Wrong in All the Right Ways

by Tiffany Brownlee

  We pass around plates and then the boxes of pizza, each person taking two slices for themselves. It’s not the usual Ellenburg family dinner that’s filled with random banter about how everyone’s day went. Tonight, all of the attention and interest are on Dylan.

  “I’m sorry about your room,” my mom says. “Emma took her queen mattress and wrought iron bedframe to the pool house. We were expecting to bring home a boy around Matthew’s age and thought a smaller bed would be more fitting. Now obviously, that twin bed isn’t going to do you much good, so I’ve ordered you a bigger bed, which should be in tomorrow. But for tonight, is it okay if you take the couch?”

  “No worries, Mrs. Ellenburg. Believe me, I’ve slept on worse.” He laughs, but no one else joins in with him. Once again, it occurs to me that I know nothing about him or his past. I’m curious to know what horrific thing happened to him that led to him being placed in foster care as well as how many foster families he’s had, but I don’t ask about it now. His deep, dark secrets are hardly appropriate for dinner conversation, especially with Matthew listening. He’s still young and so impressionable that we’re not even allowed to curse in front of him—even though I know for a fact that both of my parents love to use colorful words.

  “You can call me Mom, if you want.” Mom’s trying to bridge the gap of awkward silence with something light and fluffy; she doesn’t handle discomfort well. “Or Lauren, if Mom doesn’t feel right. Whatever makes you comfortable.”

  “Thanks.” Dylan’s mouth stretches into a grin that resembles that of a clown: deceiving and full of secrets. What’s he hiding?

  As he looks away from Mom, he catches my eyes. I mouth the words I’m sorry across the table, and I see him make an arc motion with his hand, as if to say that it’s water under the bridge. I lean back in my seat, finally able to relax again.

  “What’s your favorite color?” Matthew asks, pointing his half-eaten pizza crust at Dylan. We’ve told him a million times that pointing is rude, but then again, he’s only seven. We can’t expect him to be as refined as the rest of the family yet.

  Blue, I answer for him in my head. I know I’m right just by looking at him. The blue in his T-shirt and shoes is a dead giveaway. People always wear their favorite color the most.

  “It’s blue.”

  “Mine is green. What’s your favorite book?”

  “I’m a big Harry Potter fan.” Dylan holds up his pizza crust as if it’s a wand and casts a fake spell on Matthew. “That series will always be close to my heart.”

  “Emma has all of the movies. Maybe we can watch them together sometime,” Matthew suggests.

  “Maybe.” Our eyes meet again, and a flutter jolts through me. But it doesn’t last long; Matthew’s asking his next question before a full smile can spread across my face.

  “What about your favorite—”

  “Matthew, let’s ease up on the interrogation. We haven’t even touched on his hobbies yet. What are you into, son?”

  Dylan swallows hard when he hears the word son come out of my father’s mouth. I know my dad doesn’t mean it literally—he calls Matthew’s friends son as well, but something about it feels alarming now. “I-I’m not the biggest sports fan,” he admits after taking a sip from his glass. “I’m more into the arts. Painting, sketching, sculpting. That kind of stuff. More painting than anything, though.” I watch as my father sets down his piece of pizza and clasps his hands, darting his eyes toward Dylan, who quickly edits himself. “Not saying I don’t like to play sports. It’s just that it’s always come second to my art.” He stuffs a piece of pizza crust into his mouth, and I can’t help but snort, trying to hold back a laugh.

  “Well, Dad, I guess Matthew is your last hope for a baseball star. Hopefully he has good hand-eye coordination.” I pat my dad’s shoulder, faux apologetically, and sneak a look at Dylan. He’s smart. He got out early, I think to myself.

  “Did you used to play baseball in high school and college?” Dylan asks, ignoring my interjection and turning the conversation back to my dad.

  “Here we go,” I whisper under my breath. “You’ve done it now.”

  “Speak up, Emma. I’ve told you about the mumbling. It’s not very ladylike,” my dad snaps.

  “Just wondering if you’d like me to start cleaning up, Dad.” Before he can answer, I pick up his plate, which has four pizza crusts on it, and head to the kitchen to avoid his walk down memory lane. I’ve heard my dad’s stories so many times that I know them by heart now.

  “I went pro when I was only nineteen years old, played for seventeen years, and became the youngest batter ever to get over two hundred hits in a single season…”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I catch sight of Dylan. He’s nodding his head and grunting every once in a while, but I know he’s not into it. I mean, he did just say that he’s not a sports person. But my dad has no clue that this is happening; he just keeps going on and on about the “good ol’ days” like he usually does when we have a new guest in the house. I don’t blame him, though. He hardly ever gets to talk baseball with us anymore. Mom and I have outgrown his stories from the big leagues, and Matthew is too young to fully understand them all, so my dad must be ecstatic to have someone new to tell them to.

  I shuffle through the kitchen, eavesdropping on their conversation until I can no longer hear what they are saying. I expect they are talking about his adjustment here and going over the rules, so I start to clean up the kitchen. As I fill the sink with dishwater, I let myself get lost in thought. The only thing that keeps passing through my mind is Dylan. He seems like he’s gonna be a good fit for our family, and I’m surprised that I’m kind of all right with having him here, since just this morning I was still on the fence about the whole thing. And aside from the confrontation we had at the top of the stairs, he seems to be pretty nice, too. I mean, I haven’t seen my dad talk and smile this much in a long time.

  The “welcome home” festivities don’t last much longer, and after Mom and Dad remind us that it’s a school night, we take our showers and retire to our bedrooms—well, Matthew and I do. Dylan has to get comfortable on the sofa tonight.

  I’m just about to crawl into bed, when I notice that the pool lights are still on. Dad has been on my case about remembering to turn them off, and if I’m going to get (and stay) on his good side, I need to start remembering to do my only chore.

  My fingers are a second away from flipping the switch when I see Dylan exit the back door of the house and lie down in the grass near the edge of the pool, his arm hooked over the back of his head. After a minute or two, he closes his eyes.

  Confused, I rush outside. “I know Mom messed up your sleeping arrangements, but come on, the sofa isn’t that bad,” I joke as I approach him.

  “I’m just admiring the sky. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen the stars. Too much light pollution in Los Angeles.”

  “Yeah. They are pretty amazing, aren’t they?” He closes his eyes once again, and I can’t help but wonder how he’s “admiring the sky” if his eyes are closed. Maybe some of his screws really are loose, and he failed to mention that to my parents before they brought him home. “I’m sorry, again,” I say to fill the silence between us. “I know I said it earlier, but I just wanted to reiterate it. I don’t know why I assumed that about you. It was very wrong of me.”

  “You haven’t gotten over that yet?” he asks, opening his left eye and patting the ground, inviting me to sit with him for a moment. “I was over that when the conversation ended. I don’t hold grudges. It’s emotionally draining.”

  “I agree. It is.” I lie back on the grass and look up into the sky in silenced bewilderment. Why are we lying in the grass when we’ve both taken showers already? Isn’t this defeating the purpose?

  “I don’t remember much from the actual accident. I blacked out from blood loss before we even made it to the hospital,” Dylan rattles off as if I know what he’s talking about. It takes me a minute to realize that he’s
talking about his scar again.

  I feel my breath start to shorten as he talks about his old wounds. There’s a reason that I never dreamed of becoming a doctor, and I’m reminded of the impossibility of this career option whenever I hear someone talk about blood and broken bones and other gory things like that.

  I’m so busy trying to redirect my thoughts away from the image he’s creating that I don’t catch the end of what he’s saying. Instead, I’m wondering whether I should take another shower when I get back inside.

  It’s quiet, I observe after a moment. Should I say something so things don’t get too weird? I pull my hair over my left shoulder and begin to braid it while I think of something to say to fill the void. I wonder what he’s thinking about. Is he thinking about his family? Is he thinking about us? Is he thinking about … me? I’m halfway down my mane when I figure out how to start a conversation with him. “So how does it feel? Has it all sunk in yet?”

  In his set of navy blue pajamas, he looks over at me and then shakes his head. His hair is wet from the shower, and a couple drops find their way to me as he answers my question. “Nope. I still feel like I’m gonna wake up tomorrow and have this all be a dream. Like I should still be in LA. It just doesn’t feel real yet.”

  “Well, believe it, bro,” I say leaning up on my elbows. Bro? That was a weird thing to say; I’ve never called Matthew bro. “This is your life now, so start enjoying it.” He’s quiet for a moment, and out of the corner of my eye, I catch him looking at me. When I meet his gaze, he doesn’t look away. “What?”

  He closes his eyes once more, before answering. “What’s our school like?”

  “Oh, it’s nothing special. Just a place where a bunch of popular, yet dumb, girls and guys convene to cheat off of each other to matriculate into their dream party-central, I mean college. Not too different from any other high school, I’m sure.”

  “Matriculate,” he repeats. “Big-word points for you.” I smile and wait for him to speak again. “Sounds like fun. So … you’re not popular, I’m guessing?” I furl my eyebrows and tilt my head to the side as if to ask why he would say such a thing. “I’m only asking because you called them dumb. Nobody would describe themselves as dumb to a total stranger, new foster sibling or not.”

  He’s wittier than I initially gave him credit for, I think to myself.

  “No, I’m not. Quite the opposite, actually,” I admit with a frown. “But I don’t care. Pretty soon, I’m going to graduate and move on to college, while they learn how to shotgun a beer.”

  “You don’t like it? School, I mean.”

  “The social part of it, no. I’d rather walk slowly across hot coals every hour, on the hour, for the rest of my life than to go to that place every day. It’s mostly a hellhole, aside from the learning-new-things part. I like that part very much.” I don’t feel like venting my feelings anymore, so I turn the conversation back on him. “You’re gonna be the center of attention tomorrow, so get ready.”

  “Why?” he says, opening his eyes once more.

  “Because you’re new and mysterious, and you kind of look like pre-Miley Liam Hemsworth—so without the beard—and with brown eyes instead of blue.”

  I imagine him coming home with a notebook full of girls’ numbers, and another wave of jealousy washes over my body. He’s going to be popular. I just know it. He’s going to spend one day at my high school and end up doing the one thing that I couldn’t for four whole years.

  “Yep,” I say, rolling my eyes, “they’re gonna be all over you.”

  “Who’s Liam Hemsworth?”

  “Ha, very funny,” I say, pushing his shoulder playfully. I’m surprised that I can feel his muscles; for a guy who isn’t into sports, he’s sure built like an athlete. “You know, the little brother of that actor who plays Thor in all the superhero movies with the perfectly messy brown hair, toned biceps, and dreamy blue eyes.”

  “‘Dreamy blue eyes’? You mean like yours?” The hair on my arms rises slowly as the aura of electricity settles around us, and it isn’t long before I feel my cheeks and ears grow warm.

  “Yeah, sure.” I look away from him, but I can still feel his eyes dancing across my face, as if he’s trying to memorize the precise placement of every freckle on my nose and cheeks. “It’s getting late. I’ll, uh … I’ll see you in the morning. Okay?”

  “Sounds good.”

  Leaving him to lounge on the ground, I set the pool lights to turn off in two hours, just in case he wants to lie out there and gaze—with closed eyes—at the stars a bit longer.

  I toss and turn all night, my mind alternating between thinking and dreaming about Dylan and the last seconds of our conversation by the pool. I know that he’s going to be my official brother on paper one day, but a piece of me wants to explore the side of Dylan that I saw before we parted ways tonight. The side that I think was flirting with me.

  chapter 3

  SURPRISINGLY, I’M OKAY sharing my school with Dylan. Throughout the day, I am so engrossed in my schoolwork that I forget he is even here with me. That is, until lunch.

  “I don’t know. Sorry,” I say to yet another girl who comes up to ask about Dylan’s relationship status. If he was on Instagram, I could just redirect them to stalk his account. Alas, he is not. “Why don’t you ask him yourself?” I don’t mean to sound as harsh as I do, but she is the fifth girl today who has come up to ask me the same question, and my tolerance level is dropping.

  “I figured you knew if he was dating anyone. You are his sister, anyway.” Sister? Not yet, as Dylan made clear to me last night.

  “I just met him yesterday. So that brings the amount of time of me knowing him to, I don’t know, seventeen hours. But wait, subtract the eight hours we spent sleeping last night and the five I’ve spent at school today, and that leaves me with four. Four hours. Now, do you think that his romantic involvement with another girl was at the top of my list of things to find out about him?” I don’t know why I’m all of a sudden overcome with rage, but once I start talking, the words spill out uncontrollably. “Well?”

  “Sorry I asked.” She grabs her tray and leaves without another word, and I do the same. I’m not going to continue to eat my lunch out in the open and put myself in a position to be showered with questions about Dylan’s love life. I retreat to the only open classroom in the school during lunch hours: the art room.

  “You know, you’d probably have more friends if you actually stuck around to talk to people during your free time,” someone says from behind an easel as I set my backpack and calculus book down on the table. I don’t need to see their face to know that it’s Dylan. Though I’ve only known him for about seventeen—or, okay, four—hours, I’m able to recognize his voice pretty easily.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t know anyone was in here.” I grab my things and start for the door. “I’ll just go. Sorry.”

  “Oh, please, stay. I like a little company when I’m working on something.”

  I set my things back down and make my way around the easel to take a look at his creation. It’s the image of someone’s eyes. At first glance, it looks like any other picture of blue eyes, but as I stare longer, I see another image emerge: in the center of the eyes, where the pupil should be, is the reflection of a night’s sky. The way he captured the swirls of the clouds and the sparkle of the stars and moon within the blue irises is so detailed that I get lost in it. I knew that he was artsy, but he is much better than I imagined him to be.

  “Wow” is all I can get out, and even then, it comes out as a whisper.

  “Thanks,” he says, raising his arms above his head to stretch. “This image has been in my mind since yesterday. I couldn’t sleep last night because of it.”

  “I couldn’t sleep last night, either.” I’m a little embarrassed now that I’ve seen his painting. He wasn’t trying to flirt last night when he was staring into my eyes, but rather trying to study the image in them long enough so that he could artistically regurgitate it onto h
is canvas. “I hope you don’t mind me asking, but shouldn’t you be out mixing and mingling with your future friends and girlfriends?”

  “There will be plenty of time for that. But right now, this has my attention.” He starts to mix some colors together, and as he does, his tongue pokes out between his lips. The concentration on his face is intense, yet inspiring. “So what about you? Why aren’t you chatting it up with your clique, or posse, or whatever you girls call yourselves these days?”

  “I would be with my crew … if I had one.” I can feel his eyes on me as I start to pick at the dark purple polish on my nails. “It makes no sense to start making any friends now. I mean, I’m graduating soon. I’ll hang out with them this year and then forget all about them once I leave this place. Seems like a waste of time and emotion.”

  “I guess that makes sense.” He must have finished mixing, because he picks up his brush again and starts adding more stars and constellations to the reflection of the sky with the newly created color. “So is that why you’ve elected to come here? To avoid making friends?”

  “Well, actually, I’m hiding. Girls have been harassing me all day trying to get me to spill the juicy details of your love life. I guess they’re too intimidated to ask you themselves.”

  He lets out a laugh and picks up a smaller brush to add some detail to the shape of the moon. “So, your ideal way to spend lunch on the run is doing homework?” I follow his eyes to the calculus book on the desk.

  A flash of burning red flushes across my cheeks and up to my ears. “You probably think I’m a huge nerd—”

  “Your words, not mine.” He chuckles, turning back to his canvas. “Is it not going to get done at home?”

  “No, it will. I never don’t do homework.” I blink hard at my last comment; nothing coming out of my mouth is helping to refute this nerd status I’ve established.

  “Then I’m sure you won’t mind breaking away for an art lesson. That is, unless you have other nerdy obligations to tend to.” I purse my lips as he tosses a smock in my direction, which I catch with one hand. “Looks like you have inherited your dad’s hand-eye coordination. Matt isn’t his last hope after all.”