You Want Brothers? Take. That. Back.

Progress

That night I ended up sleeping way later than advised, and for three specific reasons. 

One, the house was fucking hot.

 Two, I was sent to bed hours before I usually get tired 

And three, part of me was contemplating the current dynamic set in the house. 

While knowing my birthday was days away, Justin and Nathan decided to ground me and set up punishments I will dreadfully and inevitably "find" the next morning. Their inability to treat me like a person while our parents are away scares me and Brandon and Kyle can't keep getting me out of these situations. 

The frustration of not being able to overpower them or change my fate keeps me up for another 20 minutes until I decide I'm either going to drown in my thoughts or physically burn up in the heat of my own bedroom. I don't bother to check the time as I slowly stand up from my bed and leave my chambers.

 Squinting at the adjustment in light, I can see that Evan and Kyle were still up. 

Tiptoeing like a fucking mouse I creep past their slightly ajar doors, careful my shadow doesn't flicker their lights and quietly descend the stairs. 

When I was much younger and 17-year-old Nathan would be left in charge, Evan and I were much closer. Often nights he would sneak over to my room hours passed our bedtime after teaching me how to go down the stairs in the quietest manner during the day. The technique consisted of lifting my foot in a heel to toe order and placing it back on the next stair in the same order. I would follow behind him, on the very side of the stairs where the wood was the strongest and wouldn't creak. We would either sneak out and play on the swings in a nearby park or sit under the stairs and watch horror movies.

My love for horror began here, as the whole purpose of staying up past our bedtime was to teach me to get over the initial terror of scary movies. I had insisted one weekend that I would be able to sit through a scary movie without even fully knowing what that meant. The cost of the event brought me to tears and only Brandon could calm me down. Nathan had cruelly kept me in the room during the movie, threatening to set an early bedtime if I chickened out so I ended up cowering in Brandon's lap which is where the never ending teasing began. 

I was humiliated that they saw me at such a vulnerable state, already determined to build my walls at the mere age of seven and turned to Evan for training. It didn't take much convincing, as he needed an excuse to stay up anyway, before we formed the plan to sneak out every night. 

The day we got caught brought a plethora of reactions to the family. Nathan found it ridiculous, Justin found it pathetic, Cole found it cute, and Kyle was sad we didn't include him. 

Once the initial reason behind watching movies together so late in the night surfaced, they only teased me further-causing an awkward tension between Evan and I and the beginning of our separation.

He began siding with my brothers more often and treating me more with mockery than empathy, more patronization than understanding. It took a tole on my self image and I felt the need to be even stronger to convince them against their preexisting beliefs of me. Already being the only girl, I identified with isolation and hatred towards them through this transition in relationships which was now reflected in our current household. Once again, mom and dad are out of the picture and the events that happen while they're gone are one sided and harsh.  

Evan and I are now the least close, which breaks my heart to think about since it seems like yesterday he was encouraging and protecting me from our older brothers. Though this applies to everyone, Evan and I have drifted the farthest away-to the point where he physically scares me. Years ago I would have felt safe wrestling him because I knew he would have let me win, but today he could have genuinely hurt me.