Consider Me

Chapter Eighteen: Lucas

There's a knock at my front door. 

I lift my head from the pillow, squinted at the digital clock on the bedside table that glowed the numbers 2:40 in red and groaned. Who the fuck is banging my door so late? I tried to hear the knock, hoping it was one of those dreams that feels real but when the knocking got hard and incessant, I threw the sheets away and got up.

"Calm your horns Jesus it's three in the morning," I go to open the door. "If you break the door, I am making you pay for-" I shut my mouth when I saw who was standing outside my place. "Anthony, blood hell,"

"Top of the night to ya baby brother. Hows yous?" his words are slipping. There's a strong fragrance of lavender mixed with something even stronger that from my one sniff told me is Liquor.

But that shouldn't be right. Anthony doesn't drink alcohols.

I try to take in his appearance, messy dark brown hair, hooded eyes, clothes so disheveled I am having trouble accepting this is my brother and not his clone. 

Anthony is a very reserved person in our family. Sweet, calm and nauseatingly caring. He thinks about others so much, growing up I hated him for being so selfless. It was more for people who played with my brother's too trusting personality than him being kind in a selfish world.

Seeing him so messed up, cleared my sleep and I stand a little taller as I straighten him up and help him get inside. Good god, he can't even walk. How did he got here?

"Try to walk Tony," I drag my brother to the living room and drop him on the couch. "Why on earth did you drink so much when you know your light headed?"

"I am nnnot," he slurred. 

"Wow. Stay here. Don't move," I go to shut the door but before I can close it, a hand reaches out between the space and I find our elder brother Cal holding the doorknob from the outside. "Not you too. What is happening?"

He doesn't answer and opens the door with force. I stumble back and watch him enter my apartment without my permission. I sigh, shake my head, look at the ceiling hoping one of the gods would give me strength and finally shut the door. 

"I didn't invite you in," I say to Cal the minute I made my way to the living room. 

"Good thing I didn't ask you," he answers showing me his back. He throws something on the couch armrest and I see it's Anthony's jacket. Were they together? 

"Were you with him?"

"Hmm," Cal responds as he drags Tony to a sitting position and puts a cushion behind his head for the support. "Stay like this. I don't want to clean your vomit,"

"What happened?"

"You don't need to know,"

"I do if you both are ruining my sleep,"

"Then go and sleep," he simply says.

"You think I can sleep knowing he drank liquor to the point he blacked out?" I point at my said brother. "Cal, I want to know what happened,"

"And I said you don't," he suddenly stands up and turns around, eyes glaring at me. "You don't need to know everything. Let the adults handle this,"

I grit my teeth. "I am eighteen,"

"And I said drop the subject," I stare at my brother with a similar burning heat behind my eyes. How dare he treat me like a kid when he is the one barging at my place in the middle of the night and then refusing to tell me the reason.

I wanted to argue, through fits but then it would prove his accusation that I am still a kid and that's the last thing I want. He has his pride, I have my ego. Without another word, I remove myself from this situation and make my way to the bedroom. Fuck them.