What Happens in Clarketown

1

The bus rounds a corner and I'm blinded by the sun. I'm forced to stare at my hands in my lap rather than out the window like I have been for the past three hours. We're almost to Locks Mountain- the city I was born in. I fumble with the ring on my thumb. It's the last thing I have left of my mother. It forces me to remember what happened merely ten hours ago.

My mother was fat. It wasn't something she, I, or my siblings tried to hide. She rarely left the couch and when she did it was to get something to eat. She couldn't walk more than a few feet without getting winded. So, when our house erupted into flames, she didn't get out. She got up long enough to shove my brother and two sisters out the door. Our house collapsed within seconds after we were in the yard.

Jason Lee Hefferman is my twenty-one year old brother. After the fire took our mom and our house, he led us to the bus station. My sisters, Rachel Samantha and Anna Rose (who we call Rosey), protested. They're fourteen year old twins and loved our mom more than Jason and I. They did everything for her. I, Alexander Paul (everyone calls me Xander, mostly because at three I threw a fit because my father tried to call me "Alex") trust my brother. I follow in his footsteps as much as possible. He's only four years older than me, but it seems like there are twenty years between us. He's been like a father to the three of us since ours left.

Jason sits to my right, letting me have the window seat. He always lets me have the window seat, even though he likes to get lost in the scenery as much as I do. His shoulders are broad and he has an athletic build. He runs marathons and swam on the high school swim team before he graduated. His hair is dark and thick. He keeps it short because he doesn't like dealing with it. His nose is long, but it suits him. He is a very handsome man and women see it too. He's always getting flirted with, but never likes the girls. Whenever the women walk away from him, he jokes with me. "I'd let you have her, but she's not really your type is she?" We both laugh because it's true. I'm gay.

Jason loves my sisters and me more than his own life. As we've gotten older though, he's slowly grown more careful to protect me than my sisters. I think he figures they have each other and Mom, and I only have him, which is very true.

My sisters are across the aisle. Rachel is asleep on Rosey's shoulder while Rosey reads a book. They're identical twins. They and I look a lot like our mother, while Jason resembles our father. We all have dirty blond hair. The girls keep theirs long while mine is cut not quite as short as Jason's, but fairly so. We're tall and slim. Rachel and Rosey have large breasts, which have already attracted two creepy, old men on the bus. They didn't think twice before waking away when they saw Jason. I, luckily, do not have large breasts. I'm sort of in shape, but I've never been able to get visible muscles. My body is simply not built like Jason's, so even when I have muscles, it's hard to see them. My chest and stomach are just flat.

All of us are pale, especially Jason. He burns even with three layers of sunscreen on. I burn a little more than the twins, but I'm usually safe with a little screen.

The bus comes to a stop suddenly. I almost hit my head against the seat in front of me. Rachel wakes up, but goes back to sleep quickly. The people on the bus start to yell, asking what happened. A baby starts to cry.

"Sorry folks!" The bus driver says into his microphone. "There was a deer that came out of nowhere. We'll be in Locks Mountain in about twenty minutes."

I look at Jason. He has some troubled expression on his face. Our father lives in Locks. That's why we're going there. He has a farm up on a hill that Jason and I spent the first few years of our lives on. When Mom was pregnant with the twins, our father left her, or, kicked her out rather. He offered to let us stay, but Mom dragged us out. We haven't seen our father in person since. We've gotten letters and phone calls from him, but I don't remember what he looks like anymore.