Free Three Weeks With My Brother by Nicholas Sparks, Micah Sparks Page A

help feeling envious, for no matter what I had done during the day, nothing ever seemed to be as exciting as what he was doing.
    Around that time, we had our first fight. I can’t remember what we’d been arguing about, but one thing led to the next, and fists were flying. He punched me in the stomach, knocking the wind out of me, and slammed me to the ground. Soon, he was on top of me and hitting me over and over. I was helpless to defend myself, absorbing blow after blow. The next thing I remember is the sound of my mother screaming. Jerking Micah up, she swatted him before sending him to his room. He skulked off, and as I struggled to my feet, my mom reached for my arm.
    “What happened?”
    “He hates me!” I cried.
    Even then, I didn’t know whether my pain or humiliation was worse, and when my mom tried to comfort me, I shook her hand from my arm.
    “Leave me alone!” Turning away, I began to run.
    I didn’t know where I was going, all I knew was that I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I didn’t want to see anyone. I didn’t want to be small, I didn’t want to live in Nebraska, and I didn’t want anyone’s pity. All I wanted was for things to be the way they used to be, and I kept going and going, as if somehow hoping to make time move in reverse.
    Later, I found myself at the railroad tracks, some distance from home. I sat beneath a tree, watching for the train. The trains were always on schedule, and I knew that another train would follow an hour after the next. I told myself that I would stay until both of them went by. But when they did, I barely noticed them. Instead I sat with my face in my hands, shoulders quaking, wishing that our fight had never happened, and crying as I’d never cried before.
    I could feel my family’s eyes on me when I finally walked in the door. By then it was dark, and everyone was seated at the table, but my mom seemed to understand that I wasn’t hungry, and she simply nodded when I asked if it was okay if I could go to my room. Or rather, our room. Again, the three of us were sharing a room, and in the darkness I lay down on my bed and stared at the ceiling.
    While my anger had subsided, I was confused. I told myself that I wanted to be alone, that it was better for me to handle my feelings in my own way, yet I couldn’t shake the desire I had for my mother to come into the room. Like most children, I believed that attention somehow equaled love, and of the three children I got less of the former, implying less of the latter. Micah, after all, had always been treated like an adult and because he was the first to experience everything from walking to talking to getting into trouble, he received the attention granted to those who occupy the head of the line. My sister on the other hand—both the youngest and the only girl—was accorded almost double privileges. She spent more time with my mom than either my brother or I, had fewer chores, seldom got in trouble, and was the only one of us who got more than one pair of shoes at a time, the reason being, “She’s a girl.”
    More often than not, I was beginning to feel left out.
    The knock didn’t come for an hour, and by then, I was feeling downright sorry for myself.
    “Come in,” I said, and sitting up in bed, I wondered what my mom was going to say. When the door opened, however, it wasn’t my mom who entered the room. Instead, it was Dana.
    “Hi,” she said.
    “Oh, hey,” I said, glancing over her shoulder. “Is mom coming?”
    “I don’t know. She wanted me to ask if you were hungry.”
    “No,” I lied.
    My sister came and sat on the bed. With long sandy-blond hair parted in the middle, pale skin and freckles, she looked like Jan Brady on early episodes of The Brady Bunch .
    “Does your stomach hurt?”
    “No.”
    “Are you still mad at Micah?”
    “No. I don’t even care about him anymore.”
    “Oh.”
    “I mean, he doesn’t care about me, right?”
    “Right.”
    “And neither does