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"TO be fair, it was also his fault. And you." She threw an accusing finger at me, her laugh thrilling, high and panicky. "You taught him how to flirt too good! You made the perfect Frakenstein, Nadine Lynch, and trust me. He did not disappoint."
What was Bucky's answer to all of this, you might ask?
"Uh. I need my sweater. Ella. You're... wearing it."
It was the little details though, the details that were stark in memory, one that gave the memory itself a heavier weight.
Ella's soft grin, the hickeys that peppered— peppered like stars on the sky that started from the ends of her jaw and down and down Bucky's goddamn black sweater...
The details... the red marks on Bucky's goddamn back... his eyes, how he looked at me as if he was... god, I don't even know how he was looking at me.
Only that he was. He looked at me.
I closed my eyes, breathing shallow. These details were so vivid that it blurred the reality of what was in front of me.
My baby brother, the Christmas tree behind him, piled the bottom with stacks of gifts, and the chess game we were playing to pass the time.
Aslan moved his king to avoid getting eaten by my bishop. At the same time, a slow grin rose in his lips. Then he rolled his intelligent brown eyes. His brown was a lighter shade to mine. Everything about Aslan was a lighter version of me. He was the blond one, after all.
"Checkmate. For the third time. Geez Nadine, where's your head?"
My smile was bitter in reply. "Right, thanks. Let's pack up. Are you ready to answer my questions?"
"But you didn't win!"
"And I'm still older, that wins against any rule in the book. So what's up with boarding school?" As we took all the chess pieces— dead or on the board, not much in terms of mine, as he had so astutely observed, my head was not in the game and I had a graveyard of pieces – I watched, transfixed at the movement of my baby brother.
Aslan James wasn't born crying. He had stayed at the hospital for weeks before we even got to hold him or take him home. He was born with a heart problem that had made my parents cling to each other. I had been prepared to be a big sister, resolute in what games we would play or what toys of mine I could share, but I had not been prepared for a sick baby brother.
That shifted a lot of perspective for me. Twenty one now and he was fourteen, Aslan had a grin that could only be described as mischievous with eyes to hold it. He could never fatten up, stuck in a body that's perennially gaunt, but at least his cheeks weren't sallow. Mom made sure his nutritionist was up to date with any new changes, and his school up in Connecticut had specific meals for him when it got dangerous.
