled up for a fourth time that week, before standing up straight. Adam skipped off, rushing up to me and handing me a folded piece of paper.

“What’s this?” I looked at him, unfolding it.

“We had art class today, and our teacher wanted us to draw our family.”

I looked over the brightly colored, white paper and nearly burst into tears. Adam had drawn a purple house and yellow son on top of a blue sky and lime green grass. Printed in his sloppy handwriting above what I assumed was he and I were the words, “I love my sissy.”

As I continued to look over it, I noticed that our mom wasn’t in it, which really didn’t kill me, “Where’s mom?”

Adam looked at me perplexed, “Did I have to draw her in?”

I opened the back door, helping in, “She is our mom, Adam.”

“But you don’t like her, so I don’t either.”

Groaning, I looked at him, “I’ll explain it when you’re older, alright?”

He nodded, buckling himself in. Slipping into the driver’s seat, I started to engine, letting it drone for a moment. Pulling onto the main road, I drove the normal speed limit, listening as Adam attempted to sing along with the radio.

When we were in the house, I thought back to what Alex had told me. The fact that I couldn’t even open up to my own brother was only proving his point; I normally did enclose myself behind windowless walls.

“Hey, Adam?”

He peered at me from the kitchen, goofily smiling.

“Do you mind if I invite someone to watch our movie with us, tomorrow?”

“Like one of your friends?”

I nodded, “My friend, Alex.”

“Sure!”

I smiled, listening to him scamper back into the kitchen. I sat down on the couch, leaning my head against the back of the couch.

The rest of our nights were usually the same. I would check over Adam’s homework, cook him dinner, get him bathed and off to bed, and then eventually get around to finishing my homework, before crashing. Something, however, was different about tonight.

As I finished getting Adam off to bed, I never once heard the stumble of clicking heals. I guess it didn’t bother me so much because our mom was good at not coming home.

Next Day and After School

Sitting in the school’s parking lot had started to bother me; while I watched the faces of the other students stare at me. I should’ve expected Alex to be late, though. He normally always was with me.

I pushed my head forward, laying it against my steering wheel. There had only been a few times that I had gone anywhere with Alex, and each of those times required me to do the driving.

“Sorry,” Alex mumbled, pulling back the door, slipping in.

I nodded in his direction, sitting up and starting the car, “You’re early, when you think about it, you know?”

He chuckled, “I guess so.”

I pulled out of the parking lot, driving towards my house as Alex adjusted the radio. Having Alex in my car kind of induced the flutters in my heart. I knew that I had wanted something like this all along, but I never officially got it until now.

Alex was the kind of to make a situation more awkward than it should’ve been. He never seemed to do it on purpose that’s for sure, however; he would say something out of habit, and that sentence would make the car ride way tenser than it needed to be.

As I pulled into my drive way, I shut the car off, getting out.

“Is your car normally that quiet?”

I shook my head, “Adam fills it up with conversations.”

He nodded, following behind me as I walked into my house, “I thought we were heading to the video store.”

I smiled at him, “I need to grab money first.”

Alex continued to follow me into the house, as I made my way up to my room.

I always figured that my room was nothing to fuss over; it seemed so ordinary to me. The walls were white, the carpet a maroon color, while the bed was covered with a light blue comforter. I had a few pictures scattered over my walls, which consisted of me, Adam and our dad. My desk was stacked with reading materials that I had never gotten around to touching.

“This is nice,” Alex plopped himself on my bed, observing my room.

“You’re pulling my leg, right? This room is so tedious.”

He snickered, “It reflects your personality.”

I shot him a look, picking up my wallet. When I turned around, I shrieked and jumped backwards, unexpectedly running into Alex’s chest.

“Whoa, sorry,” his face showed how much he wanted to laugh, but he spared my feelings and didn’t.

I looked up at him; face flushing before I had time to stop it. I knew that he was offering me one of the many things that I had wanted, but I didn’t think I could get it.