sheâs whatâs dangerous about the place where they live.
Her brother: he still looks like a little boy to Ellie. He was shorter than most of his classmates in middle school, and rounder. Ellieâs mom would rub her hands over his cheeks and smile at him and Ellieâd want to grab her momâs hand and remindher she was hers. But then suddenly, sometime at the end of middle school, heâd shot straight up, all crooked aimless height and limbs, twisted and folded and hanging over couches, curled up in the backseat of the car.
âMomâs pissed,â he says, walking to the left of her, separating Ellie from the street.
âI donât want to talk about it, Benny.â
âEl.â
âWhatâs it like?â she says. âBeing the good one. Donât you get bored?â
âPlease, El.â He looks angry.
She doesnât want to hear his answer.
He says, âThe only person whoâs allowed to think in terms of what they want in our family is you.â
She wants to start again. Her brother is the only person in the world she always likes.
âIâm sorry, Benny,â she says. âIâm trying this time, though, okay? Please?â
âSure,â he says, not looking at her.
âAnd youâre free of me now anyway. Sheâs shipping me off, and youâre a college kid.â She loops her arm through his elbow. He keeps his arm limp, but doesnât pull away. âSeems like youâre having plenty of fun up at school.â
He called her the second month of classes. Heâd tried LSD. There had briefly been a girlfriend. Heâd been crying. Her little brother. He sounded six years old. A friend of his had had the tabs and theyâd slipped them on their tongues and let them melt while sitting on the dirty couch at some off-campus party. âOh, Benny,â she kept saying, as he blubbered at her, âitâs not the seventies.â
âMy mind is wild ,â he said.
Ellie swallowed a laugh.
âI canât make it stop,â her brother said.
Heâd run out of the party. The music was too loud, he told her. It was too hot. There were too many people. Too, too, too. Heâd run out onto the street and almost been run over by a Camry.
Even the cars that almost hit him were reasonable and good.
Sheâd talked to him until he fell asleep. He became more and more coherent and she ached to go to him. To curl up with him in his tiny dorm bed and tell stories like they had when they were little. He hated soccer. Heâd met a girl. Ellieâd seen her Facebook pictures. Sheâd texted her brother immediately. âStay away,â sheâd said. It took a girl like her to know another one. And then the week after that Benny called with the LSD scare, and once theyâd hung up Ellie couldnât help but smile at herself. Her poor sweet brother: heâd called her.
âI thought Iâd be so happy to be free of all your shit,â he says now. He bumbles through, but talks more than he maybe ever has. Ellie eats slowly, mostly picking at her omelet, watching her brother form before her eyes.
âBut you know the most fucked-up thing?â he says. âYouâre the only person I can talk to. Youâre awful and you continue to make everybody elseâs life impossible, but I still think about you all the time and worry whether youâre okay.â
It was the way she seemed to always be suggesting that there was something somewhere that she could be doing that was more exciting than the thing everyone else was doing around her, he said. The way she had a place she went sometimes when she was right in front of you that could make you feel like, nomatter what you did or said, it wasnât as good as what she was refusing to do or say in front of you.
Before he left heâd felt it was his job, in the face of her, to act as some kind of corrective for their parents. He