It Was You For Me

3

When James and I were back inside after I balled my eyes out for what he did, my father held an ice pack to my head as I fixed on the spects and blinked through my blurry vision with puffy red eyelids.

"You could've broken his spects, James." My mother said, opening and closing cabinets in the kitchen, looking for something.

"How was I supposed to know he wasn't wearing that," James paused, popping a crisp from the packet he was holding in his hands into his mouth, "string thingy."

He was motioning his free hand around the side of his neck, trying to show my mother —who wasn't watching— what he meant.

I didn't always put  that black string onto the spects unless I was in the park, and didn't want them to fall off. I could never show them off at school, not when Carrie Bailey got hers made fun of by our classmates. They said she looked like the librarian, and I didn't want to look like the little male version.

"You didn't have to know. You didn't have to hit him in the head either." My mother exhaled with a sigh, not at James, but at finally finding what she was looking for. A bread knife.

"We were playing football. He shouldn't have had them on in the first place." James half whined and I could tell it was taking everything in him not to roll his eyes in exhaustion of explaining himself.

He popped another crisp into his mouth and sucked the flavor off his thumb and index finger.

"Well you still hurt your brother, Jay." Our mother turned around and eyed him with that look that mom's always have on their faces when they don't want to compete about who's right and who's wrong. 'Mother knows best', is what the look leads by. "Apologize to him so we can get on with welcoming our new neighbors."

A smile itched at the corners of my lips, and I pursed them together.

James' mouth opened to say something, but then he paused when the buzzing of his phone alerted him and he pulled it out of his back pocket to examine the caller ID. He shone a smug smile at the screen of the telephone and clicked his tongue before putting the phone to the side.

"Do we really have to make a big deal out of this right now?" He asked, half distracted by the caller.

My father let out a breath, "Would you apologize already Jay, it really shouldn't be this difficult to have you say 'sorry' to your little brother."

James tapped on his phone screen and put it half way to his ear as he started toward me, out the open kitchen and into the dining area, "Alright, alright." He said, crouching down to my father and I's level in the dining chairs, "Baby brother, I do surely apologize for bouncing the ball off your head and knocking off your spects." After what he meant to be his heartfelt words, he brought his lips to my forehead and I reached out to shove him away, not wanting the physical contact, but unfortunately, he'd got his way, "Is that good?" He asked while treading backwards around the corner in a hurry.

My mother watched him in disbelief as he hurried off, my father pinching the bridge of his nose as he put down the icebag and stood to his feet. He started for the kitchen with a shake of his head.

"I hate it when he calls me his baby brother." I scowled, rubbing at my forehead with the material of my sleeves.

James' lips were cold, and damp. And my body was crawling in disgust.

"Well you are his baby brother, love." My mother let out a chuckle as she watched me struggle with scratching off James from my skin.

"But I'm not a baby!"

"You're my baby." She cooed.

I didn't know when she'd gotten to me, but she moved my hands out of sight and pecked where James had.

"Mom!"

Now I was rubbing her off.

"Oh come on Zach." She laughed, taking me into an embrace and layering more and more kisses on my head.

I squirmed and tried to wriggle out of her grip. When she laughed. I laughed. I loved the sound of your laugh. I laughed when you laughed too. I smiled when you smiled. I hurt when you hurt. I don't know what to do the way you are now.

"Dad, would you stop her?" I called out for the aid of my father who was in the kitchen, peeking about the sponge cake my mother had baked.

"I'm only trying to fix your hair." She paused to sweep a few of the blonde strands out of my eyes, "God, we need to have it cut."

After the shortest of moments she licked her thumb and swiped it to my left cheek before I could dodge her action.

What was it with my family then and salivary contact?

"Mom!" I groaned, whined, and died.

"There was something on your cheek." She said and finally stood with her hands up in surrender.

"James, don't be too long." My father called after he took a swipe of the icing and left the kitchen before he could get caught.

In about twenty minutes. I had met you.