Then he said, “Hey, I was about to get some food. You in?” Naturally, I was hungry, so I agreed. But somewhere between the takeout line at Pablo’s and the car ride home, things turned fuzzy and then disappeared altogether.
I have a feeling I don’t want to know the answer to this question but I ask it anyway. “Sean, what did you do?”
He grins. “A little Benadryl in your soda.”
“Benadryl?” I yell. “Youdruggedme?”
And just like that, the hazy fog I’ve been in evaporates and one thing becomes very clear. I’ve been kidnapped.
By myown freaking brother.
This is extreme. Even for Sean.
I unbuckle my seat belt and reach for the door handle. “Stop the car.”
“Dude. We are in the middle of a desert. And it’s dark out. Do you really need to pee that bad?”
The middle of the desert? No.
I pull out my phone and locate my GPS. The nearest town is… Boulder City? I zoom out. “You’re taking me to Vegas.” My words are slow, and each one ticks like a countdown on a bomb. “After I explicitly told you I didn’t want to go.”
“Surprise!” He throws a hand in the air. “And see, I figured it out. We can call Mom and ask her to move Thanksgiving to Friday. It’s just a meal, right? We can eat it anytime.”
Wrong. Thanksgiving is a family event. That happens on Thursday. Always. Mom is not going to change that.
She’s going to be livid with both of us.
My nostrils flare. Not this time. I’ve taken the fall with him enough. I’m going home.
“You’re insane!” I yell. “Turn around now.”
“Oh, come on man. You’ll love it. After the show, we can go jump off the STRAT or whatever it is they do up there. We’ll make it fun like we always do.”
Yes, it’s true. I am often a willing participant in Sean’s wild escapades. Not anymore.
“Nope. I won’t do it.”
I can’t handle it anymore. I can’t live life according to his whims. I feel like I’m getting swallowed up by him. I once learned that sometimes one twin can consume the other while in the womb, but I never knew it could happen twenty-five years later.
“Come on, it will be fun, just the two of us,” he says.
“It’s always the two of us. Welivetogether.” Frustration pulses through my veins. I will strangle him. I will. I’m sorry, Mom, at least you will still have me.
“Yeah, but we hardly hang out anymore.”
I take a deep breath and let it outveryslowly. I’m almost done with a computer programming degree nobody knows I’ve been taking for the last year, all while working 40-hour weeks at my family’s cabinet shop. So yeah, I’ve been busy. But we live and work together. We play basketball every week and have dinner with our family every Sunday. How much more of my life does he want?
“You could have asked me to get a beer or something.”
“I did.” He scratches the back of his neck. “I have. You always turn me down.”
“Because I’ve been busy.” I grit my teeth. He won’t make me feel bad for chasing a passion.
“Yeah? With what? Tell me.”
I…I can’t. I can’t bring myself to say the words out loud. That’s the problem with secrets, the longer you hold them in, the harder they are to let go of.
“I don’t know what you’ve been doing bro, but you’re stressing yourself out. I’m pretty sure you even have some gray hair behind your ears.”
