Maybe She's Breaking?

“You ever wonder why you weren’t born more like your sister?” One of my more obnoxious friends, Justin, asked me today. We were sitting together at lunch, hiding out in the far back corner where the lions, as we liked to call the popular kids, wouldn’t bother us, and Ellie just happened to walk by putting up a nearly flawless front.

I suppose her friends don’t know her as well as I do, because none of them really seem to notice there’s anything different, or that she gets more edgy with every passing minute.

“Only every day of my life.” I said shrugging. I could’ve given a better answer, something to make him laugh, but I’d never been any good at making people laugh. That was just something else that seemed to be in Ellie’s genetic makeup that was left out when I was conceived. “But I think I turned out pretty good for what I had to work with.”

Justin looked me over, frowned slightly then shrugged his own shoulders. “Yeah. Sure.”

I knew he was just being nice.