My Brother Zach

The Dying Whale (aka A Hungry Me)

Jacob was jealous.
I noticed that when I was trying to clean Zach's face with a piece I'd ripped off my Elsa coronation dress and soaked in water.
Zach had raised his eyebrow and frowned. "I'm not happy that the dress is so short, Lib. God, girls and their modesty these days." I had let out a bark of laughter in reply.
"What on earth are you talking about? Haven't you seen Courtney and the other Populars? Or do you think they look like nuns even though they are clearly in just underwear?!"
"Courtney and her friends are not my sister. Plus they don't walk around in underwear."
"Yeah, well you didn't ever seem to have a problem with them wearing miniskirts that barely covered their-"
"Liberty!"
"What? I wasn't gonna say it!"
"Were!"
"Wasn't!"
"Were!"
"Wasn't!"

As you can see, we were fighting again.
Oh how I missed it.
Not.

While Zach and I were arguing about the length of my dress, Jacob came and grumpily dropped onto my lap and possessively clutched my arm, glaring at my brother.
"There's not even any boys around here! For goodness' sake Zach, we just survived a tsunami!"
"He's a boy!" Zach pointed to Jacob. "Who knows how little kids think these days!"
"He's five years old!"
"Five and a half!" Jacob added.
"There you go! You're dressed inappropriately!"
"What! That didn't even make sense!"
I moodily dipped the cloth back in the water, then wrung it out. I OBVIOUSLY wasn't going to get anywhere with that idiot.
"You said that out loud."
"Good," I snapped. Then I began to roughly swipe at the blood on his shoulder.
"Ouch!" Zach yelped.
"Hmm," I said, looking up slightly and placing a finger on my chin. "Pain from twin connection?" I slapped the cloth across his arm. He winced. "Nope, not feeling it!" I said brightly, then continued cleaning.
"I hate you," Zach muttered.
"I love you too."

By the time I had finished wiping away his blood and cleaning his cuts, it was probably midnight. But the area was washed in the silver from the moon, and the stars shone with everything they had.
It helped that there were tons and tons and tons of them.

"Beautiful night," Zach commented as we all lay back to stare at the sky. My brother was on my left and Jacob took up little space on my right. I was actually surprised we all fit into the Minnie Mouse boat.
"Yeah," I said. We all just gazed in a comfortable silence for a while.
"Has Cali ever looked like this at night?" I wondered out loud.
"No," Zach said. "Too many lights and other things."
"Look at you getting all sciencey!" I said, and nudged his arm. We both burst out laughing.
"Now I know why nobody at school could guess we were related," Zach said, wiping away a few tears. "You're so lame, it's crazy."
"Hey!"
"Shh, don't ruin the moment. I'm winning with the insults so far," he said, covering my face with his palm. I licked it but he didn't remove it.
"Why?" I asked, muffled.
"I'm a boy. I don't care much about hygiene. I chew pens and stuff all the time at school."
"Gross!"
"I chew pens sometimes too," Jacob said, his voice small. Zach half sat up and leaned across.
"High five!" Jacob grinned and slapped his tiny hand onto Zach's bigger one.
"I can't believe I just licked your hand," I said, frantically wiping my tongue. "Ew times a hundred!"
"You sound like Courtney," Zach laughed. I froze. Then slapped him on the chest. Hard.
"Don't ever say that again," I said menacingly. He nodded.
We lay in silence for a bit more, stargazing at the brilliant bluish purple stretch above us. It looked amazing. Really, really beautiful. I knew I would never see anything like it again.
Then my stomach grumbled. So did Jacob's.
"Dude, who killed the whale?" Zach asked.
"Now that's just not fair," I said. I poked his tummy so it would growl as well.
It didn't.
Zach laughed.
"I'm hungry," Jacob whined.
"Me too," I said. "I haven't eaten anything at all since the party. Jacob, honey, is there fruit up in the Muffin Tree?"
Jacob nodded.
"Climb up and get it, will you?" Jacob nodded again and scrambled up quickly. He was good at climbing.
"Two things," Zach said as we watched him. "Honey? That's just not you. And the Muffin Tree? Explain."
"This tree looks like it's got muffins all over it," I said, tapping one of the muffin knots. "So we called it the Muffin Tree."
"Logical," agreed Zach, nodding.

A few minutes later Jacob came down with his t-shirt holding three ripe but slightly beaten peaches.
"Yum," I said, biting into its juicy flesh. "This is good."
Zach and Jacob made agreeing noises, and we all climbed onto the lowest branch of the tree and swung our legs while nibbling on our fruit.
"So, how did you meet each other?" Zach asked. "In fact, tell me everything that happened after the wave hit us."
I began the long story, and thought how weird it was that my life, which I had thought was breaking, was slowly piecing itself back together.
Life's good, but it's not perfect.
And sometimes, that's ok.