“It’s okay,” he says. “I know how bad they can be.”
I turn and lean my back against the sink, fold my arms over my chest, glare at the opposite wall and feel guilty because of course Reid knows how awful they can be. He knows better than me. He probably knows better than anyone.
“I wish they weren’t,” I tell him. He snorts.
“Well,” he says. “If wishes were fishes.”
That one hangs in the air for a long moment.
“What?” I finally ask.
“It’s a kids’ book or something,” Reid says, like I’m the weird one. “If wishes were fishes they’d swim away. Or whatever.”
I give my brother a long, scrutinizing look, because I’m pretty sure he’s just making up some bullshit.
“This is how they are,” he finally says. “You know they’re not gonna change.”
“I know.”
“Sorry you couldn’t get them to.”
“That’s not what I’m trying to do,” I say. “I’m not stupid.”
Reid shifts on his feet, and now we’re both leaning against the counter and staring at the opposite wall, having this conversation without looking at each other.
“I mean,” he says, and pauses. “Isn’t it, though?”
There’s another, longer silence, and I think about telling him he’s wrong again but I don’t bother. Dolly walks in, tail held high, and begins casually examining a spot on the floor.
“I just don’t get it,” I say. “I don’t get how they can be like this and think this shit and it doesn’t eat them alive.” I’m gesturing vaguely in Reid’s direction, and I mean how they’re treating Andi, but I also mean Elliott, and I mean Reid, and I mean Sadie, and I mean every time they’ve forced their will on one of us with the weight of their disapproval.
“They’re not you,” he says, and thank you, Reid, for your brilliant insight. “You always wanted to be there for us more than you wanted to be right, and they’d rather be right.”
I finally turn to look at him.
“You’ve thought about this,” I say, a little surprised.
“Yeah,” he says, all sarcasm and bluster. I tap into my reserve well of patience. “My parents basically kicked me out when I was fifteen and I moved in with my annoying brother, I’ve thought about it once or twice.”
“Annoying? Seriously?”
“I’ve listened to your lecture about how to load the dishwasherso many times, dude,” he says. “And then you adopted this giant murder cat—”
“Mrrp?” says Dolly, from where she’s sitting on the floor. We both narrow our eyes at her.
“—you see?” Reid says, voice hushed, like it proved something. “Murder cat.”
“You were telling me how annoying it was that I let you live with me.”
Reid grins the same impish grin he’s had since he was a toddler.
“Sorry,” he says, not looking sorry in the least. “But, yeah. This is who they are. I was kinda hoping they’d never, like, point the beam directly at you but I guess they did. Or at Andi but that kinda seems like the same thing.” He’s looking away again, doing the thing where he acts like something doesn’t hurt him but it does. I let him get away with it.
“I didn’t think they would,” I tell him, and push my fingers through my hair. I need a haircut. “That obvious, huh?”
“Andi?”
“Yeah.”
