Free How to Say I Love You Out Loud by Karole Cozzo Page B

any better?” I ask bitterly. “They might not say it out loud, but they’d still be thinking it. I’d almost rather hear them say it, hear what they
really
think, than have to wonder what they’re saying when I’m not listening.”
    Alex doesn’t argue with me but he sits quietly for a few minutes before asking something of me. “How come you never told
me
? I can’t believe you never said anything .
. . at some point.”
    He glances toward me and our eyes connect like magnets. I think of the other bonfire we spent together and remember everything. I choke out a weak explanation.
    “It’s just complicated; everything with my brother is.”
    “I can’t believe it’s too complicated to
talk
about,” he argues back.
    I swallow back my frustration. What’s so hard to understand?
    “At my house? Phillip defines everything. It’s about Phillip, all the time. I get why, sure, but that doesn’t mean I don’t ever get sick and tired of it being that
way.” I take a deep breath, which suddenly sounds shaky again. I wait until the trace of tears disappears. “I just get tired. Of being the bigger person, of being expected to deal with
it
all
the time, every single day.” I shake my head. “Most of the time, I just don’t feel like talking about Phillip.”
    “I understand. A lot of shit’s not fair. People take their lives for granted, how easy they can be. You
know
I get that,” he finishes, alluding to life with his
mother, I’m sure. “What I don’t get is why you kept that a secret for over a
year
. At least from me, all things considered. Like, a whole person, you just never
mentioned.”
    “There are lots of reasons why I didn’t broadcast the news,” I tell him. “Before Phillip was placed in a school that was right for him, he went to school with me,
elementary school.” My teeth grind together in anger. “You know how in kindergarten, we all knew how to be nice to each other?” I roll my eyes, thinking of the corny analogies
teachers used to share, likening different kids to the rainbow of crayons in the box, reminding us we were all different but still all beautiful and special. Then I shake my head. “Well, kids
lose that ability really quickly. By about third grade, kids get mean. And they were.”
    I inhale a deep breath before getting into it. Remembering the story in full, actually feeling it . . . I’m nine years old all over again, confused, and sad, and lonely, and a little bit
scared. Scared that something I have no control over can alter my life in a second.
    “The older kids on the bus would imitate him. They would whisper or draw back when he walked by. And the whispers weren’t just about Phillip. They were about me, too. I can’t
tell you how many freakin’ times I heard ‘that’s his sister’ being whispered when I walked by once people put two and two together.”
    I shake my head. “I didn’t know those kids, so I told myself it didn’t matter that much. And I had friends.”
    Caroline.
    I usually try not to think her name.
    I remember Caroline clear as day, with her feathery brown hair, blue-gray eyes, and deep dimples. She’d been my best friend since forever.
    “But it was, like, one day during third grade, out of nowhere, who my brother was meant something. It meant something bad.”
    Between kindergarten and third grade, Caroline had spent countless hours at my house. There were sleepovers with Pizza Hut on Friday nights and watching the Saturday morning lineup from our
sleeping bags when we woke up. There were fall afternoons spent in my tree house “cooking” meals of leaves and acorns as we played house. Most memories from my childhood involved
Caroline.
    “One day,” I explain to Alex, “my best friend was over during a really bad time with my brother. It got kind of scary, he was really out of control, and she started
crying.” Caroline actually wet her pants, but I don’t tell that part out of some silly lingering sense of