My Brother's Girl

by Sienna Blake

  I was certain I had a matching one myself.

  “I’m sorry,” I repeated. “I’m just—it’s just the shop.”

  My eyes moved to Kayleigh, who kept her attention focused on her napkin, which had fallen to the floor.

  “I’m worried about the shop,” I said. “I’m worried I could lose the shop.”

  Noah broke the awkward, tense silence with a hearty laugh. He patted me on the shoulder and squeezed, a silent communication between brothers. “Nice try,” he said in an easy-going, friendly way. “You can’t convince me that it’s not a girl making you a little…on edge recently.”

  “Yeah,” Aubrey said with a hesitant smile, “Noah was the exact same way before he and I got together.”

  Eoin nodded. “If it was you who had Kayleigh and I was all alone pining after a lady, I’d maybe blow up like that, too. I get it, I get it.”

  There was a round of forced laughter in the terribly silent kitchen, an attempt to shove things under the rug, to salvage the dinner, to pretend I didn’t just ruin everything. But three people in the kitchen did not laugh along with the others: Ma, myself, and Kayleigh.

  “I think I just need to get some air,” I finally said.

  “Right.” Noah patted my shoulder again, winking at the rest of the family. “Some ‘air’.”

  “Tell ‘Air’ we say hello,” Michael added.

  I wished they wouldn’t act like this. I wished they wouldn’t try to laugh it off, joke about it, pretend it was anything but inexcusable. I wished they would stop always trying to make it better.

  It wasn’t better.

  It was worse. Before I met Kayleigh, I could smile with them all. It felt like agony, yanking up the corners of my lips, but I could do it. Before I met Kayleigh, I could play along just fine: I could sing the songs, drink the mulled wine, eat the Christmas cookies. I could keep it all in, all the hurt and pain and regret, till I was finally alone. Before I met Kayleigh, before I fell for Kayleigh, it was better.

  I was numb.

  With Kayleigh I felt everything: love, joy, happiness, irritation, sure, but also hope and peace and something almost resembling forgiveness. It also meant that I felt pain, and in that moment with Ma’s eyes on me like that and Kayleigh’s on the ground like that, I couldn’t stand it.

  “I’ll be back,” was all I could say before hurrying away.

  My shoulder brushed against Kayleigh, but she didn’t seem to notice. Her eyes remained on the floor as I stepped outside the kitchen and down the hall.

  “Let’s get you an ice pack,” I heard Aubrey say to Eoin.

  “Let’s get him a Scotch!” Noah said to another, less tense, less awkward series of laughs.

  Good, I thought as I grabbed my motorcycle helmet and keys from beside the front door. They deserve to enjoy their Christmas Eve.

  I revved the engine and took off into the icy dark, knowing I wouldn’t be able to outrun the memory of Ma’s eyes on my raised fist.

  Kayleigh

  Maybe it was Eoin’s snores that kept me tossing and turning late that cold Christmas Eve night. After we’d said our goodnights to the family (minus Darren, who was nowhere to be found) and headed upstairs, he’d “called” the top bunk, practically shoving me through the hallway wall to be the first to leap up onto the spaceship-and-alien-covered bed with a loud “Yippee!” Like a little kid tuckered out after a day of playing in the snow, Eoin was asleep in less than thirty seconds.

  And snoring like a drunk walrus in forty-five.

  So maybe it was Eoin’s snores that kept me awake, staring hour after hour at the warped planks above my head. Or maybe it was because I felt cold without a pair of strong, grease-covered arms wrapped around me. Maybe it was because I missed the sear of a muddy kiss against my lips as my eyes fluttered closed. Maybe it was because I couldn’t shake the uncomfortable, inescapable, unfixable feeling that I was in the wrong room.

  But no.

  No, no, it wasn’t that. It wasn’t any of that. It was the unbearable noise coming from Eoin above me and the fact that it shook the wobbly wooden frame of the bunk bed so I lived in constant fear that it (and the 200+ pounds of muscle along with it) would collapse on me. That was it. That was the reason I couldn’t sleep.

  With a sigh, I yanked back the cowboy-and-cactus sheets and tiptoed out of the little room still crammed with a rocking horse and a shelf of Eoin’s rugby trophies and Michael’s Mathlete awards side by side. Easing the door closed behind me, I made my way down the hallway, hands held out in front of me as I squinted in the dark. I managed to not break my neck on the stairs. On the ground floor, as I was heading toward the kitchen to get a glass of water (and maybe something a little more adult), I noticed the fire in the living room was still on. So were the lights of the Christmas tree.

  There, sitting alone cross-legged on the floor beneath it, was Darren.

  I was going to turn around right then and there and slip back upstairs when the floorboard under my left heel betrayed me. The low moan might as well have been an air horn in the silence. Darren turned around and our eyes met in the soft glow of the Christmas lights.

  My cheeks warmed and it had nothing to do with the roar of the fire as I started to stammer.

  “Sorry, I was—I—”

  “Do you like hot chocolate?”

  I frowned. “Huh?”

  Darren continued to watch me as I fidgeted uncomfortably with the hem of my pink and white plaid pyjama shirt.

  “Whipped cream? Chocolate shavings?” Darren asked. “Cinnamon? How do you feel about cinnamon?”

  My jaw hung open in confusion and an amused grin played at Darren’s lips.

  “Are you smiling?” I finally asked, finding a grin of my own growing just at the sight of his.

  “I asked you several questions first that are yet to be answered,” Darren countered.

  I narrowed my eyes at him and then crossed my arms, sighed, and ran through the list. “Hot chocolate, yes. Whipped cream, yes. Chocolate shavings, double yes.” I paused and tapped my chin. “What was the last one?”

  “Cinnamon.”

  I nodded. “Cinnamon, yes,” I said. “Now, you have to answer my question.”

  Darren pushed himself to his feet and walked toward me. “What was your question?” He passed me on his way to the kitchen.

  I followed after him, completely forgetting that moments ago I was intending to run back upstairs and hide.

  As Darren disappeared behind the open refrigerator door, I said, “I asked, are you smiling?”

  Armed with whipped cream and milk, Darren kicked the fridge closed behind him and shook his head. “Definitely not,” he answered. “I am definitely not smiling.”

  I groaned as he fished cocoa powder, cinnamon, and chocolate shavings out of the cabinet.

  “Were you smiling?”

  Darren clicked his tongue as he put the saucer on the stovetop. “That’s another question entirely,” he said. “That wasn’t part of the deal.”

  With a little huff, I placed my hands on my hips. “But I answered like five of your questions,” I protested in a not-so-hushed whisper.

  Darren scooped cocoa powder into the warming milk and lifted an eyebrow as he held another spoonful suspended over the sauce pan. “More?”

  I raised an eyebrow. “That’s another question.”

  Darren shrugged and tipped over the spoon. I watched him scoop up more cocoa powder and again suspend it over the already chocolatey mix. “More?”

  I remained resolute, determined to get my answer. This time Darren poured in that spoonful, then another and another and another until, unable to stop myself from laughing, I grabbed his wrist.

  “You win, you win,” I chuckled. “No more, no more.”

  Darren smiled over at me.

  My eyes went wide. “That? Was that a smile?”

  It disappeared behind a frown as he stirred the hot chocolate. “I have no idea what in the world you’re talking about, Kayleigh,” he gr
umbled. “Perhaps you’re dreaming.”

  I grinned as I hopped up onto the counter next to the stove and wiggled my fuzzy socks back and forth. I knew I wasn’t dreaming, because if I was dreaming I could lean across the hot chocolate that filled the kitchen with the most delicious aroma and give Darren a kiss. If I was dreaming I could part my legs a little wider when Darren walked over to me. If I was dreaming he would know just what I wanted, just what I needed.

  If I was dreaming the hot chocolate would burn in the saucepan and neither of us would give a damn.

  A few minutes later we found ourselves sitting beneath the Christmas tree side by side armed with steaming mugs of hot chocolate.

  “So…I’m glad you pulled a Cindy Lou Who tonight,” Darren said, referring to my coming downstairs in the middle of the night.

  I turned to see his face lit softly as he stared up at the angel atop the tree. “You know that makes you the Grinch, right?”

  Darren looked over at me, and there was a twinkle in his eye. “I know. Trust me, I know,” he said. “Appropriate, eh?”

  I nodded. “Pretty spot on.”

  Darren laughed. I thought he might return his gaze to the tree and the pretty little lights, but he didn’t. He continued to stare at me as his eyes softened and his smile faded. “I wanted to apologise,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “I wanted to apologise for letting things get this far.”

  I immediately shook my head. “Darren, I—”

  “Kayleigh, I pushed too hard,” he interrupted. “I crossed the line that I never should have crossed.”

  “Darren, plea—”

  “I love my family and somewhere along the line I stopped putting them first and started putting my wants, my needs, my…desires first,” he continued, the passion clear despite the hush of his whisper. “I can’t hurt Eoin. I can’t hurt my family.”

  I reached out my hand to grab his, but Darren pulled it away from me before I could. I looked up into his waiting eyes.

  “I wanted you to know that you were right,” he whispered. “And I wanted you to know that I’m going to back off. I’m going to let you and Eoin be happy together.” Darren smiled again, but it wasn’t like the smiles before.

  A sadness tugged at my chest, because I wasted those few, honest, real smiles. I should have held on to them. I would have, if I knew they were all I would get.

  This time Darren did return his gaze to the Christmas tree above us. He sipped his mug with a casualness like he hadn’t just ripped something away from me without warning. Darren looked at the tree. I continued to look at him.

  I wanted to tell him that he was wrong. He didn’t let things get too far, we did. If he pushed too far, then I pulled too far. If there was a line crossed, it was crossed hand in hand, heart in heart, soul in soul, together.

  I wanted to him that I was wrong. I wanted to tell him that what I said in the backyard was out of fear, not truth. I wanted to tell him I didn’t want him to back off. I wanted more, more, more.

  Not of Eoin.

  Of him.

  I opened my mouth to spill all of this to him, like cutting open my very heart and watching it bleed across the rug, when Darren spoke first.

  “I got you something,” he said. “Something for Christmas.”

  I remembered back to the ice-skating rink: Darren beneath me, his eyes bright in the cocoon of my hair around his face as he looked up at me. I’d told him I had no clue what I was getting him for Christmas. I’d told him I hadn’t even thought about it, not in the slightest.

  “I do.”

  That’s what he’d said. I remembered being certain he was lying.

  “You do?” I had asked.

  He had smiled before saying, “I know exactly what I’m getting you for Christmas, Kayleigh Scott.”

  And I had believed him. I had believed him more than I had believed anything else before that.

  I set aside my mug as Darren crawled beneath the ornament-laden branches and pulled out from the very back a simple box wrapped in butcher’s paper and twine. He placed it in my hands and then kissed me on the cheek.

  “Wait, where are you going?” I asked as he stood and brushed some needles from his hair. “Don’t you want to watch me open it?”

  Darren winked down at me. “I already know what it is.”

  He turned to leave as I stared down at the little bow tie, brushing my thumb over the butcher’s paper.

  “Oh, and Kayleigh?”

  I glanced over my shoulder at him.

  “Yes,” was all he said.

  I frowned in confusion. “Yes?”

  Darren nodded with his hands stuffed into the pockets of his dark hoodie. “The answer to your question,” he explained. “Yes.”

  And without a word more he disappeared into the dark of the hallway. I heard his boots on the stairs and then I was plunged into a silence broken only by the rapid beating of my heart in my ears. I couldn’t remember being this excited for a gift in years.

  My fingers tugged at the twine and I carefully peeled back the butcher’s paper. I peeked inside and tried to fight back the feeling of disappointment at the sight of an A/C condenser box. Hey, it was at least a very practical gift. I opened the lid.

  But inside was not an A/C condenser at all. Inside was a beautiful new leather tool belt. I pulled it out and laid it across my lap, fingers tracing along all the hooks and pockets. I laughed at myself when I found my eyes watering over Darren’s gift. I wasn’t crying because it was a tool belt; I was crying because it was more than that.

  It was someone’s belief in me.

  It was a future.

  It was a passion I’d struggled all my life to find.

  I almost didn’t notice that it was embossed. If I hadn’t been crying before, I was then:

  Kayleigh Scott: Mechanic.

  It was an identity.

  I hugged the tool belt to my chest and found my tears shifting to tears of heartache. Darren gave me everything I could have wanted for Christmas, except for the one thing he could not give, the one thing he could never give: himself.

  And it was all I wanted. In that moment beneath the tree, I knew it—Darren was all I wanted.

  Were you smiling? I’d asked.

  Yes.

  Kayleigh

  I woke up Christmas morning to the pounding of Eoin’s feet on the stairs, the clatter of pots and pans in the kitchen amongst laughter, and the faint sound of carols from the old record player tucked behind the oversized fir in the living room. I couldn’t help but grin like a child again.

  It was the Christmas morning I’d always dreamed of, year after disappointed year, when I was young.

  When I was as child, running down the stairs to see what Santa left me “might wake up your father, Kayleigh.” There was no fresh batch of cinnamon rolls steaming from the oven. It was cold cereal and even colder “hot chocolate”. We hadn’t even owned a record player. There was no music, no Christmas carols. There was just silence and nervous twitches at anything and everything that broke that silence.

  But the O’Sullivan house on Christmas morning was loud and chaotic and I loved it.

  Still in his reindeer pyjamas that seemed about two sizes too small for him, Eoin was rummaging underneath the Christmas tree, tossing present after present behind him like a terrier digging for a bone. Aubrey in a pink fluffy sweater and even fluffier pink slippers was biting her nails and giving nervous instructions as Noah assured her again and again that he “had it” while attempting to flip a massive omelette in the cast iron skillet on the stove. Michael hurried out of the way, phone tucked protectively against his chest, as the yellow omelette flipped end over end in the air. Ma popped a bottle of champagne to celebrate the omelette not splatting on the kitchen floor, and before I could even say “good morning” I was handed an overflowing mimosa from Michael, a mug of hot chocolate with a mountain of whipped cream from Aubrey, and when I quickly ran out of hands, Ma prompted me to open my mouth for a heaping b
ite of cinnamon roll.

  I grinned as sweet cream, butter, or both trailed down my chin, and I didn’t even bother to wipe it off before getting whipped cream on the tip of my nose from a sip of hot chocolate.

  “Kayleigh Scott, how unladylike!” my mother would have chastised, reaching immediately for a napkin or bottle of bleach.

  No one in the O’Sullivan family pointed out my messy face or tried to offer anything to clean myself up with because they all had messes of their own. Messes and smiles and noise: the way life should be.

  “Presents, presents!” Eoin shouted impatiently from the living room.

  I glanced over my shoulder and couldn’t stop myself from laughing at the sight of Eoin cross-legged on the floor with a bottle of champagne in his lap and the presents for everyone organised in small clusters along the furniture.

  “Are children supposed to have alcohol?” Michael joked, heading toward the living room nonetheless.

  Aubrey and Noah each kissed my cheek and wished me “Merry Christmas” before following after Michael. I moved to put my mimosa and hot chocolate on the counter, but Ma stopped me.

  “Oh, but I wouldn’t want to spill on the rug,” I said.

  Ma chuckled as she lifted the huge tray that nearly sagged under the weight of the fresh cinnamon rolls.

  “Don’t worry, dear,” she smiled at me. “I’m sure one of the boys will beat you to the punch.”

  Eoin and Noah bellowed in the living room and threw up their hands.

  “Michael, you idiot!” Noah shouted.

  “I was reaching for my phone,” Michael said as he patted at the spilled mimosa with a holly-printed napkin.

  Ma turned back to wink at me before carrying the cinnamon rolls into the living room. Casting away the image of my own mother’s bony finger wagging, I scooped up into my arms champagne, hot chocolate, a can of whipped cream, and snowflake sprinkles, because why the hell not!

  I paused just outside the living room and took in the merry sight of the family joking, laughing, smiling, snuggling, smearing whipped cream on each other’s faces. In my eyes they were perfect, simply perfect.